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- Topic: Hebrew >
- "זה רע."
15 Comments
For most modern speakers, nothing. They're both just vowel sounds.
Traditionally, ע is pronounced the same as ع in Arabic, a voiced pharyngeal fricative/approximant.
I have read a lot about phonetics but I still don't know how to make pharyngeal sounds.
I guess my best advice is it's the same kind of muscles used as when you force a cough. When you cough, you fully block off the airflow and release it in a quick burst, but when you make the ע sound, you only reduce it and let the air stream through for a while. So do the first part of forcing a cough, the part which is like holding your breath, and then let out a bit of air but keep the tension. And it's voiced of course.
- Standard Hebrew: [ʕ] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_pharyngeal_fricative
- Modern Hebrew: [ʔ] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop
The glottal stop can be heard between the two vowels in the English "uh-oh!": [ˈʌʔoʊ].
Can we say
זה הוא רע
or
זהו רע ? (Btw, the question mark we talked about is not taking its right position here..)
The standard way of writing it is זהו. You can say it but it's formal and totally unnecessary when followed by an adjective like here.
When you said זה רע is it about something (e.g., the food [tastes] bad, or the movie is bad) or can you use it as an expression about your situation (e.g. Crap! This is bad! I am going to be late for the meeting..)?
1797
For those who are not aware: PBS Arthur was a huge hit in Israel for years (it might still be, I’m not sure), and my generation (I’m 25) and people as young as 18 if not younger remember it very fondly.
