"I am eating chicken."

Translation: אני אוכל עוף.

[ljubomora]

And how in the world do you pronounce it? ;-)

[Hamutaltul]

aNi oCHEl Off

[rich739183]

The word עוף is pronounced like the English word "oaf"; you could also think of it as "ohf" (like the word oh, with the letter f at the end).

It is not pronounced like the English word off.

[danny912421]

Sorry, but Hamutaltul is correct. It is pronounced like the word "off", not like "oaf". Hebrew doesn't have the "oh" sound.

[rich739183]

That raises three questions:

1. How do you pronounce the English word off. I'm used to it as "awf" as in the word awful.

2. If you say that Hebrew doesn't have the "oh" sound, how do you pronounce words such as לומד and כותל and או?

3. Are you speaking of modern Israeli Hebrew?

[danny912421]

When I say Hebrew doesn't have the "oh" sound, I mean a rounded "o" sound that is written as "oʊ" in IPA. The letter "o" in Hebrew is not rounded like that, but is pronounced with just the sound "o". And "oaf" has this "oʊ" sound.

As for the word "off", I guess I pronounce it more like the British do and that is exactly how i pronounce עוף, too. Or או and כותב and לומד which you wrote - o, kotev and lomed - with a short and clear "o" sound and not "oʊ".

[benton.1]

Hebrew does have the letter "o/oh", it is vav/ו (with the dot on top if your're using nikkud). If I were to transliterate it into English I would write it as "oaf" as well or "ohf". Maybe Hamutaltul was thinking of the "o" in "off" as having an "o" sound. Listen to the recording. It does sound like "oaf". Where Rich and I are from, "off" is pronounced "ahf".

[rich739183]

Thanks for your well-established expertise on DL in both of these languages. I agree that "ahf" is the better description for pronouncing "off"; mine is a local or regional variant (might even be a bit British, too, from what I've heard there).

[benton.1]

Rich, I think "awf" as in "awful" is a perfectly fine example of the pronunciation of "off". I just happened to choose "ahf" because that was the first thing that came to my mind. Thank you for the compliment, but I'm learning Hebrew just as you are.

[dehrens]

Isn't עופ like birds in general I was under the impression chicken was תרנגולת

[ran_g]

the word עוף (or עופות) means chicken in the broad sense, or the meat of the chicken (=poultry). However it is not "birds" - these would be ציפורים

[daniel_egp]

Ok, thanks for clarifying.. so עוף is the chicken meat and תרנגולת the animal?

[AlmogL]

In the zoological sense, עוף is a broader term than ציפור. The latter refers to the species of birds that can fly, where as עוף refers to everything with feathers, including ducks, chickens, ostriches etc.. In a different thread we had this discussion and came to the conclusion that the best translation would be "fowl".

[iggyl]

Could we reffer to Duo (owl) also as עיף, or is there a better word for it?

[AlmogL]

An owl is ינשוף, more generally דורס לילה, more generally ציפור, more generally עוף. :-)

[ran_g]

Kind of.. תרנגולת is the animal, but you can say בשר תרנגולת which would mean the meat (this is not very common). עוף has a broad sense and can be used both for the meat (אני רוצה עוף, לא בקר) or for the animals (אני מגדל עופות: שתי תרנגולות ואווז אחד).

In the biblical sense, עוף refers to any bird (עופות השמיים = birds of the sky) and similarly in modern hebrew it can be used to refer to any type of bird (מלך העופות- king of the birds (a nickname for נשר)). But, in the spoken language, you will rarely hear someone referring to his, say, parrot, as a עוף rather than as a ציפור. Although, both are technically valid.

[Theresa754142]

Ani okhel of.

[Donnie55]

To me it sounds more like oaf than off (Midwestern U.S. dialect), albiet a little shorter "o", not quite as rounded.

[UsmarPadow]

I have a question, I think there were these two options אני אוכל עוף and אני אוכלת עוף and the question was something like "I eat chicken" but isn't one male and the other female? English does not specify, oh never mind, once I am in the discussion board, it has a recording of the sound, which it does not in the question, so what I am saying is that in english only we could not tell which one of hte two are correct, no?

wait a second, I went back and I got the same question again, and it says the correct answer is feminine. if this because chiken is a feminine or what? I am confused

[benton.1]

No, it's not because the chicken is feminine, it's because you are masculine or feminine. The (grammatical) sex of the subject of the sentence, in this case "I", determines whether the verb is conjugated in the masculine or feminine form.

[Andr117667]

How can I pronounce chicken in hebrew?

[rich739183]

Like the English word oaf

[SarahDillB]

They asked me this question twice. Why?

[RosaCohn2]

תרנגול is an other word for chicken

[danny912421]

Actually, תרנגול is a rooster and it is used when we talk about the live animal. It's not applicable here, because עוף is used for chicken meat.