# אי פעם



## sawyeric1

"Ever". Ex:

Have you ever been to Jerusalem?
?היית אי פעם בירושלים

What does the אי mean in this expression? 

Also, is it true that the אי is often omitted so that פעם by itself means "ever"?

Thanks


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## Drink

Literally, אי mean "which" or "any", like איזה. But it's only used in foxed expressions.


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## sawyeric1

sawyeric1 said:


> Also, is it true that the אי is often omitted so that פעם by itself means "ever"?


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## Drink

It's not that the אי is omitted, it's that it's not always necessary.


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## sawyeric1

How many of you have ever spilled coffee on a keyboard?
כמה מכם שפכו פעם קפה על מקלדת?

It seems like it should be "אי פעם" because you can't say "one time" here in English


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## Drink

This is Hebrew, not English.


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## sawyeric1

Drink said:


> This is Hebrew, not English.


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## Drink

I'm trying to say that this:


> It seems like it should be "אי פעם" because you can't say "one time" here in English



is not valid reasoning.


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## sawyeric1

Sure it is. You can generally expect words with the same meanings to behave similarly across languages


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## Drink

And how many languages do you know? That's totally not true.


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## sawyeric1

K. I'll let someone else answer my question then. Thanks. 



sawyeric1 said:


> How many of you have ever spilled coffee on a keyboard?
> כמה מכם שפכו פעם קפה על מקלדת?
> 
> It seems like it should be "אי פעם" because you can't say "one time" here in English


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## bazq

Both פעם and אי פעם can be used here.

"How many of you have *once* spilled coffee on a keyboard?"
Not the most everyday conversational English, but it's comprehensible I think.

Regarding this remark: "You can generally expect words with the same meanings to behave similarly across languages", It's much too broad of a claim to be taken seriously.
Some things are strongly correlated cross-linguistically, some things clearly aren't.

Only a sith deals with absolutes.


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## sawyeric1

What it means is that there is nothing wrong with applying your reasoning about your native language to try to understand another. It is perfectly natural and logical. Everyone brings their knowledge of their native language to the table when they're learning another language. So I don't see the problem with taking that approach

"Only a sith deals with absolutes" is an absolute statement


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## Drink

Your approach is fine for the most part. The only problem is that when you do find a difference between two languages, you shouldn't be surprised or assume it's wrong. You should accept it as it is and learn from it.


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## sawyeric1

I think you were reading into my reaction a little too much

It was just an observation


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