Table Of ContentColloquial
Hebrew
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THE COLLOQUIAL SERIES
Series Adviser: Gary King
The following languages are available in the Colloquial series:
Afrikaans French Portuguese of Brazil
Albanian German Romanian
Amharic Greek Russian
Arabic (Levantine) Gujarati Scottish Gaelic
Arabic of Egypt Hebrew Serbian
Arabic of the Gulf and Hindi Slovak
Saudi Arabia Hungarian Slovene
Basque Icelandic Somali
Breton Indonesian Spanish
Bulgarian Irish (forthcoming) Spanish of Latin
Cambodian Italian America
Cantonese Japanese Swahili
Catalan Korean Swedish
Chinese Latvian Tamil
Croatian Lithuanian Thai
Czech Malay Turkish
Danish Mongolian Ukrainian
Dutch Norwegian Urdu
English Panjabi Vietnamese
Estonian Persian Welsh
Filipino Polish Yoruba (forthcoming)
Finnish Portuguese
COLLOQUIAL 2s series: The Next Step in Language Learning
Chinese German (forthcoming) Spanish
Dutch Italian Spanish of Latin
French Russian America
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cw/colloquials. If you experience any difficulties accessing the audio on the
companion website, or still wish to purchase a CD, please contact our customer
services team through www.routledge.com/info/contact
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Colloquial
Hebrew
The Complete Course
for Beginners
Zippi Lyttleton and Tamar Wang
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First published in 2004 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2004 Zippi Lyttleton and Tamar Wang
Typeset in TimesTen by
g-and-w PUBLISHING, Oxfordshire, UK
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
IISSBBNN 997788--10--143185--9244907418--32 ((bpobokk))
ISBN 978-0-415-30260-9 (CD)
ISBN 978-0-415-43159-0 (pack)
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 ˙ȯ·Ú ·«˙ÎÏ ‡«¯˜Ï 8
Reading and writing Hebrew
2 χ¯◊È· ¯ËÈÙ 24
Peter arrives in Israel
3 ?÷‚ÙÈ‰Ï ¯÷Ù‡ 39
Can we meet?
4 ˙ȯϻ٫٠„«‡Ó ‰„ÚÒÓ ˙‡Ê 55
It’s a very popular restaurant
5 ˙«ÈÎ˙ ‰ÁÙ÷Ó 72
Family and plans
6 ԫȘ· ˙«ÈȘ 92
Shopping at the mall
7 Ìȯ»„ÈÒ 113
Making arrangements
8 ÔÓÊ·» ͯ„· 132
On the road and on time
9 ˙È·· «ÓÎ Ôȇ 157
Home Sweet Home
10 ˙»·¯˙ ˯«¬Ò 177
Sport and culture
v
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vi
11 ÁÏÓ‰ ÌÈÏ Í¯„· 199
Driving down to the Dead Sea
12 ‰‡Ù¯Ó· 218
At the doctor’s
13 ÷„«˜‰ ¯ÈÚ ÌÈÏ÷»¯È 238
Jerusalem the holy city
14 ˙¯«˘˜˙ ˙»«˙ÈÚ 258
Media and communications
Key to exercises 272
Appendix l Transliterations for Units 10–14 326
Appendix ll Quick Grammar Reference 337
Appendix lll Prepositions Chart 348
Verb Glossary 350
Hebrew–English Glossary 371
Index 390
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Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks and appreciation are due to Sarena Alfandary for
her successful ‘matchmaking’ – working together on this project
was great fun; to Adam Albion, who generously gave of his time
to pilot our first few units – his encouraging comments and useful
suggestions were beacons of light in the early days; to Sally Levy
and Aviva Karlinski, who, despite the difficult times, provided
much needed back-up and encouragement from home ground in
Israel, with punchy names, jokes, realia and all kinds of informa-
tion; to Sally for her introduction to the Ulpan Akhvah in Rishon
Le Zion whose wonderful staff opened their doors and offered
important insights; to Zehavah Meyusef for her expertise in
Hebrew grammar and invaluable advice on colloquial and accepted
usage; to Harvey Miller and Ofra and Jeff Graham for commenting
on the completed draft; to Haya Vardy, illustrator, for her draw-
ings that so effectively animate the text; to Gary King, Series
Editor, Sophie Oliver, Language Editor, and Ruth Jeavons,
Production Editor, at Routledge, without whom this book would
never have been started, and very importantly, finished; to all
pupils, colleagues and friends whose helpful comments throughout
the writing were always greatly appreciated; and last, but of course
not least, to our long-suffering families and friends who put up
with us working into the small hours.
This book has seen us through sad times and happy, some of
the most painful times in the history of the Middle East, alongside
family celebrations and many vicissitudes of life and computers.
We hope this book will make a contribution towards broadening
communication and understanding, and we thank the very many
people who have encouraged us along the way and helped bring
it to fruition.
Tamar Wang and Zippi Lyttleton
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Introduction
About this book
Colloquial Hebrew aims to teach Hebrew as it is spoken in Israel
today, to give you a level of competence to be able to travel around
and to converse generally on a range of topics. Being able to read
menus, road signs, posters, brochures as well as to catch snippets
of conversations, are part and parcel of this competence. It will
help you to understand, be understood and to feel more a part of
what is going on around you.
Each lesson or unit contains dialogues of everyday encounters
and situations, which introduce vocabulary and language points you
can practise in the exercises that follow. We hope our dialogues
will be entertaining as well as realistic and that you will find a good
variety of exercises to allow you ample opportunity to gain confi-
dence in your fast-growing skills.
We strongly recommend that you do all the exercises, as they
progress in difficulty, allowing you to learn step by step, and we
hope you will enjoy the journey to proficiency. At the end of the
book is a key so that you can check your answers. Some answers
to exercises will also give a transliteration and/or a translation, so
don’t give up if an exercise looks too difficult to decipher at first
sight! You will also find glossaries of vocabulary taught, together
with a grammar section, which draw together major points in
schematic form for easy reference.
Hebrew is a logical, elegant and highly accessible language. It
is a shame that the biggest stumbling block for many students
comes right at the beginning: at first sight Hebrew’s unfamiliar
alphabet may seem an insurmountable obstacle. Yet the Hebrew
alphabet is not as alien as it might appear, since it lies at the base
of English and other Indo-European languages. The names of the
letters in the English alphabet are remnants of old Hebrew words
representing the ancient letters. Hebrew is closely related to
ancient Phoenician; the ancient Greeks who traded with the
Phoenicians were the first to adopt their alphabet around 800 BCE,
and added signs for vowels missing in the Semitic alphabet.
Initially, Greek too was written from right to left like Hebrew, and
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