Day 50 (understanding)

I met with Keturah today, and our discussion turned to grammar, as the best discussions are wont to do. In Hebrew, there are seven "constructs": seven ways in which to conjugate verbs. Three of the constructs are active, three are passive, and one is reflexive. I'm reasonably familiar with the active/reflexive constructs, but the passive constructs? I can conjugate verbs in each of the three passive constructs, but I have no idea when to use which one.

Well, maybe I should say I had no idea. Hehehehehe. The evil laughter of one who now has the power of knowledge! Bwahahahahaha! OK, here's the scoop: the seven constructs can be drawn as a menorah (I knew this, too). The really, truly cool part is that the branches are linked! So in a case where you would use construct A in the active voice, you would use construct 3 in the passive voice. (Whoops. I labeled the diagram foolishly. I should have made 1 link to A. Too late now!) Oh, the power that is mine! Bwa. Ha. Haaaaaa.

 Also, I cannot in good conscience let you go without the briefest of explanations about why there are different constructs. On the active side, you have your basic, no-frills pa-al (e.g., I eat food); your slightly stronger pi-el (which can also be used for constant actions: I hug my baby gently, but since I hug him regularly, I use pi-el rather than pa-al to describe my hugging him); and my favorite, the acts-directly-upon-an-external-person/object hif-il (e.g., I feed my baby). Turns out that all three of these well-understood constructs have direct parallels on the passive side. And that's how you pick. I'm still in awe.

(If I were you, I'd be dying of curiosity right now, so I will generously let you know that the reflexive construct is called hit-pa-el and is for verbs that one does to oneself [e.g., to get dressed under one's own power] or that require a partner, but are reflexive [e.g., debating, getting married]. You're welcome for putting you out of your misery!)

The other wonderful thing that Keturah taught me today is that the irritating howling/yipping that I hear every night emanates neither from terrible children nor terrible dogs. It emanates from jackals, which in Hebrew are tanim. I was close when I guessed "coyotes" a few nights ago. Should have stuck with that instead of changing my mind to "little dogs."

Keturah also (can you guess that Keturah wins my Person of the Morning award?) articulated why I so desperately want to improve my Hebrew: I can communicate adequately, but I feel like my hands are tied. Yes! That is it to a T! I responded with the analogy of holding a baby, and having to do everything with one hand, and we shared a laugh.

Speaking of laughter, I gave up on Asimov's End of Eternity today (the percentage of words I knew was just too low) and switched to King's Bag of Bones. On the first page, one of the characters goes to a pharmacy called "עזרה נכונה." I was stumped: Correct Help? Appropriate Assistance? This is clearly supposed to be a real pharmacy chain... Maybe it's specific to Maine? Then it hit me: Rite-Aid!

In that same paragraph, the character visits a "קנו טוב." Buy Well? Shop Good? (Not Shop-Rite, because the translator has already shown he knows that "rite" is נכון, and this is טוב.) It can't be a Best Buy, because she wants to buy fish there, and it is a supermarket. I can't figure this one out. What do you think?