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- Topic: Hebrew >
- "היא באה."
56 Comments
the "היא" word sounds like an "E" sound. is this normal? I'm an arabic speaker, and I thought it would sound like the arabic pronoun (هي) (Hya) as the spelling suggests. could any body explain please!
It's supposed to sound like Hee. Sometimes it sounds like Ee, because some speakers don't exaggerate the ה as in H, and make it sound like א.
Correct, the yod is silent. In this case it is part of the vowel (chirik maleh), just like a vav (ו) is silent when part of the vowels cholam male and shuruk (as in הוּא)
It makes more sense for me to think of the alef as silent. Apparently that's not strictly true in voweled text, but it makes sense to think of it that way in modern unvoweled Hebrew.
It's because the audio clips all seem to start a millisecond too late, and they cut off the first "h"
It does sounds like the first part of "Hi" was cut for some reason. You can report it but it's a small thing.
And: "הנה היא באה" (Here she comes) are the first words of this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZSFTrrQCsI
No. It's supposed to sound like Hee. Sometimes it sounds like Ee, because some speakers don't exaggerate the ה as in H, and make it sound like א.
No. It was cut here for some reason but you are supposed to hear it. Just report it.
the sentence should be read: hee baa' (ba-a) the last ה is indeed silent, but not the first one.
Eng. "He" = הוּא, pronounced the same as the word "who" in English Eng. "She" = הִיא, pronounced the same as the word "he" in English
When the speaker says היא it sounds like Ee. And the Ee is barely audible. Please fix that
The verb "to be" doesn't exist in Hebrew. It's a phenomenon called "zero copula." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_copula
It does exist. It just isn't used in present-tense sentences. That's true for Arabic and many Slavic languages, as well. And ASL.
Well, yeah, but the "is" in that sentence isn't "to be." It's a part of the verb "to come".
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The way I understand it is that Hebrew doesn't distinguish between "is coming" and "comes".
Yeah, I know, but that isn't my question. My question is this: is the verb "to be" implied like in Russian and Ukrainian?
To be specific it is implied in present tense but has conjugation in other tenses. At least to my understanding
I've never really thought of it this way, but we don't use linking verbs in Hebrew.
Google Translate translates it as: "She came." (past tense).
Is it wrong or is it used for both present/past?
This is not about the translation. It about: My audio is not working, nor are any sound effects. My settings show them on.
I did at first, and now I can mimic the recordings of the sentences for HebrewPod's Hebrew Word of the Day quite well. The secret is to do one syllable at a time, and try to think of a context in which you might make a similar sound in English. For instance, you might say "ba'a" with the little stop in the syllables if you got interrupted by someone, or jolted over a bump while riding on a bicycle.
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Excuse me if I've said this before but hee BAaa is past tense, she came. hee ba-AA is the present tense, she comes, is coming
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That distinction is not made in Modern Hebrew. In theory maybe yes, but not in everyday language.
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It is "hi ba'a", where hi is like "hit" without the t. I wouldn't recommend writing "ee", since it implies a long vowel, which Hebrew does not have.
Using the "i" or the "ee" depends on how you want to define them. In reading English, frequently an "i" has the sound as mentioned, in "hit". This is NOT a sound in Hebrew. However, the "i" as it is used when writing in other languages (such as Romaji), where it is pronounced like a long "e" in English, is exactly the right sound in this case. The only way to always write long "e" in English, without fancy characters, is "ee". So I think both ways of writing can be correct. To conclude, the word היא would be pronounced like the English word "he." I agree on the "ba'a" part.
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Basically, it comes down to your native language and how letters are pronounced.
What do you mean i in hit is not a sound in Hebrew?
In American English, at least, the "i" in "hit" is a "short i." There's no "short i" sound in Hebrew. The nekkudot only provide for a few possible sounds. They are: ah, ee, oo, eh, and oh. There's no "ih," as would be the case for "hit".
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In Hebrew there used to be distinction between long and short vowels. Nowadays, they are all short, so you saying there is no short i in Hebrew is not correct. English still makes that distinction. For me "ee" denotes a long vowel and "i" is short. Therefore, only "i" is correct when transcribing. The same goes for other vowels. A, E, O, U and not AH, EH, OH, OO, as to me they all point to a long vowel sound.
I love how "he" is the male pronoun in English and the female pronoun in Hebrew, just to be ironic.
"Does she come to market on Tuesdays?" "Yes, she comes." Get your mind out of the gutter!
