# like



## HarZait

1) "Like" can be the stand-alone כמו orthe prefix כְּ-.  When to use which?

...תודה מראש ו שבת שלום


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## Lyberty

Hello,

*כ*- is used before one word (מאושר כילד).  It's a more literature style.
*כמו* is used before a word or a phrase (מאושר כמו ילד קטן). It's also more coloquial. 

I think that it's safe to say that in all places where you use Ke-, you can use Kmo.


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## scriptum

Lyberty said:


> I think that it's safe to say that in all places where you use Ke-, you can use Kmo.


Ke and kemo are different words with different meanings.
Kemo: like
Ke: as

Example (taken from H. B. Rozen's "Ivrit tova"):
משה עובד כפקיד כמו סוס
and not
כסוס כמו פקיד


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## origumi

scriptum said:


> Ke and kemo are different words with different meanings.
> Kemo: like
> Ke: as
> 
> Example (taken from H. B. Rozen's "Ivrit tova"):
> משה עובד כפקיד כמו סוס
> and not
> כסוס כמו פקיד


I do not think that such distinction between the two is robust. You may find hundreds of examples that do not follow rule. Quick example:

ילחכו עפר *כ*נחש, כזחלי ארץ ירגזו ממסגרתיהם - מיכה ז' י"ז
שננו לשונם *כמו* נחש, חמת עכשוב תחת שפתימו סלה - תהילים ק"מ ד'


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## scriptum

Good morning everybody.
Origumi, I respectfully remind that HarZait's original question was "When to use which?"
The words in question seem to be synonymous in the Bible, not in the moderm language.


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## origumi

Naomi Shemer:
 
הובס הקרב נפלה העיר, *כ*סוס קרבות דוהר 
וכל השיר, וכל השיר- חדל בגלל מסמר. 

Dan Almagor

גדול הוא השוק ורבה הסחורה בו
הו אמא, אמא הביטי
אני פה עומד ומוצג למכירה בו
*כ*פרד, *כ*סוס בכיכר


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## scriptum

Origumi, kudos for your truly remarkable erudition. Now the answer to HarZait's question seems to be the following:
When writing poetry, you may use both words synonymously. In everyday speech you had better distinguish between them...


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## origumi

Let me try and look on ke- and kemo from a different perspective. Hebrew tends to shorten or contract prepositions, such as min (מן) => mi- (-מ), el אל => le- (-ל), et ha- (את ה) => ta (common in street talk). Old compounds like lemo (למו) and bemo (במו) have disappeared or under the process of being disappearing. This had happened already in Biblical times, common also to Arabic and therefore may be a proto-Semitic phenomenon (or more likely demonstrate parallel "natural" development), and continues even today (see the את example).

However, kemo is exceptional. Not only it survived, Hebrew speaker seem to prefer it over the shorter ke-. While for other cases the longer form may be regarded as "poetic", for kemo it's quite the opposite.

Therefore using ke- is against the everyday language in many cases. And yet, I guess that ke- is preferred in some specific instances. The rule of "like" vs. "as" sounds to me too broad, narrowing or refining it may provide better "usage instructions".


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## ahshav

While I would definitely agree that למו has pretty much disappeared, I don't think במו has, or is in the process. It is, at least today, a word with very narrow meaning/usage - and probably used in slightly more formal/fancy situations, but I'd say it's much more alive than, say, הלה.


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## amikama

I don't think there is a rule telling when to use כמו and when -כ. Maybe it's just a matter of style, register etc.


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