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Here I'm going to publish articles speaking of everything that is not covered
by other sections. Some of the articles might be giving explanations to those
who is not complitely satisfied with the quick-and-dirty approach of the "Read-and-Understand"
part of this site, neither covered by the beginner's "Speak!"
section.
What It Is, and What It Is Not
It's not going to be a boring and systematic teaching, neither I come to
compete with classics like prof. Thomas Lambdin or Wilhelm
Gesenius. I doubt I can do a better job than Gesenius in telling all the details
in a systematic way, and certainly I won't be able to
repeat professor Lambdin's work. I'm just going to have some fun
telling the others what I know about this amazing language, and hope
you will enjoy the reading. :)
I'll try cover some of the non-so-obvious topics, which are typically skipped
in Israeli
ulpanim. Whatever is your background in Hebrew, come in and enjoy!
Slang and more
Sometimes it's not even considered "slang", but rather the words in common
use. To give an example from American English, when you say "sir" and "mister"?
It might be pretty obvious for native language speakers, but not for the
foreigners. Or another example, what's the real difference between "highway" and
"freeway"? When you say "buddy", and when it's a "dude"? And what's the exact
difference between "dude" and "pal"?
Hope this gives you some idea..
By the way, did you know that in 60's it was common thing in Israel (at least
in kibbutzim) to call each other חבר (comrade)?
Did you know, that in 90's young people were calling each other
אחי (like "bro"), and in the beginning of 2000's it's been replaced by
אח שלי ("my brother")? :)
Do you know what is an אסימון? They disappeared when
public telephones started to use electronic cards, and the whole concept became
really hard to explain when Israelis started to buy cell phones.
There are a lot of aspects like this in any language, and that's another
thing I'd like to cover in my articles.