Posts
Debra started her Ulpan today and really enjoyed herself. We're sitting at the dining room table now doing our homework at the same time and periodically Debra would look up and ask me a question. She just looked up after playing with the words "man" and "Student" and asked me for a verb.
"How do you say 'is'?" She asked.
"You don't" I said, "It's just understood".
"What?!" her brow furrowed.
"There is no present tense verb for to be or is, it's just understood."
"There is no..." Her hair started to rise.
"If you put the words man and student together, it forms the sentence, the Man is a student."
"But that's just not right!" She whimpered, her voice rising, "What kind of language has no word for to be??" I was starting to see smoke rise from her ears.
"It's just how it's done," I said, "there is no present tense word for To be."
"How do they do Shakespeare?" She protested, "To be or not to be? or... or... The answer must be... not to be..." And then her head exploded.
I hope it's better before class tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I guess the question is just "or not?" :)
Would it make Debra feel any better to know that there was a word for the present tense of "to be" in Biblical Hebrew?
"v'hu hayah, v'hu hoveh, v'hu yiyheh" ... the hu hoveh is present tense of "is", I believe.
Post a Comment