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- Topic: Hebrew >
- "סוסים ודרכים."
49 Comments
Hey Luke (: If vav appears in the beginning of the word it is always (almost) pronounced as "v".
For example the word ורד (vered - rose) or ורוד (varod - pink).
When it appears in the middle of the sentence, it is pronounced as "o" or "u", and if we want to pronounce the "v" sound, we simple double the letter vav.
For example: יוון (yavan = Greece) , while יון (yon = ion).
Happy learning! (:
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Just to be clear, it seems from context clues than you meant "in the middle of the word" rather than "in the middle of the sentence".
You study all those languages? Scandanavian and Turkish? Wow, very impressed.
The rule is known as בומ"פ and a vav makes an "u" sound before those letters.
Adding to what MattRosenb2 wrote, the vav (when used as 'and') is pronounced 'u' also before a syllable beginning with a 'schwa' sound (which is like a short é sound): ve + d(é)rakhim => ved(é)rakhim => ud(é)rakhim וְ + דְרכים => וְדְרכים => וּדְרכים
And as Heysoos1 mentions, this distinction is practically not present in nowadays colloquial Hebrew.
Somebody said somewhere that most speakers don't care anymore colloquially. Like saying "an'" instead of "and."
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not caring= "being cool about it", but that is not at all the same as those same 'cool' people appreciating correct pronunciation and correct usage.
Don't give people the wrong idea.
At the beginning of the word it could be either "v" or "u" but they both mean "and" so it doesn't really matter (unless you are speaking for religious purposes like from the torah, but you are expected to have looked at the text beforehand with the vowels.)
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this is wrong. Correct pronunciation is appreciated in every cultural setting. However, the 'religious purpose' of which you speak is true for all traditions, such as Sanskrit for Hindus and Latin for Catholics, inter alia...
I always want to write "horses and dragons". ;D That's also a natural combination. LOL
Is this a hebrew expression, or just a sentence fragment? I'm going to start using this! lol
(-: Not an expression. Hard for me to imagine ever using this sequence of words, except maybe as a title to a strange poem...
Maybe it's similar to the rhyming English phrase "Horses for courses ": choose the best means to an end, including the best horse for a particular route.
A commander in ancient Rome asks his captain: “What factors are most important in reaching Seleucia quickly?”
“Horses and roads!”
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*example correction for Hebrew course
A commander in the Roman army stationed in Tiberias asks his captain: “What factors are most important in reaching Aelia Capitolina quickly?”
“Horses and roads!”
Are there any native speakers here? I'm using this website to improve my hebrew and i know that the ו in ודרכים means or. Since i'm not fluent i can't say forsure, so can anyone explain how the Ou sound isn't "or"? Since "and" is pronounced "Vee"
Actually, the ו in ודרכים does mean "and"; it's just pronounced as "oo" (or the French "ou") rather than the more common "ve". Other variants of the ו pronunciation are "vi" (as in וירושלים, "vi-(ye)-rushalayim" ["and Jerusalem"]; the (ye) is mute) and "va" (as in את ואני, "at va-ani" [you and I]). That being said, colloquial Hebrew generally sticks to "ve". BTW, או ("or") is pronounced as "oh" (that is, something similar to the actual English pronunciation of "or").
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This post and all similar posts are WRONG. "colloquial Hebrew generally sticks to "ve". " It is simply not true.
However, in many -- but not all, cases "colloquial" situations involve people who will accept bad, incorrect pronunciation without correcting.
VAV is pronounced as oo before letters בומ"פ [boomaf), and more specifically (https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/25595316/Pronunciation-of-and-in-Hebrew):
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Before a sound you make with your lips (mnemonically, בומ"פ) or before a consonant (other than "י" (Yod)) with a "shva" (so it has no moving vowel sound), the "ve" becomes "oo".
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Before a "י" (Yod) with a shva, (famously like in the word for Jerusalem, "ירושלים"), the "ve" becomes "vee" (like an 'i' sound).
Firstly, this could be an answer to a question in conversation. Also, does it have to be a sentence? I don't think it matters that we get a few sentence fragments to learn at the beginning.
If they accept "mares" for "סוסות", they should accept "stallions" for "סוסים" as well
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There is a convention in Hebrew, and in many other languages, that the masculine plural includes both males and females, whereas you use the feminine plural if you are talking only about females. In the same way, masculine is the default gender if you are speaking about or to an unknown person or animal. Part of the process of learning another language in any depth is changing the way that you look at the world. Translation is, at best, a clumsy tool.
While the spelling of the words tells me what they are, the pronunciation of plurals sends me back to the drawing board.
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I'm confused. I thought, דרך means also way. So I wrote horses and ways and it was wrong.
Interestingly, DuoLingo rejects both "direction" and "route" for "דרך" even though the dictionary accepts both. הדרכה means "giving direction" or instruction. I love having practice in Hebrew, but DuoLIngo's rigidity drives me nuts. Plus, it doesn't look like it's been updated in years.
"routes" should indeed be accepted, but not sure about "direction" - I can't think of any context in which "direction" is דרך. (What dictionary?)
you're CORRECT. Alkali, the OED of Hebrew, gives "route" as the first meaning, path, way, road, mood (sic), etc. but not direction. My bad.
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Posts similar to the one quoted here are WRONG. "colloquial Hebrew generally sticks to "ve". " It is simply not true.
However, in many -- but not all, cases "colloquial" situations involve people who will accept bad, incorrect pronunciation without correcting.
VAV is pronounced as oo before letters בומ"פ [boomaf), and more specifically (https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/25595316/Pronunciation-of-and-in-Hebrew):
-
Before a sound you make with your lips (mnemonically, בומ"פ) or before a consonant (other than "י" (Yod)) with a "shva" (so it has no moving vowel sound), the "ve" becomes "oo". This includes DALET oo-drah'im
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Before a "י" (Yod) with a shva, (famously like in the word for Jerusalem, "ירושלים"), the "ve" becomes "vee" (like an 'i' sound).
Bonus: shalom oo-vrah'a is a common greeting and a response to salutations for "have a good week" include shavuah tov oo-mevorakh [these are used without deviation from the 'rule']
extra bonus: people will even respond: "--- oomevorakh" without repeating shavuah tov .
