Hebrew is my newest crush...
Hebrew tenses are kind of weird: verbs in the past and future tense both agree with the person and gender of their subject, but in the present tense, they only agree with gender. But for some reason I love the idea of verbs only agreeing with the gender of their subject. It's also kind of cool, because it means that the present tense is the only tense where verbs agree with gender in the first person.
I'm pretty sure I've noticed this before, but because present tense verbs show the gender of their subject, as do second/third person pronouns, the phrase "I love you" tells both the gender of the speaker and the person being addressed. But first person pronouns don't show gender, "you love me" only tells the gender of "you". And in both the past and future tenses, first person verbs don't show gender either, so "I loved you" or "I will love you" are similarly ambiguous as to my gender.
Ani ohevet otcha (female to male)
Ani ohevet otach (female to female)
Ani ohev otcha (male to male)
Ani ohev otach (male to female)
At ohevet oti: "You(female) love me."
Ahavti otach: "I loved you(female)."
Ohev otach: "I will love you (female).
And verb conjugations are so much easier to think about in the Hebrew alphabet than with the Latin alphabet. x_x
It's kind of amazing: Everything seems so crazy and inconsistant in the Latin alphabet, and it makes so much sense with the Hebrew alphabet. Because it *is* crazy and inconsistant, but there's a pattern to it, and Latin alphabet obscures the patterns while the Hebrew alphabet makes them jump out at you. Though it's still annoying that I can't read Hebrew aloud without already knowing the word and the form it's in.
The other annoying thing is that I never know how many dictionary entries are in any given word. And by "annoying", I mean "yay I love it." Like, "uksheharuchot" is written as one word, but it comprises four dictionary entries: u (and), kshe (when), ha (the), ruchot (winds). So it means "and when the winds", but unless you can recognize each of the morphemes, you have to look up every possible combination of letters individually until you come up with something reasonable. And since "k" on its own means "like/as" and "she" means "that/which/who", you could come up with something like "and like the winds that."
I'm pretty sure I've noticed this before, but because present tense verbs show the gender of their subject, as do second/third person pronouns, the phrase "I love you" tells both the gender of the speaker and the person being addressed. But first person pronouns don't show gender, "you love me" only tells the gender of "you". And in both the past and future tenses, first person verbs don't show gender either, so "I loved you" or "I will love you" are similarly ambiguous as to my gender.
Ani ohevet otcha (female to male)
Ani ohevet otach (female to female)
Ani ohev otcha (male to male)
Ani ohev otach (male to female)
At ohevet oti: "You(female) love me."
Ahavti otach: "I loved you(female)."
Ohev otach: "I will love you (female).
And verb conjugations are so much easier to think about in the Hebrew alphabet than with the Latin alphabet. x_x
It's kind of amazing: Everything seems so crazy and inconsistant in the Latin alphabet, and it makes so much sense with the Hebrew alphabet. Because it *is* crazy and inconsistant, but there's a pattern to it, and Latin alphabet obscures the patterns while the Hebrew alphabet makes them jump out at you. Though it's still annoying that I can't read Hebrew aloud without already knowing the word and the form it's in.
The other annoying thing is that I never know how many dictionary entries are in any given word. And by "annoying", I mean "yay I love it." Like, "uksheharuchot" is written as one word, but it comprises four dictionary entries: u (and), kshe (when), ha (the), ruchot (winds). So it means "and when the winds", but unless you can recognize each of the morphemes, you have to look up every possible combination of letters individually until you come up with something reasonable. And since "k" on its own means "like/as" and "she" means "that/which/who", you could come up with something like "and like the winds that."