# This house is big



## אדם

Hey everyone,

I was looking at old posts from a long time ago, and I came across an example that said: _הזה גדול הבית_ which meant _this house is big_. I was just curious, why do you need to say _הזה_ and not _זה_? Does saying _זה גדול בית_ mean _*that* house is big_?

Thanks,

-
Adam


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## Aoyama

What you wrote is "hazé gadol haba'it", which is not correct.
Saying "zé gadol ba'it" is not correct either.
If you want to say "_this house is big_" , then it should be : 
haba'it hazé gadol
you could also say :
zé ba'it gadol (this is a big house)
or also :
haba'it hagadol hazé yafé (this big house is nice)
sorry, no Hebrew script here ...


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## Tamar

> haba'it hagadol hazé yafé


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## Aoyama

nakhon ...


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## אדם

תודה רבה.

I was actually going to ask why the order was like that.. I literally took it from an old post I had, so I figured it'd be right. That makes much more sense though, thank you 

So I could say the following?:
זה בית גדול
הבית הזה גדול

Why does הזה go after הגדול in הבית הגדול הזה יפה?

למה אני לא יכול אומר:
_הבית הזה הגדול הוא יפה_


Thanks for your help


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## scriptum

אדם said:


> תודה רבה. So I could say the following?:
> זה בית גדול
> הבית הזה גדול
> 
> למה אני לא יכול אומר:
> _הבית הזה הגדול הוא יפה_


The three sentences are correct, but they have different meanings.
זה בית גדול - it's a big house, or: this is a big house
הבית הזה גדול - this house is big
הבית הזה, הגדול, הוא יפה (mark the commas) - this house, the big one, is beautiful


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## אדם

תודה רבה!!

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks again.


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## MSZ

To answer the question:
למה אני לא יכול אומר:
_   *הבית הזה הגדול הוא יפה
_(I'm assuming you would still want the meaning _הבית הגדולֹ הזה הוא יפה_.)_Edit_: Actually, it should be לאמר, above, as pointed out by Aoyama in the post after this one.​It's for the same reason that you cannot say :
_*Big this house is beautiful_
- meaning _This big house is beautiul_ - in English

If you think of  phrases of the type _"this big house" , _you will observe that the demonstratives (1) _this_ and _that_  always precede "ordinary" adjective(s), and that the adjectives, in turn, precede the noun. That's just how it is in English.

In Hebrew, the situation is the "mirror image" of English: adjectives come *after* nouns, and the demonstratives come *after* the adjecives.

In either case, the demonstratives are on the far side of the adjectives from the noun, and if you break that pattern, you get "nonsense" in either language. 

(The fact that in Hebrew you can get away with ascribing a (different) meaning to the sentence, given proper intonation/punctuation, is not so relevant.)


As for your original question: 





> why do you need to say _הזה_ and not _זה_


It's a peculiarity of Hebrew that within a unit such as _this big house_ (a noun phrase) all modifiers have to have _ה_ or not, depending on whether the noun has _ה_
_זה_ counts as a modifier. 

So_ בית גדול זה_ , meaning _this big house, _is also perfectly OK (notice, no ה anywhere) - though this is not colloquial and perhaps archaic/bookish, but that's a question of style.

Don't know if this helps - or helps to confuse ...


(1) _ this, that: _specifiers, adjectives, deictics  - call them what you will; every grammar and tradition has a different name


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## Aoyama

> למה אני לא יכול *אומר*


lamah ani lo yakhol *l*omar (not omar)/laagid/likhtov. You need lamed for infinitive (why can't I say/tell/write).


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## Tomer

You could also say: Habait haze anak.


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## OsehAlyah

MSZ said:


> If you think of  phrases of the type _"this big house" , _you will observe that the demonstratives (1) _this_ and _that_  always precede "ordinary" adjective(s), and that the adjectives, in turn, precede the noun. That's just how it is in English.


Great post MSZ however, it brought a question to mind for me. In English I can say the following in perfectly correct form:
Beautiful is, this big house.

So the order you specified above appears to be broken, at least for English. Are there such equivalents for Hebrew?

Thanks
ר


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## amikama

OsehAlyah said:


> Great post MSZ however, it brought a question to mind for me. In English I can say the following in perfectly correct form:
> Beautiful is, this big house.
> 
> So the order you specified above appears to be broken, at least for English. Are there such equivalents for Hebrew?


I would say:
יפה, הבית הגדול הזה.


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## OsehAlyah

amikama said:


> I would say:
> יפה, הבית הגדול הזה.


Ahhhh so this is proper Hebrew then? This is awesome. Great to know. There seems to be room for poeticism and literacy. 

Thank you Amikama.
ר


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## ickodelcampo

The first thing that struck me from אדם initial post/thread was that it could be "eize gadol habaiet" - "איזה גדול הבית" as in 'Wow!' "What a big house!" because - since I've been away from Israel for 27 years and left at the age of 7, I read the ה in the beginning as ei which to me sounded like 'אי' could this also be said in Hebrew?? or is it very improper???

thanks in advance for your comments¬¬ :O)


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