עבריתEXPRESS

Lesson 1: Talking About Things

The Ivrit Express series presents compact lessons in Biblical (not Modern) Hebrew grammar. It aims to reinforce (not replace) your classroom experiences.

This lesson introduces the basics of talking about things (including people and places)—in grammatical parlance, nouns.

Sit back and relax as you advance through the next few slides.

בית

בית אחד

בתים רבים

סוס

סוס אחד

סוסים רבים

איש

איש אחד

אנשים רבים

פרה

פרה אחת

פרות רבות

שפחה 

שפחה אחת

שפחות רבות

שלמה

שלמה אחת

שלמות רבות

אשה

אשה אחת

נשים רבים

עיר

עיר אחת

ערים רבות

אב

אב אחד

אבות רבים

בקר

בקר אחד

בקר רבים

צאן

צאן אחת

צאן רבות

יד

יד אחת

שתי ידים

ידות רבות

רגל

רגל אחת

שתי רגלים

רגלים רבות

I recommend that you go through the foregoing picture slides at least three times before advancing to the grammatical discussion.

In fact, you can implicitly learn from the pictures what you need to know. If you can swap other nouns into the patterns correctly, you’re good to go, whether or not you can explain the grammar.

So the following grammatical discussion is basically optional, provided for learners who want to peek at what the language is doing under the hood.

If we let the word “widget” stand in for each thing you saw, the examples modeled how to say:

• “Widget”• “One widget”• “Many widgets”

You know pretty much all of the grammatical information you need about any Hebrew noun if you know how to say that there’s one of them and how to say that there are many of them.

You should have noticed that there are two ways to say “one”: אחד and אחת. Learn the proper “one” when you learn a new noun. This knowledge is vital to properly understanding and constructing sentences.

Your vocabulary list may tell you that a particular noun is grammatically “masculine” or “feminine.” Masculine nouns use אחד and feminine nouns use אחת.

But honestly, isn’t it easier just to remember איש אחד as a “chunk” than to memorize grammatical data?

You should also have noticed two ways to say “many”: רבים and רבות.

You also should have noticed that most of the plural nouns in the examples ended in ים- or ות-.

In most cases, the noun’s plural ending rhymes with the word it takes for “many.” Thus the picture lesson gave you ”for “many horses סוסים רביםand שפחות רבות for “many maidservants.”

But some very common nouns defy this expectation, like many fathers,” or“ ,אבות רבים”.many women“ ,נשים רבות

In the long run, you’ll enjoy the greatest success by just learning the “many” phrases as chunks. Later lessons in this series will assume you’ve taken this advice to heart.

A few nouns, called “collective nouns,” don’t change form when they go from “one” to “many.” This lesson used בקר and צאן as examples of this.

Finally, a few nouns take a special form when they come in pairs. This lesson illustrated the “dual” form with שתי ידים, “two hands,” and שתי רגלים, “two feet.”

You need to be aware of the dual form, because some of the words that use it are quite frequent.

However, almost all of the words that use the dual are body parts or units for measuring space and time. For most nouns, you use the regular plural to say “two whatevers.”

To review: when you learn a new Hebrew noun, go ahead and learn how to say “one whatever” and “many whatevers.” Later on, when you learn how to pair up nouns with adjectives and verbs, you’ll be glad you did.

CREDITSScripted and narrated by

Dr. Chris Heard, Pepperdine University

Partially funded bya Pepperdine University

Faculty Innovation in Teaching and Learning Grant

Artwork licensed viaiStockphoto