"הגבר והחתול שלו רוקדים."
Translation:The man and his cat dance.
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"The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing", 1973, with Burt Reynolds. Someone's been watching old movies.
I have a lot of trouble hearing the ר in this sentence (and in general really)
I think because I am so accustomed to hearing the English "R"
Keep practicing and you'll develop the ear for it. I'm accustomed to it because I know French and it's the same consonant, the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/. Just bring the back of your tongue close to the uvula to produce frication but not all the way so that the flow of air is stopped, and voice your flow of air (vibrate your vocal folds), and that's the sound. Modern Hebrew speakers, however, are more likely to lower the back of the tongue even more to make it an approximant.
I see that hebrew on duolingo tends to do pronoun possessives ("his cat" in this case) like English: with a separate word. Why not chatulo?
Simply because the one-word version sounds more formal. In normal speech we usually break it up. Hope that clears it up!
Well I was guessing. There are several examples of how Hebrew doesn't line up with English grammar, as in "I am proud in him" and "I search him"(meaning I search for him). By the way, how does Duolingo allow italics?
Apparently, you can use italics by surrounding your phrase with a pair of "stars" *. And I agree, Hebrew often doesn't line up well with English grammar, but just like in English you just get used to it (not actually understand it as it often has no logic behind it), but even if you don't people will understand your meaning anyway using the context.
Every language has its different way of saying things, using different structures and prepositions. For instance, " I'm proud in him" ,that you wrote, lines well with the Arabic counterpart, which uses the same preposition (in) ב .
However, even when I do not perceive ב as the English "in" and can naturally understand it in Arabic, I do not find it as natural in Hebrew..although it's exactly the same preposition, with the same sound, and same meaning.. weird..
True. It is quite a journey learning a language. A new sense of logic and confusion. And sometimes you just end up with a new sense of humor.
Anyway, in spite of all the discrepances to English there is also quite an influence of English on spoken Hebrew. Besides all the other influences and connections. Thus learning stays a challenge for all of us.
"His man and cat are dancing". I wrote this not-very-logical-to-say sentence, but it was considered wrong. For me to be allowed to say "his X", should the possessed object "X" be directly followed by שלו ?
Yes. And if you go to the Tips & Notes on the Duolingo website, they explain this and more. Just click on the lesson that "של" originated (which is lesson Possessives 1).
