"ילדים וגברים."
Translation:Children and men.
32 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
380
The "and" ו turns from "ve" sound to "oo" in a few occasions. One of them, here, where the word starts without a vowel - גברים = gvarim - the g goes right into the v, no additional vowel. To eliminate consecutive non-sounding (or nearly so) consonants the language turns the "ve" into "oo"
I think the important question here is, do you want to sound like a native Modern Hebrew Speaker? or like a radio announcer/religious person? The majority of modern hebrew speakers use the "ve" pronunciation every time. Only official scripts from the radio/TV use the "oo" pronunciation and very religious people reading from formal texts. So it is a question of register - not "proper".
I think the important question here is, do you want to sound like a native Modern Hebrew speaker? or like a radio announcer/religious person? The majority of Modern Hebrew speakers use the "ve" pronunciation every time. Only official scripts from the radio/TV use the "oo" pronunciation and very religious people reading from formal texts. So it is a question of register - not "proper".
An Israeli told me the -im / -ot "rule" is only helpful with verbs and adjectives. He says that so many nouns have the plural ending of the "wrong" gender that you cannot use it reliably with nouns. He believes there are too many to be called "exceptions" - better to just memorize the plural as you learn a new noun (like most of the times in German, I guess).
1420
Not quite. There are two occasions when ו is pronounced "oo". One is when the first letter of the word is ב, ו, מ or פ (BUMP is a cool mnemonic to remember them). Second is when the first letter of the word, and this can be any letter, has a shva under it, meaning there is no vowel attached to it, which is the case here. If the word were written with nikud, it would be גְּבָרִים. Note that this is considered formal and rarely used in everyday language. You will hear it, however, on TV, radio, lectures and some other more formal settings.
Second, ו is pronounced "oo" as in "good". On the other hand, או is pronounced "o" as in "got" (British English pronunciation). They are not the same sound.
1420
Yes, in most cases ים says the word is in plural. Usually it is a noun that is masculine. I say in most cases, because, very soon you'll encounter the word "tasty" which is טעים "ta'im" in Hebrew. It has ים at the end, but this word is the singular form of the adjective.
So, there are two plural endings - ים is the usual plural ending for masculine nouns, like here ילד "yeled" is a child and ילדים "yeladim" is children; and ות is the usual plural ending for feminine nouns, like ילדה "yalda" is a girl and ילדות "yeladot" is girls.
There are, however, plenty of exceptions to this rule. One of the very first you'll come in contact is נשים "nashim" - women, which is the plural word of אישה "isha" - woman, both of which are obviously feminine. These exceptions you simply need to learn by heart.