# Be and have



## Konstantinos

There are not hebrew expressions for the verbs be and have?

I *AM* here: אני כאן

One minute *HAS* sixty seconds: בדקה שישים שניות


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## arbelyoni

_To be_ - להיות.
I was here: הייתי כאן
I will be here: אהיה כאן
In these sentences, the verb להיות is used as a copula (אוגד) - it links the subject of a sentence (in this case, inside the verb itself) with a predicate.
In the present tense the copula is omitted (read more about zero copula here; we use it in a very similar way to Arabic).

As for _to have_, we don't have an equivalent verb, but we use the structure יש ל (literally: there is to...):
I have a car: יש לי מכונית (literally: there's a car to me)
She has the book: יש לה הספר
They had a cat: היה להם חתול
We will have an apartment: תהיה לנו דירה

One minute has sixty seconds: בדקה יש שישים שניות (literally: in a minute there are sixty seconds)


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## Drink

Konstantinos, since I know you are familiar with Russian, I will add that the usage of both of these constructs that arbelyoni describes is very similar to Russian.


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## airelibre

בדקה שישים שניות sounds more like Biblical Hebrew, since back then they didn't use יש as much. As Arbelyoni hinted at, nowadays it would be strange to leave out יש, which nowadays works as a verb. Back then it was just a particle or adjective (if I remember correctly what someone once said on this forum).


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## Codinome Shlomo

arbelyoni said:


> _To be_ - להיות.
> I was here: הייתי כאן
> I will be here: אהיה כאן
> In these sentences, the verb להיות is used as a copula (אוגד) - it links the subject of a sentence (in this case, inside the verb itself) with a predicate.
> In the present tense the copula is omitted (read more about zero copula here; we use it in a very similar way to Arabic).
> 
> As for _to have_, we don't have an equivalent verb, but we use the structure יש ל (literally: there is to...):
> I have a car: יש לי מכונית (literally: there's a car to me)
> She has the book: יש לה הספר
> They had a cat: היה להם חתול
> We will have an apartment: תהיה לנו דירה
> 
> One minute has sixty seconds: בדקה יש שישים שניות (literally: in a minute there are sixty seconds)



So it is not necessary to put the subject of the sentence? For example, is it possible to say: "נהיה בביתו" for "we'll be at his house" ?


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## airelibre

Codinome Shlomo said:


> So it is not necessary to put the subject of the sentence? For example, is it possible to say: "נהיה בביתו" for "we'll be at his house" ?


But that sentence has a subject:
נהיה subject "we will be"

I think it is more natural to say (נהיה אצלו (בבית


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## Drink

Codinome Shlomo said:


> So it is not necessary to put the subject of the sentence? For example, is it possible to say: "נהיה בביתו" for "we'll be at his house" ?



Historically speaking, the נ- prefix _is_ the subject pronoun. In modern times, however, forms like נהיה are usually reinforced with an extra pronoun (אנחנו), but they don't have to be.


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## arielipi

Ugh, like my girlfriend to day said:
היית נראית מקסים
theres no need for the hayit here - which shows how much hebrew has changed in the span of its 100 years revival.

>>> Moderator note: please continue the discussion about this phrase in this thread. <<<


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## Konstantinos

Thanks you everyone for the help. I understood well. And I am glad to see that the thread is active...

@ Drink, yes you are right. So far, in my mind, Greek - English have similarities and Hebrew - Russian too, in the field of the verbs be and have.


>>> Your (unrelated) query has been moved to a new thread. <<<


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