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- "אבא בא?"
132 Comments
So this is Hebrew not English my bff is jewish and when we like to annoy our friends we speak in Hebrew and alot of the grammer is different....
621
No, in English we can say "Dad is coming?" In English, we can turn statements into questions just by raising the tone of our voice at the end of a sentence and, in writing, by putting a question mark at the end of a statement. "Dad is coming?" "Yes, Dad is coming." "Dad is coming? I didn't know that!" It has a different feel, though. It's used more in the sense of surprise that something is true, and/or to get a clarification of something that has been said. "The dove likes warm milk?!" When we ask a question to simply gain information, we use the "normal question format" of reversing word order and using a "question word" at the beginning of the sentence: "Does the dove like warm milk?" and "Is Dad coming?"
Yeah, but that's what this is doing.
aba ba = אבא בא
They're trying to introduce new sounds slowly, especially with the reading direction. Plus, it would be difficult to record what a glottal stop sounds like. [2019/03/25]
In Hawaiian a glottal stop is written with a '
Is there a glottal stop in this sentence?
Are there good resources other than Duolingo?
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א is a glottal stop.
There are many good resources Memrise.com has Hebrew courses, "Hebrew Duolingo" by Mazorano is based on this course and was written by one of the Duolingo contributors. It pronounces all the words. I've also used "Modern Hebrew Complete (with Audio)". I like them both. For other resources, do a google search. There are many. "YouTube" has some nice videos. I also find Hebrew instruction books, both for adults and children, very helpful. BehrmanHouse.com has some excellent books for learning Hebrew.
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This isn't really testing letters. I know very basic Hebrew already so I already knew what Dad and comes were, but the first lesson and already you'd have to go to Google Translate to do the lesson.
edit You can hover over the words for on the fly translation* Thanks, Ashrak!
That is typical of duolingo, it teaches you the words on the fly. If you hover your mouse over the word, Duolingo shows you the translation
Exactly. I know Hebrew already, just not how to read/write. I thought this would teach us. But I have no idea how to type it out? Very weird to me.
Haha I understand the language when someone speaks to me, but I can't speak it either! I'm American so I sound silly when I try and speak. I probably could, if I tried, but I don't want to sound silly.
You shouldn't worry about sounding silly! Practice makes perfect and a lot of Israelis/Hebrew speakers also speak English so they would be more than happy to hear someone trying to learn this lovely language. :]
It's funny, I speak hebrew and english, but I am afraid to speak english because people don't expect me to...
So just to make sure I understand, "ba" means "coming" and you just infer "is"?
Like most languages, Hebrew doesn't have to use the helping verb in the present tense, so "is coming" and "comes" can be the same thing. Compare French ça va, German es geht...
I'm new to DuoLingo. I'm surprised that we don't start learning the alphabet but go straight to words. Is that typical?
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Well, they've only covered three letters with these words so far, so in a way it is introducing the alphabet. I'm just going to keep repeating the first lesson until I feel comfortable with them. :)
But I also chose to do their official memrise course (there's a link to it in the tips¬es, but I'll put it here, too: https://www.memrise.com/course/1087087/hebrew-alef-bet/ ) to learn the names of all the letters before plunging into the course here.
As for whether or not it's typical, the Russian course is similar (I already knew the Cyrillic alphabet so it didn't phase me so much), but the Greek course starts out with the letters and only a few words using those letters. And there's just as much complaining about not starting with words there, as there is here for not starting with the letters. (Actually, there's more complaining there, but that's because there was a glitch that's been mostly resolved now.)
Thanks for the link to the memrise course. (No relation by the way).
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Every language is different, depending on the decisions of the course contributors. Many other Hrbrew courses teach the alphabet first, but this is not really very useful. Duo's method is to learn a few letters at a time, but in whole words. Each lesson introduces a few new letters. It helps if you are learning with a Pc rather than a mobile phone as you then get an itroduction and tips and notes. However, a phone is ideal for typing Hebrew as you can easily jump from one keyboard to another with a touch screen. The reason that I say that learning the alphabet is not very useful is because vowels are not part of the alphabet in Hebrew; because some sounds can be written more than one way and some letters of the alphabet can be pronounced more than one way. You can only learn on a word by word basis. Repetition is the key. If you learn the alphabet and all the vowel marks very carefully without learning whole words, you will be incapable of using Hebrew in the real world. There is no easy way to learn Hebrew. But it gets easier if you start off the right way. If you start the wrong way you will have to relearn.
When the subject of the sentence is feminine, you should use באה. Otherwise use בא. e.g. הילד בא - הילדה באה. הכלב ישב - הכלבה ישבה.
How do you LEARN hebrew text is my question?! I thought it would teach us the letters.
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This is their official memrise course teaching the letters: https://www.memrise.com/course/1087087/hebrew-alef-bet/
There's another one (I don't think it's official, but it works) that teaches you where each letter is on the keyboard, too: https://www.memrise.com/course/188776/typing-on-hebrew-keyboard/
EDIT: That typing link has issues with the punctuation keys (which are important, since ת, for example, is on the comma key). This one also teaches the location of the letters for typing, without that issue, (and reinforces the letter names, which is nice): https://www.memrise.com/course/1636485/typing-hebrew/
If using windows, head to your control panel, find "time and language" settings, and click "add language." Find Hebrew in there, and then on your taskbar, find "ENG" and click on it, then select Hebrew. There probably are forum discussions on the subject as well.
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If you hover over the words you can copy/paste, but typing it out with a Hebrew keyboard will help learn the letters.
Hebrew is teaching me to touch type!
I've just started. Hi.
So, I figured out the mac had a QWERTY Hebrew keyboard. Then figured out this language goes right to left. Then realised that the fastest way to learn this alphabet is to create a table in a word processor (Pages in my case) with three columns. One for Hebrew, one for Hebrew in Latin alphabet, one for the English translation.
As I do the lesson I first copy the question in Hebrew by slowly touch typing with the keyboard viewer open so I can see which Hebrew letters correspond with the Latin QWERTY layout. So I'm slowly learning Hebrew and touch typing at the same time.
Two for the price of one! Thanks Duo (and the contributors to this course), I'm enjoying this!
(Edit. When I first loaded this as a new language it just throws you straight into the first lesson and you can't get to the Notes & Tips until you've finished and gone back to the tree, [on mac], but it was fun figuring it out without clues. Having now read the notes, ...wow... excellent! Very helpful compared to other courses I've done. Thank you contributors.)
One the most annoying habits of Duo Lingo, needlessly translate everything in progressive and Nif'al to the Past.
"Dad is coming?" is a correct english translation. It's just that you have no questiom mark available...
Question : the fact that ה is not used in this question troubles me. Wouldn't the correct translation be : Is a dad coming, albeit it sounds weird...?
There's no indefinite article ("a") in Hebrew, so it can be either "is dad coming" or "is a dad coming". I guess the former is much more likely...
To john jairo: Its ba, the letter Bet (ב) makes either a "B" sounds or a "V" sound. Depends on the niqud (which doulingo unfortunetly doesnt use)
"Father comes?" Should be accepted, it isnt a common construction, but that is what it literally means, and it is still a proper english sentense
That's half true. "av" is very formal, and in fact not used in modern spoken Hebrew except in some set phrases. So in many contexts אבא would correspond best to "father". I agree that in more formal written Hebrew (e.g. a newspaper article) "av" would mostly be used.
I typed in dad coming and it popedup that it had to be dad's coming is there a specific to this sentence that tell you to apply (')
In English " 's " is short for "is". You can write "Dad is coming" and "Dad's coming".
I know nothing of the Hebrew language. Do you think it would be better to start with letters and vocabulary vs fragmented sentences?
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My opinion, based on personal experience, is that you should learn the Hebrew alphabet, and even the vowels, which are usually not used, before you start the Duolingo program. I love the Duolingo Hebrew program, but I don't know how people can do it without an understanding of how the alphabet works, such as when does ב sound like a "b" and when does it sound like a "v". It's too difficult trying to figure this out on ones own by listening to phrases without having any background in the language. If you have a Synagogue or Temple in your area, give them a call and ask when they are going to have the next crash course for adults on learning to read Hebrew and ask if they will allow you to attend. The crash courses are usually a few hours over a two day period. You can also goggle a publishing house, like Behrman and buy a book from them. I used "Reading Hebrew (Sefardi) A programmed Instruction Book" from Behrman. I've also seen it on Amazon. I also used, and like, the "Primer" from "The New Siddur Program" for children. You can also get an audio tape, or CD if they've updated, with it. Learning a kid's alefbet song helps a lot, too. You can look on YouTube for this, and hope they have an easy one. Duolingo Hebrew has a link to the Memrise course that teaches the Hebrew letter names. Try that out, too.
Good luck! And don't give up on Duolingo.
So I'm using Duolingo on Windows Phone, and apparently they have the word order wrong in the app but not on the website. I came here to comment about the word order confusing me but here kn the browser version it's correct. On the app it was as follows:
'בא אבא? '
Which is completely the opposite of what the audio was saying...so I'll be using the browser version for Hebrew I guess!
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Try a different internet browser. I had to switch to Chrome on my PC to get the letters or words to go in the correct direction. Let us know if that works on your phone.
מה קורה כולם? אני המניאק שאף אחד לא אוהב בתגובות אבא בא? הא! הוא אף פעם לא בא בשבילי
It could be, but האם is very formal, not really used in spoken Hebrew.
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Is this really how you teach Hebrew to beginners with no knowledge of the language at all?
Is there somewhere on Duolingo or elsewhere that teaches you how to read it? I can look at charts from other websites and try to match up the letters to the sounds (when it actually has an audio file), but that has really limited success for me. I know I can hover over the letters and it will tell me what they mean but I'd prefer to actually be able to read and sound things out rather than just halfway memorizing the words that have showed up in the lesson. I haven't had this problem learning the Russian alphabet and doing Duolingo. This course really doesn't feel like it's made for absolute beginners, which is fine if somewhat surprising, but I'd like a resource that actually does start at the very beginning.
I am not able to continue with this course because for the past three days the Hebrew letters are absent. I cannot, therefore write in Hebrew!!
I cannot type in Hebrew as the correct response would require it. How do I proceed with the training if half the tests will not let me proceed?
You could download the duolingo app, and choose Hebrew as one of the languages on your mobile phone keyboard.
I've done four other languages on Duolingo and so far, this is far and away the worst. The instruction methods are abysmal. I think if I have to write אבא בא one more time I'm going to throw my phone across the room.
Father comes or dad comes is literally what it says, so either should be acceptable!
The intonation of the question is like in Brazilian Portuguese, that will be easy!!
It's like teaching hebrew by tossing out a set of pick-up-sticks. Very frustrating!
I went through a couple of first examples and I feel like i'm watching this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN-SDABQc-k :J Ha. Hababa. Hadadagaga. (For clarification: I'm not making fun of Hebrew language, I studied it for a bit before from other courses and they were less silly. But this one? I have no words :q )
Duolingo should teach letters firstly and give words with niqud this is harder for me to pronounce hebrew words
Can someone please explain the difference between בא and באה? The app accepts the answer but at some places it tells me that there is a typo.
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The difference is their gender. בא is used when the subject is masculine and באה when the subject is feminine.
aba pa or aba ba? Before this question, the affirmative sentence was aba pa.
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The affirmative sentence and the question form are usually identical, and distinguished by intonation.
I can't speak to the pronunciation, but it's spelled with a bet, so I think it's supposed to be "ba."
How are we supposed to learn words and sentences when we don't even recognize the letters yet?
Why is this app telling me to translate thing's it hasn't taught me yet? This is stupid.
Whay is this app asking me to translate words (sentences) it hasn't taught me yet? This is stupid.
what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
