"Hello, goodbye!"
Translation:שלום, להתראות!
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It definitely also means goodbye - and when used in conjunction with "להתראות" it would have that meaning. "Hello, goodbye" makes no sense. If it said "שלום, מה שלומך" - the "hello" meaning would make sense: "Hello, how are you?"
This seems to be the direction that Hebrew is going. Thirty years ago your answer would have been the preferred one. We cannot turn back the clock, however.
Can להתראות be written with a י ? Ive seen להיתראות written before...
395
Unfortunately, Kai, you haven't been here in two years or more according to this comment, and I have no idea whether you've learned this somewhere else; but for those who pass through and see this, you and they should know that the answer is NO. The letters להת (pronounced l'hít) in להתראות are a clue that you are looking at a hitpa'el infinitive - it is reflexive. We modern Hebrew speakers use this particular word to mean "see you later" or "see you soon" but it literally means "to see oneself."
I hope this helps!
by the way, I saw a word "בתיאבון" written without "י" months ago. is it just a typo or can you really write "bon appetite" like that?
- 395
I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Hebrew seems to have been more fluid than modern English with regard to spelling, other than the shorashim (word roots). Or, maybe the person who wrote or designed the sign you saw just didn't know how to spell it! That would have to be confirmed by someone who knows Hebrew better than I do.
I saw both given as correct on a different sentence just now, but I questioned it also as I'd never seen that in Hebrew before.
So is this just how the reflexive infinitive is? ie does it always look f.pl. with the ות in this word and/or others, or does it take other forms I haven't seen yet?
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Not quite. This is not feminine plural form. The infinitive of hitpa'el (the (mostly) reflexive binyan) has the pattern lehitXaXeX (X stands for a root letter), so for example if you have a root לבש, the infinitive of the verb in hitpa'el will be להתלבש /lehitlabesh/ - to get dressed. However, the root ראה is one of the irregular roots. In infinitive, the final ה turns into ות, so instead of להתראה we have להתראות. This is the case for every verb whose final root letter is ה, in all binyanim (except for pu'al and huf'al, which don't have infinitive). For example, the infinitive of this verb in pa'al is לראות /lirot/ - to see, and in hif'il להראות /lehar'ot/ - to show, or nif'al להיראות /lehera'ot/ - to seem, to be visible.
להתראות means "see you soon." Goodbye would be more literally translated as שלום. I will report this question.
Yes! I don't know why my sentence got so turned around. Thanks for checking!
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You say goodbye And I say hello Hello, hello I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello
this sentence reminds me of that moment when you and a familiar person accidentally meet each other but you go in the opposite directions and then exchange short words, "Hello, goodbye!"
As a programmer I know why your sentence was turned around. You typed in hebrew this is right to left. Then you typed in german which is left to right. To teach the computer to recognize the change is quit a bit difficult. Should be doable but less programmers take the time to do so cause usually you wouldn't change so often the reading direction. Thanks for your comments and questions much in the comments here and in other parts helped me a lot learning the language better.
Can anyone tell me what keyboard they are using to write in Hebrew? I need to download one onto my Windows 10 desktop.