# Are there other choices besides גר ?



## Eddie

A very good afternoon to all. Here's another question from a poor struggling soul (me).

I already know that if I want to say I live in Israel, for example; I would say:

.אני גר בישראל 

Do Israelis also say:

.אני חי בישראל 

as the French and Spanish speakers do in their respective languages?

This verb is given as an equivalent on the Melingo website.

Any help you could throw my way would be most appreciated.

Ed


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## rosemarino

You raise an intriguing translation problem, Eddie.  
My guess is you could say לחיות בישראל, if you were emphasizing the nature of your existence there, rather than where you reside, e.g., 
אנחנו חיים כאן בישראל עם הבעיות  

While waiting for a native speaker to reply, I will cite some examples I have gleaned from Israeli literature and/or speakers:

An Israeli woman quoted in a newspaper article about the rockets falling in Sderot:

אני חושבת על התושבים בשדרות איך הם חיים

From a novel by  מאיר שלו, _בביתו במדבר_

בבלוק חמש ... *גרה* משפחה ולה שני בנים....הבן הצעיר עזב את הבית ושמעתי שהוא *חי* בקיבוץ.

So I add this question to yours:  could the verbs לגור and לחיות be interchangeable in any of these examples?


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## Eddie

Thank you for your response, Rosemarino.


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## Nunty

גר is very similar to _reside_ in English; it refers to a place. חי is more like _live_ in the fuller sense.


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## Eddie

Thanks, Nunty. So then I can assume that חי can't be used as an alternative to  גר.


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## rosemarino

The confusing thing here for English speakers is that the verb "to live" in English has two meanings, to reside and to exist, be alive.  In Hebrew these two meanings have two different verbs, לגור and לחיות, respectively.  So maybe to choose the right one you should ask yourself if the verb to live in English could be to reside, and then choose לגור.  If it's to exist or be in alive in a certain way, it's probably לחיות.

Here's a great example from a song by Shalom Chanoch:

בדירה קטנה, חשוכה מעט, לא רחוק מכאן בסמטה בצד, *גר* בחור אחד עם אישה אחת ,*חיים* מכל הבא ליד

בהצלחה!


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## Eddie

I understand and appreciate what you're saying, rosemarino. The same distinctions exist in English, French, and Spanish... just to name a few.

In French, one can say:

Je vis dans une ville assez grande (as well as using the more traditional verbs for residence)... where existence is neither implied nor intended.

Likewise, in Spanish, one can say:

Vivo en una ciudad bastante grande.

Both vivre and vivir function to express residence as well as existence.

I was wondering whether the same use applied to Hebrew.

As I said earlier, חי  is given as an alternative on the following website: http://milon.morfix.co.il/?q=reside


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## RaLo18

חי, like in English, can mean both living and residing. גר can only mean residing.
I don't know if there's a rule, but to me, חי sounds more appropriate when the sentence refers to a move, like in rosemarino's example from Meir Shalev's book, or a temporal residence, for example: אני חי בניו-יורק כבר חמש שנים.
Both would work perfectly fine with גר, by the way.


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## Eddie

Thank you so much, RaLo. That's the answer I was waiting to hear. Happy Sabbath!


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