# Using "לבדי" for "by myself"



## refiZ

Is this a common or proper occurrence in modern conversational Hebrew?

When I searched it in Google, I saw it used in a few songs, but it was hard to see if it is used in colloquial speech.

I was just guessing it, because I have heard, "לבדו" somewhere, perhaps in something for Shabbat, and so it seemed natural in my thinking process.


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## amikama

In conversational Hebrew? Not very common; בעצמי is preferred to לבדי. 
Also לבד (without the suffix) is preferred to לבדי (with the suffix): עשיתי את זה לבד.


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## arielipi

אני בעצמי לעצמי מעצמי הוא סמן הדרך שלך לצערי.


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## hadronic

Knowing that levad means "alone, without anybody around", and be'atzmi  "by myself, without the help of anyone else".


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## refiZ

Thanks for the replies. 

I really like using these kind of pronomial suffixes - not because I have some sort of "purist vision" of Hebrew or want to sound pedantic, but because it is a construction  that doesn't exist in English so it feels exciting when it starts to come naturally.


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## origumi

amikama said:


> In conversational Hebrew? Not very common; בעצמי is preferred to לבדי.


אני רוצה לעשות את זה *לבדי* - with the meaning of - אני רוצה לעשות את זה *בעצמי* - would sound natural to my ears.

ADDED: and according to this thread they are interchangeable in English too.


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## DieHigh

origumi said:


> אני רוצה לעשות את זה *לבדי* - with the meaning of - אני רוצה לעשות את זה *בעצמי* - would sound natural to my ears.
> 
> ADDED: and according to this thread they are interchangeable in English too.



To me it sounds very unnatural and I wouldn't expect a native speaker to say that. I agree with amikama's answer.


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## origumi

DieHigh said:


> To me it sounds very unnatural and I wouldn't expect a native speaker to say that. I agree with amikama's answer.


Searching the Internet for לעשות את זה לבד, there are >90,000 results and the first results page is all (or almost all) לבד = by oneself (vs. לבד = alone = with nobody else).


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## DieHigh

origumi said:


> Searching the Internet for לעשות את זה לבד, there are >90,000 results and the first results page is all (or almost all) לבד = by oneself (vs. לבד = alone = with nobody else).



I meant that לבד*י* would sound unnatural to me in colloquial language. לבד is fine.


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