"יונה באה."

Translation: A dove is coming.

[jakeydan]

how do you know if this is not a proper name? Jonah?

[Chickensnake]

Normally you have to go by context. Here you should know that Jonah is a masculine name and באה is feminine so this must be יונה as in "dove."

[BezalelP]

Yonah can also be a Feminine name, it really is about context in this case.

[Elevisco]

Usually when it's a name the word "yonah" is said with an emphasis on the "yo" unlike here where there is no emphasis on something in the word

[AshurBanipal96]

Really suprising how close Aramaic and Hebrew are. Even closer than Hebrew-Arabic so far..

[Gerardd88]

So a dove is feminine guessing from the ה?

[BezalelP]

Yes. יונה is feminine.

[Gerardd88]

תודה!
(if google didn't deceive me :) ) EDIT: Well, this right-to-left writing ,definitely deceived me again. God I hate this formatting :D

[AbbyYeger]

I wrote "dove is coming" instead of "a dove....." It was wrong

[infinitebuffalo]

As @NaftaliFri1 writes above, "in English it doesn't make sense without the article."

This is the difference between transcription, or what linguists call 'glossing', and translation. Yes, the gloss is just 'dove', because Hebrew doesn't use an indefinite article. However, to be translated correctly, it must also be a valid sentence in the target language, and English requires an indefinite article here.

[rich739183]

Also, saying "dove is coming" would make sense if "Dove" is a name, in which case someone might think you're talking about a man named Dov, a Hebrew name spelled דוב and meaning "bear".

b009 rich739183

[danny912421]

yoná bá'a.

[EliederSousa]

Why we need to put 'A pigeon' with the article, and not only 'pigeon'?

[NaftaliFri1]

Because in English it doesn't make sense without the article

[James903608]

I chose pigeon and was marked wrong. יונה.can be described as a dove or a pigeon. יונה

[888Bruce888]

Pidgeons and doves do not really share the same meaning, at least not in English. Pigeons are good, sturdy, trainable, birds, but they will eat garbage. Doves are smaller, cleaner, eat only natural foods, and have more of a spiritual symbolism.

[danny912421]

Not every language works the same way English does. Many languages, Hebrew including, don't make a distinction between a turtle and a tortoise, either. On the other hand, English has only one word for a lion, unlike Hebrew.

[Amidah2]

Everyone thinks that pigeons and doves are not the same, but they are. Pigeons are also called rock doves. Here in Israel there are both doves and pigeons eating off the ground for crumbs.

[laura317035]

What about the ending of the verb come, why is it diferent?

[rich739183]

laura, if you're asking about באה vs בא, the difference is gender.
In the present tense, בא is masculine singular, and באה is feminine singular.
So it's יונה באה and אמא באה, for the feminine subjects dove and Mom.
And it's אוכל בא and אבא בא, for the masculine subjects food and Dad.

Pealim is a wonderful resource for word inflections. Here's the page for conjugations of this verb, לבוא, "to come":
https://www.pealim.com/dict/28-lavo/

b103 rich739183

[lochesistemas]

It doesn't say היונה. It's just says: יונה

[danny912421]

No, it doesn't say היונה. Were you expecting it to?

[lochesistemas]

So, the literal translation of יונה באה is "Dove is coming" and not "A dove is coming"

[danny912421]

No. Hebrew, unlike English, doesn't have indefinite article, so יונה באה, because of English grammar must include "a". On the other hand היונה would be "the dove". ה = the

[lochesistemas]

Ok. It's an English "issue"
Not Hebrew. Thanks for the clarification