Your Daily Dose of Hebrew

חֹמֶר לְשִׁנּוּן Review Material Can’t read Hebrew yet? You spent time on your Hebrew this week. Use these review materials to make it yours to keep.  Flashcards . Scatter . Gravity . Test שבת שלום, וסוף שבוע נעים! Shabbat Shalom, and have a nice weekend!

הִמְנוֹן Hebrew’s word for anthem – המנון – borrows from the Greek ύμνος – hymnos. The national anthem or literally the state anthem is המנון המדינה. For example: המנון מדינת ישראל הינו “התקווה”. Israel’s national anthem is HaTikvah. (literally, The Hope) Listen to and learn התקווה here. חג עצמאות שמח! Happy Independence Day!

In celebration of Israel’s 70th, the Academy of the Hebrew Language – האקדמיה ללשון העברית – opened up a vote to the Hebrew-speaking public for the most Israeli word for each of Israel’s 7 decades. We at Ulpan La-Inyan thought it apt to introduce these words to you, to help you increase your Hebrew vocabulary […]

לִפּוֹל The root of the word ליפול is נ.פ.ל – since early Hebrew speakers found it troublesome to say לנפול, the nasal n sound disappeared, leaving only a trace in the hardening of the פ – from a f sound to p. In variations of ליפול, though, the n sound remains. One example is in the past tense – for […]

הֲכִי טוֹב, הַטּוֹב בְּיוֹתֵר, הַמֵּיטָב If you look closely at the three expressions above for the best, you’ll find the word טוב – good – in all of them, in some form. Each of these expressions is useful in different contexts: הכי טוב is an everyday expression, for example: היא החברה הכי טובה שלי. She’s my best […]

אָמָּן Looking at the word אמן without vowels, out of context, you might think it’s the Hebrew version of amen. But if אמן appears in a phrase such as הוא אמן – he is an artist, the experienced Hebrew reader would know that it refers here to an artist. Although there’s no ו after the letter א, the […]

לְבַטֵּא, לַהֲגוֹת Hebrew has two words for to pronouce. לבטא, a פיעל verb, means literally to give expression and is sometimes also used to mean to pronounce, as in: איך מבטאים את המילה הזאת? How do you pronounce this word? The other word, the פעל verb להגות, means literally to utter (also to think). It is the more precise term for to pronounce, […]

חֹמֶר לְשִׁנּוּן Review Material Can’t read Hebrew yet? You spent time on your Hebrew this week. Use these review materials to make it yours to keep.  Flashcards . Scatter . Gravity . Test שבת שלום, וסוף שבוע נעים! Shabbat Shalom, and have a nice weekend!

שֵׁד, רוּחַ רְפָאִים I wrote this morning’s post in advance without looking at the calendar, so I’m adding another post that is more in line with today’s import. Here’s a picture of my street at 11pm last night. My street is called עמק רפאים – a Biblical reference to this general area, meaning literally valley of […]

חֲבִיתָה We’ve seen a couple of forms that a cooked egg might end up on your plate, and what to call them in Hebrew. But how about an omelet? That’s a חביתה, deriving from the word for frying pan – מחבת. Here’s חביתה in context: היא מעדיפה חביתה על פני ביצת עין. She prefers an omelet over sunny-side […]

בֵּיצַת עַיִן Some Israelis call it ביצה עם עין – an egg with an eye. But the more common expression is ביצת עין – literally, an eye egg or an egg of eye. You can imagine this sunny-side up egg and see why. Here’s the expression in action: ביצת עין יותר טעימה מביצה מקושקשת. Sunny-side up is better (tastier) […]