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- Topic: Hebrew >
- "ילדים וגברים."
34 Comments
Why does the vav before 'men' sound like an 'o' instead of a 'v'? I've noticed this whenever "and men" is referenced
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"
263
I'm no expert in such rules of the language, but just wanted to note that in a casual manner of speaking you can pretty much always say 've' and it would be perfectly acceptable..
So just to be clear, when it comes to "and" the 'o' version is common in colloquial Hebrew, sounds more natural, but is viewed as incorrect traditionally? When can it occur? Before consonant clusters?
- 263
The 've' version is more common in colloquial Hebrew. There's no 'o' version but rather an 'oo' version, (meaning it sound more like an 'u' sound). It's not very common in everyday talk.
No, they said the opposite of what you just said. They are saying that it is not proper to use the v sound with consecutive nonsounding consonants but that people have begun to do it commonly.
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".
So it's like oog b'v' reem? It's so fast it's hard to hear without knowing what it SHOULD be :-)
most people don't know when to use oo, so they just use ve, or quite commonly use oo incorrectly
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).
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".
Yes... I thought the same...so ילדים או גברים.... boys or men. It must be a different pronunciation.
- 726
There are only two plural endings - ים (usually the masculine plural) and ות (usually the feminine ending). Not sure which is more common, but that's all you get.
