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- "כלבינו רצים בחוץ."
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Historically correct: כְּלָבֵ֫ינוּ [kla've(y)nu] our dogs; colloquially possible: כַּלְבֵּ֫ינוּ [kal'be(y)ny). You put the light suffixes on the plural stem כְּלָבִים, only the heavy suffixes on the construct stem, i.e. כַּלְבֵיהֶם [kalve(y)'hem] their dogs (notice the [v]!).
How can we hear the difference between singular and plural of they are "kalbeinu" and "kalbenu"? Is the "i" obvious?
760
Well, since there is close to zero chance you'll ever hear this in spoken language, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Is there a difference between being outside and moving outside in Hebrew, or are they expressed using the same words? Does this mean the dogs are running and they happen to be outside, or does it mean they are leaving the house as we speak, or both?
It means they are outside, and running. Running from the house out would be רצים החוצה.
Thank you! That was the impression I got from the sentence, but I wanted to double check :D
It means they're running and just happen to be outside. If you want to imply movement into/out of a place, you should use פנימה/החוצה. Here are some examples:
אני יוצא החוצה - I'm going outside
הם משחקים כדורגל בחוץ - They are playing football outside
הכלבים רצו פנימה - The dogs ran inside (into a place)
החלטתם להישאר בפנים - You decided to stay inside (/indoors)
I thought "kalbenu" vs. "kalbeinu" was just a difference in pronunciation (sephardi vs. ashkenazi), is it really used to differentiate if you're talking about "our dog" or "our dogs"?
Note the י in כלבינו. When plural words have possessive pronouns attached, or are put into certain constructs, the ם gets dropped. For example כלבים=כלבינו, (our dogs). If it were simply "our dog" the י would not be there and it would simply be כלבנו. Hope that helps.
Yes I got that from the tips and notes, but it's also stated there that both "כלבנו" and "כלבינו" would be pronounced "kalbenu". But from the audio sample attached to this phrase it's pronounced as "kalbeinu". So I just wondered if that's a real difference in the pronunciation that is made because it's the plural version or if it's just a dialectal variation?
The general rule is that people would say "kalbenu".
occasionally a "kalbeinu" might slip, or be used by someone a bit more into language.
That makes sense, but "antonsamuel" should know that Duo IS making a distinction in the audio so that you can know if it's plural or singular (כלבינו vs כלבנו). I don't know how it's spoken in Israel, I guess it could be that they just infer if it's singular or plural from the context... but there definitely is in theory a difference, and honestly I wouldn't have thought it's based on dialect.
That is not really a distinction people make in colloquial speech.
Actually, they would probably say "klavenu" for the plutal.
The audio is supplementary to the exercise (except for audio exercises), it doesn't define the answer.
True, in my case it was an audio exercise so that's what I was thinking of... Just to be clear, are you saying that in Israel, when someone is talking about "our dogs", they would pronounce it "kalbenu" rather than "kalbeinu"?
Why is it כלבינו for plural) dogs when כלב is singular, but we say ילדותינו for plural) girls when ילדה is singular?
Masculine terms drop the general plural suffix when there is a possessive suffix, or any construct, for that matter.
Feminine keep the form in those cases.
If this didn't answer your question, tell us how you would expect it to look.
Is it really ילדותינו as he said rather than ילדותנו )as feminine plurals keep the plural suffix) ?
"Our dogs" should be pronounced כְּלָבֵ֫ינוּ [kla've(y)nu]. The speaker says כַּלְבֵּ֫נוּ [kal'benu] "our dog"
- 790
It should be Claveynu but it is a common mistake (which now maybe isn't a mistake anymore) to say Calbeynu. The singular form is Calbenu with a sharp 'e' as opposed to the soft 'ey' but people will mostly say Hackelev Shelanu.
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klaveinu ratzim bachuz.
(klaveinu "our dogs" is from Pealim, the voiceover uses kalbenu, which Pealim has "our dog"). The English translation in Duolingo shows "our dogs", so is the voiceover wrong or what is going on?
Our dogs" should be historically correctly pronounced כְּלָבֵ֫ינוּ [kla've(y)nu]. The speaker uses the colloquial form כַּלְבֵּ֫נוּ [kal'benu] our dog.
- 790
Not exactly. They say Calbeynu, which is written like Claveynu, because that is the way most people pronounce it.
Oh, yes, I forgot a Jodh and quoted instead the correct singular form, thanks. Correction: The speaker uses the colloquial (= how many/most people pronounce it) form כַּלְבֵּ֫ינוּ [kal'beynu] our dogs.
Well, yes, the colloquial plural כַּלְבֵּ֫ינוּ [kal'beynu] our dogs is based on כַּלְבֵּ֫נוּ [kal'benu] our dog. Most nouns use the same stem (סוּסֵ֫נוּ [su'senu] our horse versus סוּסֵ֫ינוּ [su'seynu] our horses) and this is generalised for nouns who actually should have a different stem for the plural. And not everybody makes the difference between [-'enu] and [-'eynu], which was originally only an orthographic differenciation, so סוּסֵ֫נוּ and סוּסֵ֫ינוּ can indeed result in the same pronunciation.
Well, כְּלָבֵ֫ינוּ [kla've(y)nu] is plural our dogs, but כַּלְבֵּ֫נוּ [kal'benu] is singular our dog.
