# Make sure you work hard



## airelibre

How would you say in Hebrew 'make sure', in the context of 'make sure you work hard'? It seems like a slightly different meaning to 'make sure he gets the message' because you could replace the second sentence with 'confirm he gets the message'. Morfix says that ensure is הבטיח, but this means promise, which to me is different because it implies making a vow, whereas 'ensuring something happens' just means that the person will do whatever necessary to make something happen, but with no promises of success.
Thoughts?


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## arielipi

שורש ב-ט-ח
in addition to be promise, is also to ensure/insure, absolute,safe,trust - which are all connected to faith in truth of the variant.
Depending on the  form this shoresh takes, it can be any of those above; one of the cases where its not 1:1 translation.

You can always use tidag instead of b-t-kh, as in make sure you work hard.


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## GeriReshef

Morfix is correct, though הבטיח has several meanings.
For example- Quality Assurance in Hebrew is אבטחת איכות (the same root as להבטיח).
In coloqial we would probably say לוודא (binyan piel).


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## airelibre

I thought that might be the case. 
The problem with that is that in English:
-Make sure that you work hard.
-Ok/I will etc.
(No promises made)
If you use הבטיח in the equivalent Hebrew sentence, will the reply not be מטיח/ה? This could hold someone to a promise. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but I'm just making sure that the translation doesn't allow for different consequences to follow.

Also: tidag. How do you spell it since I'm only familiar with אל תדאג/י?
As long as לוודא is understood colloquially, I'm quite happy about using that.


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## C_J

Yes, even though הבטיח has exactly the meaning you're looking for, it does sound like you want a promise.

As for ד.א.ג and ו.ד.א, I don't think that they're colloquial. I'd even say that the ד.א.ג is of lower register in this case as it literally means "to worry" unlike לוודא which literally means "to ascertain", "to verify". In my opinion this is another case of  recent Europeanisation - this Hebrew verb seemingly acquired its countepart's (care/concern) secondary meaning. While in English it is possible to distinguish between the meanings ("I care about my son" vs "I'm taking care of my son"), in Hebrew in many cases it's indistinguishable (אני דואג לבני). The solution for that is to use passive for "worry/concern" and active for "take care of/make sure", which in turn causes many people to use bizarre constructs such as "אל תהיה מודאג" (since הופעל is passive and doesn't have an imperative, and "אל תֻּדְאַג" sounds awkward)...

According to my Even-Shushan dictionary (2006) וִדֵּא = "check and find out if it's true/that it was carried out as planned". No promisses and no worries... And the third meaning of דָּאַג is "tried/made an effort to take care of..."


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## airelibre

Thanks, thinking about it again. If I didn't want a promise, I would simply say something like "work hard", or "you'll work hard, ok?" and I'd use הבטיח if I wanted confirmation of that, which removes the confusion. But I suppose there are some cases where you need an equivalent of make sure. Eg. giving advice to someone you don't know well but wanting them to do well: so would תוודא/י לעבוד בנחישות, כי המבחן הזה קשה מאד  
and
תדאג/י שתעבוד/שתעבדי בנחישות, כי המבחן הזה קשה מאד
be correct?


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## hadronic

Can one say : תהיה בטוח לעבוד קשה ?


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## tFighterPilot

hadronic said:


> Can one say : תהיה בטוח לעבוד קשה ?


Nope. תהיה בטוח means "Be assured", that is the speaker assures the one he speaks to.


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## C_J

airelibre said:


> Thanks, thinking about it again. If I didn't want a promise, I would simply say something like "work hard", or "you'll work hard, ok?" and I'd use הבטיח if I wanted confirmation of that, which removes the confusion. But I suppose there are some cases where you need an equivalent of make sure. Eg. giving advice to someone you don't know well but wanting them to do well: so would תוודא/י לעבוד בנחישות, כי המבחן הזה קשה מאד
> and
> תדאג/י שתעבוד/שתעבדי בנחישות, כי המבחן הזה קשה מאד
> be correct?


Your examples seem to be correct grammatically, but there are some formallity issues that affect the meaning significantly (a command vs a request vs an advice). I can't point out a general rule since so much depends on the context and setting (speaking to subordinates/friends/strangers), but it does seem that the shorter you phrase itת the "bossier" you sound. Also, although "לעבוד בנחישות" is a good term, it is of higher register and the more casual option would be "לעבוד קשה" as hadronic suggested (but this might need to be rephrase to avoid מבחן קשה - לעבוד קשה).

If you refer to studying, I suggest that you use לתרגל/ללמוד/להתכונן as לעבוד has a general "physical work" connotation (unless you specify "לעבוד על התרגילים/שיעורי הבית")


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## airelibre

So לעבוד קשהis used? Is that 'proper' Hebrew, because it sounds like Anglicisation to me? Similarly, לקחת זמן, is that 'proper Hebrew', since לקחת תמונה isn't, even though it is used by some?

I like the advice about studying examples. Would these be totally fine:
לתרגל היטב
להתכונן היטב
ללמוד היטב 
?


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## C_J

These "לקחת מקלחת/תמונה" really crack me up. The first things that comes to my mind is "לקחת לאן? למה ולמה?". We have real verbs for that: להתקלח/לצלם.
As for "לקחת זמן", you mean in the sense of "This will need a long time"? That will be "אורך זמן" English influenced informal "לוקח זמן" is common too.

I must admit that adverbs can be tricky in Hebrew... There are four types of adverbs: unique adverbs (למעלה, מהר, הרבה...), adjectives (יפה, ברור), nouns + בכל"מ 
(בריצה, לחלוטין), and the super rare adj/n with the kamatz mem suffix (ריק > ריקם)

The first one and the third one are actually the most common. As for the adjectives that are also adverbs, they are rare and very confusing. Fourth type is super rare and only exist in some proverbs and the like.

היטב is a unique adverb, and thus is perfectly correct. 
קשה as you noticed, is a regular adj, and the current widespread use of "לעבוד קשה" is probably due to English/German/Yiddish influence (hart/schwer arbeiten).
So yes, the proper advs are "במרץ", "במאמץ רב", בעמל רב".

I know that קשה and its variant קשות are used in some particular cases, but I'm not absolutely sure if it's appropriate to use them with "לעבוד".


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## hadronic

I've always wondered. Why didn't Hebrew revitalists choose -am as the regular adverb formant ?
retsinam, gdolam, kasham... Well, I know, it's too late


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## tFighterPilot

hadronic said:


> I've always wondered. Why didn't Hebrew revitalists choose -am as the regular adverb formant ?
> retsinam, gdolam, kasham... Well, I know, it's too late


Perhaps because it didn't exist even in biblical Hebrew?


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## C_J

hadronic said:


> I've always wondered. Why didn't Hebrew revitalists choose -am as the regular adverb formant ?
> retsinam, gdolam, kasham... Well, I know, it's too late



Because There are only a few examples in the bible, and then there are a bunch more from later religious writings (where use of some adjs as advs is recorded). By the eay there are also a few cases with ות suffix like קשות (maybe this was borrowed from Aramaic as well, or maybe it's a vestigial remainder from some archaic form?).

During restoration they tried to actually restore as much as possible, and this is still the tendency of the Academy today.
And besides, any changes to the unique adverbs will feel just too artificial ( קדימה, עכשיו, אתמול,הרבה,למען)


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