"אני אוהב לאכול פירות."
Translation:I love eating fruit.
65 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
It is the infinitive. Like in English when you say "I like to eat" and not "I like eat"
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Is there a way to guess the pronunciation of such a word, or do I have to learn it by heart?
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Best is learning and practicing.
That said, there are structures that you can identify, then again, some of them look alike.
Try answering the same question in English, it should give you a cue. English pronunciation itself is more complex than they let on.
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As English is not my native language, I have certainly answered that question some time ago ;D Just by practicing and listening to a lot of English media I got used to the sound of the language and therefore to the sound of the words (although sometimes I cannot guess how a word is pronounced! English is certainly weird, but, let's say the truth, every language is weird depending on who says it.)
Had I followed that reasoning I would have answered myself. Thanks, however, for replying :)
It took me around 20 years considering myself fluent in English before I learned how to correctly pronounce the words "alas" and 'albeit'. But I still find learning Hebrew a notch harder.
English, French, Spanish class are not phonetic languages, they can be tricky for new co learners.
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I think truelefty intended to ask if there are any specific patterns one can use to derive Hebrew infinitives, such as those often described by CVCV templates for Semitic languages (e.g., CiCaaC, CuCuC, maCCaC for the K-T-B root in Arabic, which yield, respectively, 'kitaab', 'kutub', and 'maktab' -- "book", "books", and "office").
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This is only one way of forming the infinitive. There are seven binyanim (verb patterns) and 5 of those binyanim have infinitive which is formed differently. You will encounter them as you progress in the course.
Yes. The German course is the same. Everytime you select an individual word it pronounces it. It would be helpful to have that constant audio availabilty for this Hebrew course as well, especially since not all sentences come with audio. I am always coming to the comments to see pronunciation :)
are we supposed to memorise all the infinitives separately from normal conjugations are is their a relation. also, why wasn't anything about infinitives mentioned in the notes
Infinitives will be introduced later. This is just a way of giving us a little bit of exposure to it earlier
But as the infinitive, shouldn't it be translated "to eat" instead of "eating"?
If le’ekhol were always translated to eat, that would be easier on you as a beginner to recognize, but -ing is often used to translate Hebrew infinitives. I love running, I love traveling, all similar sentences use Hebrew infinitives.
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Infinitives have a template in which the root is used, just like all conjugations.
You can try reporting if you want them to rethink this sentence in this chapter
Does Hebrew distinguish between "to like" and "to love"? In this sentence, אוהב means "love", I believe.
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Not really. When someone wants to emphasize "like" and not "love" they use "מחבב", but generally "אוהב" would be used for both.
I personnaly hear something like Beivot. Besides having the audio for each word as in other languages would be really helpful.
Generally the "כ" or "ח" sound will be said like "ch" I don't know if that helps...
I hear it as "le-ahol", but it would be helpful if a native speaker chimed in. I really miss being able to hear individual words, the same way I can in Spanish course, for example.
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why you cannot translate: I like to eat fruit?... because of the infinitive of the verb in Hebrew ?( sorry, I am German )
i have question in english. why it is "eating " and not "eat" in this sentence?
Same thing. There is not distinction in hebrew between "eating" and "to eat"
So in Arabic, the literal translation of this sentence would be something like "I love that I would eat fruit." Is something similar going on here?
i was taught that the proper way to say it was with a separate clause but the maSdar + iDaafa also makes sense
yes .. and I think the hebrew sentence here is more close to this translation : أحب أكل الفواكه
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Dommage qu'il n'y a pas de "son" pour entendre les mots quand ils sont proposés et surtout sélectionnés... C'est le cas dans l'étude d'autres langues avec Duolingo.
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in another example פרי was referred to with זה so it's a masculine word right?so why is the plural form with ות?((shouldn't we use ים for masculine?))
Not all masculine nouns end with ים-, and vice versa. פרי is indeed a masculine noun with irregular plural form.
I am confused as to when fruit is singular and when it is plural. In English we would never say “a fruit”. Does the plural mean there is more than one kind of fruit?
In Hebrew פירות does not imply more than one kind. It's a bit hard to be convinced in this, since if you have three apples, say, we'd usually say תפוחים.... But consider the sentence על עץ התפוחים שלי יש הרבה פירות "there is a lot of fruit on my apple tree". Also, if I have in the bag two apples and one orange, I'd say יש לי שלושה פירות.
@Markene In English we would most definitely say “a fruit”, such as “A durian is a fruit.”
I think that you intended to say that in English, as a general statement, “I like eating fruit” uses fruit, singular, but in Hebrew, I like eating fruit uses fruit, plural.
Why is פירות translating 'fruit'? What happened to 'fruits'? I understand it fruit can subtly implicitly mean general fruit but the hebrew word is clearly plural. Hey, hey hey.
Duo accepted I like eating fruits. This is not the most common way to say it in English though. Fruit is considered an uncountable noun, like cheese or fish, only using plural when different kinds (or in the case of fish, species) are being referenced.
Strangely, vegetable is not an uncountable noun so you have to say I like eating vegetables.
This should be "I love to eat fruit" given the addition of "ל", meaning "to"
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Actually, both are correct. Hebrew uses infinitive (the ל is not really that kind of "to" but it's part of the verb), but English allows both "love eating" and "love to eat".
Interesting... I wonder if the process that led English (or it's ancestor) to use "to" for infinitives is not the same process that led Hebrew (or it's ancestor) to use ל... For instance, it may have started with verbs of movement, where "to" would be a natural preposition: "I go to the field" -> "I go to plow", and then by initially-false analogy, "I want to plow". Same could have happened in Hebrew, but that's prehistory.
