Tip #17

How to say it in Hebrew
Tip #17

I am often asked...

Last time we discussed how to say "time" in Hebrew. But I feel like there is more to it that I have to tell you! Let me expand a bit on this topic and tell you about several time-related expressions that may be easy to understand when you hear them, but not easy to think of when you are speaking - because the way we say it is different from English!

You may be surprised, but "זְמַן" is the word we need when we say... "for a while"!

How do we say something like
"I have been working here for a while, and I still haven't gotten any promotion..." or
"I am waiting for you for a while already!"
We say -
!אֲנִי עוֹבֵד(ת) פֹּה הַרְבֵּה זְמַן וַעֲדַיִן לֹא קִבַּלְתִּי שׁוּם קִדּוּם
!אֲנִי מְחַכֶּה לְךָ כְּבָר הַרְבֵּה זְמַן

No other way to say it, this simple!
Now, if you know how to say "for a while" you may be wondering, then, how to say...

...how to say "often", then?

Here we need another time word we mentioned last time - "פעם"!
To say "often" we say... just הַרְבֵּה פְּעָמִים! Literally - "many times!" Or just הַרְבֵּה :)
Examples:
I often visit my Grandmother -
(אֲנִי מְבַקֶּרֶת אֵצֶל סָבְתָא שֶׁלִּי הַרְבֵּה (פְּעָמִיםOften we say "I'll do it for sure!", but we don't do what we promise, after all...
...הַרְבֵּה פְּעָמִים אֲנַחְנוּ אוֹמְרִים "בֶּטַח שֶׁנַּעֲשֶׂה אֶת זֶה!" אֲבָל אֲנַחְנוּ לֹא עוֹשִׂים אֶת מָה שֶׁאֲנַחְנוּ מַבְטִיחִים בְּסוֹפוֹ שֶׁל דָּבָר

*The next logical question would be "How do we say 'rarely', then?" But this question, quite surprisingly, has no good answer! The closest word would be... לא הרבה...

For example:
I rarely go to theater - אֲנִי לֹא הוֹלֶכֶת לַתֵּאַטְרוֹן הִרְבָּה

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Yes, I know what you want to ask! If you look it these expressions ("often" and "rarely") up in the dictionary you'd see these translations:
לְעִתִּים קְרוֹבוֹת VS לְעִתִּים רְחוֹקוֹת
Why not use these?
The thing is that Israelis don't use these expressions too much! It's much more natural to use the ones I've outlined above. :)|
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Hope these notes help you take your Hebrew to another level,
Stay in touch and -
Happy Hebrew-learning!

Alisa