how to say “to inform” in Hebrew

לְיַדֵּעַ

This week we’ve seen the root י.ד.ע

meaning knowledge put to use in a variety of words, including להודיע – to notify, מודעה – advertisement and ידיעות – one of the words for news.

Plugging this root into the active-intensive verb form, we get ליידע

– to inform.

For example:

רציתי ליידע אתכם שאני לא אגיע לפגישה.

I wanted to inform you that I won’t be coming to the meeting.

That’s to inform in the purely informational sense. A very common synonym for ליידע is לעדכן

– literally, to update.

To inform in the political or tattle-tale sense is להלשין

.

For example:

לא יפה להלשין על ילדים אחרים בכיתה.

It’s not nice to tell on other kids in your (the) class.