# כמה זמן נותר



## cfu507

הי, כיצד תאמרו באנגלית:
כמה זמן נותר לנו לשוחח לפני שמתחיל השיעור? נותרו חמש עשרה דקות לתחילת השיעור
תודה​


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## Nunty

How much longer can we [_or_ do we have to] talk before the lesson?
There are five minutes left [before the lesson]. _Or_ We have five more minutes.


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## Flaminius

Hello *NT*,

Isn't the remaining time fifteen minutes?  

Beside the nitpick I have two questions.
1. What does נותרו mean?  נותר לו?
2. How does לשוחח (leshocheach?) conjugate?  Milon Morfix says it is binyan pi`el but where does the vov come from?


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## Nunty

Flaminius said:


> Hello *NT*,
> 
> Isn't the remaining time fifteen minutes?


Wasn't that ten minutes ago?


Flaminius said:


> Beside the nitpick I have two questions.
> 1. What does נותרו mean?  נותר לו?


"remain", "are left". You can look it up under הותר. 



Flaminius said:


> 2. How does לשוחח (leshocheach?) conjugate?  Milon Morfix says it is binyan pi`el but where does the vov come from?


 Talking about grammar is my weakest point and I'm sure someone else will come to your rescue. It's one of those yud-vav things that I don't know how to explain.


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## Flaminius

Thanks.

I am aware that _notar_ is "to remain" but what does _notaru_(?) mean?


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## elroy

נותרו (pronounced _notru_) is simply the third-person plural form of the same verb.   It's formally in the past tense.


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## Tamar

I have another suggestion: how much time do we have left before class?



> "remain", "are left". You can look it up under הותר


You can look it up under נותר, I think it gives a better result (I looked it up in my Even Shoshan).



> Originally Posted by *Flaminius*
> 
> 
> 2. How does לשוחח (leshocheach?) conjugate? Milon Morfix says it is binyan pi`el but where does the vov come from?
> Talking about grammar is my weakest point and I'm sure someone else will come to your rescue. It's one of those yud-vav things that I don't know how to explain.


You're right Nun-Translator, it is "gizrat ain-vav" גזרת ע"ו, binyan piel (again, checked my Even Shoshan). It took me a long time to understand what "gizra" גזרה means. When we say גזרה ע"ו it means that the letter 'vav' is in the "ain" 'ע' position in the word פעל (and when we say גזרת פ"א, for exemple, we mean that the letter 'א' is in the position of the 'פ' in the word פעל and so on). So, לשוחח is גזרת ע"ו in בניין פיעל. 
Flaminius, you can conjugate any "gizra" in any binyan (I counted 9 "gizrot". If you want to know more, don't hesitate...).
Oh, and the 'vav': the 'vav' is arbitrary, that is just how the verb is (and it's impossible to change its "gizra").


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## Flaminius

elroy said:


> נותרו (pronounced _notru_) is simply the third-person plural form of the same verb.   It's formally in the past tense.


Thanks for the morphological info.  I am now a bit confused.  What is a preterite form doing here?


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## elroy

It literally means "have remained."


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## Flaminius

Okay, thanks.  Great to find an aspectual use of the "past" forms in Modern Hebrew.


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## david314

Tamar said:


> I have another suggestion:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *How much time do we have left* to chat before class begins?
> 
> 
> 
> I believe that I would chose the above version.
Click to expand...


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