# If you see him



## Ali Smith

Shalom, should I use the present tense or the future tense when translating the protasis (if-clause)? For example, if I want to say "If you see him, ask him where to put the big suitcase." should I say אם אתה רואה אותו, שאל אותו היכן לשים את המזוודה הגדולה. or אם תראה אותו, שאל אותו היכן לשים את המזוודה הגדולה.?

Thanks!


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## slus

Formally the future tense. Colloquially you can use the present tense, probably due to influences from English.


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## Abaye

Or in biblical language, the infinitive construct בראותך אותו.


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## Ali Smith

Thank you!
How would you transliterate בראותך though? be-ri’otakh?


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## Drink

bir'ot'cha


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## elroy

Drink said:


> bir'ot'cha


 Why the second apostrophe?


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## Egmont

elroy said:


> Why the second apostrophe?


To separate the "t" and "ch" and show that they are separate consonants, so an English speaker isn't tempted to pronounce them like the last three letters of "match."


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## elroy

I would have used a different symbol for that (maybe a hyphen), since the other apostrophe was presumably used to indicate the optional glottal stop (i.e. for a different reason entirely).

Incidentally, 


Egmont said:


> so an English speaker isn't tempted to pronounce them like the last three letters of "match."


 This could be avoided by using “kh” or “x.”


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## Drink

The common practice in Hebrew transliterations is that apostrophes have two uses: one is for the consonants א and ע, and the other is for a shva na. I know it's confusing but that's just what people do. Now why did I even bother to indicate a shva na here? I don't know, since for Israelis it is silent here anyway. I guess it's just a habit of mine to indicate shva na properly, it just looks wrong to me otherwise.


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