Lesson 12

Family and To

ו'את' '-'ל ,משפחה

Excellent, so we’ll finally be able to talk about our families! This lesson would have come

earlier, but some of these vocab words make use of סמיכות so I thought that lesson should be

before this one. The word for family, משפחה, is one example of a word that does not add a

yud when there is no nikkud. (See the title.)

משפחה שלי

Let us start with parents:

אנגלית יחיד רבים

יםרהו הר הו parent

mother אמא אמהות

ותאב father אבא

mother אם (legal/formal

language)

father (legal/formal אב

language)

Notice that the plural form of ‘אב’ has the feminine ending. Another exception. Don’t you just

love them? Using אב and אם would probably make you seem stuck-up, so stay away from

them. Hehe.

Now, our siblings:

אנגלית יחיד רבים

brother אח אחים

sister אחות אחיות

It’s interesting that the even the singular word for sister resembles a plural noun. I guess

sisters are just so awesome they have to be pluralised. (Yes, I love my sister!)

Children:

רבים סמיכות אנגלית יחיד רבים

ני ניםב ב son בן

נות ותנב ב daughter בת

Notice the change in the plural form of בת and בן. Like ילדים and ילדות, their plural forms are

identical except for the endings. Also note that the vowels of these two plural words are

changed in the סמיכות forms. So, you would get ניישראל נות and ב ישראלב .

There is another important usage of these two words. If we want to express our gender (male

and female respectively), we would say:

אניבן.

אניבת.

And now to extended family:

אנגלית יחיד רבים

aunt דודה דודות

uncle דוד דודים

male cousin בןדוד בנידודים

female cousin בתדודה בנותדודות

Pat attention to the סמיכות forms.

Notice that no matter the gender of the parent of your cousin, the gender of the word term

for cousin is dependent on the cousin’s gender. If your cousin is the son of your aunt, it is still

.בתדודה If you cousin is daughter of your uncle, it is still .בןדוד

ל

Remember הפועלשם , the ‘to’ form of the verbs? There is also a prefix that, when added to a

noun, means ‘to’. Before we get to that, let us look at one more קל verb format:

to read וארקל ק.ר.א קורא קוראת

So, when the last letter in the root is א, the present-tense forms are…

masculine feminine

And the ל form:

And so, you are able to say:

ילדיםשלי.לאניקורא

I am reading to my children.

Like the prefix ב, this prefix absorbs the prefix ה:

עירל

to the city

And, like other grammatical concerns we’ve looked at before, it also ‘absorbs’ pronouns,

forming the following prepositions:

li יל אני l’cha ךל אתה lach ךל את

lo ול הוא la הל היא

lanu נול אנו lachem כ םל אתם lachen ןל כ אתן lahem םל ה הם lahen ןל ה הן

So, a little girl might tell you:

.ליאבאקורא Daddy reads to me.

יש ואין

Here is another use of what we just learnt. יש means ‘there is’ and so you get:

ביםבג׳מייקה.יש כ ל There are dogs in Jamaica.

The opposite is אין, meaning ‘there are none’. So:

יעליםבג׳מייקה.אין There are no ibexes in Jamaica.

When used with the ‘to’ prefix or preposition, they have the meaning of ‘have’ and ‘don’t have’

respectively.

מחשב.יששליאמאל

My father has a computer.

אייפוד.איןלי

I do not have an IPod.

End of this lesson!