Ivrit

[cellio]

My printer is currently holding hostage half a sheet of mangled paper, and the manual's instructions for clearing jams presume that (1) the "release the grip, darnit" button works and (2) you have access to enough paper to grab hold. I hope this doesn't involve a screwdriver...

But hey, at least one of my appliances is working, so here's another attempt to communicate little nothings in a foreign language.



(That's a thumbnail; click for a larger copy that more closely resembles the size at which I wrote it...)

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Wait, there's a new rabbi at your shul? Or is this one of the other places you daven at?

(I agree that defaulting to including a subject is a good thing.)

[cellio]

Zeh rav sheini. Od yeish lanu rav rishon, v'hu ravi. Yeish lanu ravim shtei.

For everyone else: we got a new associate rabbi; when I talk about "my rabbi" I mean our senior rabbi, but the congregation has two rabbis.

What I literally said is that he (the one we're talking about) is a second rabbi. English draws a distinction between "second" (who might be equal in standing to the first -- second=additional) and "secondary" (clearly a lesser position). How would one convey that in Hebrew?

And how would one convey the general "one" in Hebrew, when everything takes a specific conjugation? Do you say "how do I", "how do you", or something else? What if you really want a generic (e.g. "one would think that...")?

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

S/b "yaish lanu shnei ravim" - the "two" goes before the "rabbis", and unless both are female you want the masculine version of "two".

[cellio]

Thanks! (I am forever getting the masculine and feminine numbers mixed up, alas.) And yes, both of our rabbis are male.

m/f numbers

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

The trick there is that with the counting numbers the letter hey is on the masculine ones instead of the feminine ones. The listing numbers behave "properly" in that the letter taf is on the feminine ones.

How do...?

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

"aich osim x?" = how do (no subject specified) do x?

"aich omrim x?" = how do (n.s.s.) say x? = how do I/you/anyone say x?

Etc. In this case just leave out the subject and put the verb in plural masculine/non-gendered.

It works for questions about the past too: "aich asu x?", "aich banu x?" = how did (n.s.s.) do x?, how did (n.s.s.) build x?