a little more Hebrew practice

[cellio]

I wonder if I got my verb senses right...

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Your mems are mirror reversed again.

I'd say "v'hu amar" (I'd also say "ani dibarti"). What's Melton? I think there should be "et" after "ohevet", and "shana" should be "hashanah" to match "hazot". I think "elmade" should be "elamed".

[cellio]

Mems: argh! I wish I could get over that particular bit of dyslexia or whatever. I don't know why I do this.

Thanks for the corrections! Melton is a program of adult learning (I didn't know how to say "program" or "course"; "shiur" didn't seem right for the latter). It runs for two years (one night a week) and covers texts, theology, and other stuff. It requires no background, so I was concerned that it would be too basic for me, but my rabbi recommends it anyway.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it could be a good program. I bet it'll be more interesting while you're taking it :-).

I wonder if the mems have something to do with too much looking like a capital N. Since in Hebrew you're writing from the other direction, the "N" has to come from the other side, in the other direction, as it were. Maybe.

[cellio]

Sounds like it could be a good program. I bet it'll be more interesting while you're taking it :-).

I have hopes. :-)

I think my mem problem is that the backwards form resembles (to my eye) the square-script letter, while the correct form does not. In square script the mem has a little doo-hickey (err, not ascender because it's in the body, and not serif exactly) in the upper left; the up-stroke in the backwards form maps to that in my mind. There is no vertical stroke on the right in square script, so it seems odd to have a stray one here.

No I'm not really trying to apply logic to an alphabet -- just trying to disect the connections that have formed in my mind.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

I think shiur would work here, personally -- you could say something like hu amar li lalechet lashiurei Melton. (And I would include li since context indicates the meaning of "he told me to go".

Also, you might want to use a cholom malei rather than just a cholom for the "O" sound in Melton. Modern Hebrew generally puts the vav in when "O" and "U" sounds are present in foreign words.

[cellio]

Thanks. I wasn't sure if shiur applied to courses, or if it was better translated as "lesson" or "lecture".

Thanks also for the vowel advice. So far, to my eye, use or absence of the vav for those vowels seems utterly random. Nice to know there's a partial pattern. :-)

[(Anonymous)]

It also occurred to me afterwards that lalechet might not be the best verb to use. IIRC, Hebrew is one of those languages that doesn't exactly have a general word for "go"; instead, it differentiates between walking -- i.e., lalechet -- and traveling by vehicle -- i.e., linso. So your sentence could also mean, "He told me to walk to Melton." I think others have suggested lilmod, and that might be a better choice, as in: Hu amar li lilmod bashiurei Melton.

[cellio]

Thanks; I didn't know that about modern Hebrew. (Biblical, of course, doesn't distinguish between walking and driving. :-) And I suspect, though I haven't checked, that lalechet is sometimes used in conjunction with journeys involving donkeys.)

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was me again.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'd have said "lilmod b'Melton" instead of "latet Melton." "Tachat," while correct in "tachat Ivrit," is more Biblical Hebrew than Modern, to my ear, and I would've said "bimkom."

(also, your zayin is backwards.)

[cellio]

Thanks for the help! Didn't know bimkom; I know I sometimes sound a little archaic, so it's nice to have the info. (Is that a kaf or a kuf?)

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

bimkom is from the root mem-kuf-mem, meaning "place." So bimkom is "in the place of."

[cellio]

Duh! I hate it when I actually have enough information to answer the question and fail to do so.