Lesson 9

More Kal Verbs and Propositions

עוד בניין קל ומילי יחסים

I hope you’re liking it so far!

Here, we will learn the forms of more קל verbs and learn a bit more about their use.

More שם form

The following verbs follow the formats we learnt in the previous lessons expect for the שם forms:

to love, to like א.ה.ב to eat א.כ.ב

to make, to do ע.ש.ה

When the first letter of the root is א as in 2 of these examples, the format is:

So, the infinitive forms of these first two verbs are:

le'ehov ֶלֱאהֹוב le’echol ֶלֱאכֹול

Of course, there are exceptions to the rules. And there are rules I haven’t learnt yet. If a verb falls under either

of these categories for you, you’ll just have to memorise it. In the following example, the verb follows the

expected format for verbs ending in ה, but the first part does not follow what we know:

la'ashot ַׂשֹותעַ ל

The שם form is a very important form of the verb. It allows us to make the following sentences:

אניַאוהבַלכתוב.

I like to write.

אניַרוצהַלאכול.

I want to eat.

התפוחַהזה?ַתאֶַרוצהַהאםַאתַ

Do you want this apple?

תאֶ

But wait… what is that!? ֶאת, my friends, is a word that has no equivalent in English. It marks the object of a

sentence; the thing or person that the verb is acting on. In the example above, it marks the apple, the object

that is wanted.

You may have noticed that in the previous lesson, there is the sentence:

היאַרוצהַתפוח.

Why is את not in that sentence? Well, simply put, ֶאת only marks something specific. She wants an apple, but

not a specific one. Here’s something important to note about ֶאת. Without nikkud, it looks exactly like the

pronoun ַאת. You may make mistakes as you go along, but you can only know the difference through context:

פוחַהזה?תהתַאֶַַרוצהַתַאהאםַ

Do you want this apple?

Like של, the word ֶאת absorbs pronouns as follows:

יאֹותַ אני

ךאֹותַ אתה ָךאֹות את ֹותאֹו הוא האֹותַ היא נּואֹות אנו םכֶַאֹותַ אתם ֶכןאֹותַ אתן םאֹותֶַ הם ןאֹותֶַ הן

And so, you are able to say in Hebrew:

אניַאובה)ת(ַאותך.

I love you.

ב

The last item to be learnt in this lesson is the prefix ַב. It means ‘in’. With this word, we can make use of one of

the verbs we learnt in the previous lesson: ג.ו.ר:

ג׳מייקה.בַ הואַגרַ

Something to be noted about it. If you want to say ‘in the’, you don’t need to have both prefixes:

ירעַ הַ בַ

in the city

The ב absorbs the ה and so you end up with:

ירבַ ע

And here is the final exercise for this lesson. Read the following:

ם.ַאניַאוהבַשלום.ַשמיַ אניַגרַבאנגליהַאבלַאניַרוצהַשירים.ַאניַלומדַעברית.ַלכתובַָאד

אניַאוהבַאתַישראל!ַלגורַבישראל.

Vocab:

poem, song ַירש England הי ַלַ גַ נ ַַא but ַלבַ א Israel ַ לָארַ ׂשַ י