# generic you



## trigel

In colloquial Hebrew the "generic you" (brought from English, used to put the audience in the situation/shoes of a generic person) is by default masculine singular (no matter what the gender composition of your audience is), unless the "you" refers to a necessarily feminine generic person, for example "when you menstruate..."

This is especially true in spoken Hebrew where gender-neutrality would be time-consuming (to say things like "you-ms or you-fs verb-ms or verb-fs").

Am I right? (It actually shouldn't be particularly jarring if that is the case, considering that all other indefinite/generic pronouns are masculine singular.)


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## origumi

trigel said:


> In colloquial Hebrew the "generic you" (*brought from English*, used to put the audience in the situation/shoes of a generic person) is by default masculine singular (no matter what the gender composition of your audience is), unless the "you" refers to a necessarily feminine generic person, for example "when you menstruate..."


What is brought from English?


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## GeriReshef

It seems to be right, but as there are no examples and only theoretical rules- I'm not sure I understood you well..


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## Tararam

I had no idea this was called "Generic you" until I looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

I don't know if there's a rule about these situations. When I think of sentences of this kind I come up with different translations.
"Brushing your teeth is healthy" = צחצוח השיניים הוא בריא
or לצחצח שיניים זה בריא

"If you (one) want(s) something to be done, you (one) must do it yourself (themselves)" = אם רוצים שמשהו ייעשה, יש לעשות אותו בעצמכם
or אם אתה רוצה שמשהו ייעשה, יש לעשות אותו בעצמך
When speaking to a woman, the second translation will take the feminine form (את). The first one will not (it will stay רוצים)

I hope this helps...


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## trigel

As for there being no examples, sorry... I'll try to fix that aspect from now on.

I can't post video links and I don't remember the exact thing he was talking about, but I have seen a guy in a talk show speaking to a woman using אתה in a position where generic you would be used in English. It was a string of events that "you" would go through.

As you said, other contexts like giving advice might obey different rules. I'll either try to find examples or stand (dis)proven.


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## BezierCurve

I always thought it was the third person plural (used impersonally, without "they") that served that purpose, so, an English sentence like

"You can buy cheap shoes in this shop"

would be literally translated into Hebrew as:

"[They] buy cheap shoes in this shop".

So, can you use "you" instead? Has it changed just recently?


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## trigel

If it exists, perhaps it's limited to things that happen to "you". This guy was, I think, telling a story about an event in his life and using this construction.

Maybe it agrees with the gender of the speaker as happens here (in colloquial Arabic: http://lughat.blogspot.com/2007/09/impersonal-vs-personal-you.html) Hopefully this link will clarify a bit more the kind of conversational context I was describing.


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## Tararam

You mean this sentence: "When you go by bus, it takes a while"?


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## airelibre

I usually get round this by saying איש, בן אדם. I don't know what the preferred way of saying would be, though.


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## C_J

I think I know exactly what you mean trigel, I stumbled on such cases  when I was proofreading translations from English to Hebrew.

For  instance: "When such a thing happens to you, you don't expect everything  to be as it was before" or "When you're bored you usually look for  something to occupy yourself with"
If in these cases the "you" is  generic and not personal (can be substituted by "one"), the generic colloquial and  grammatically correct examples could be: 
"כשדבר כזה קורה [למישהו], לא מצפים שהכול יהיה כמו שזה היה לפני זה" 
"כש[למישהו]משעמם, בדרך כלל מחפשים תעסוקה/משהו לעסוק בו (או משהו להתעסק איתו"

But  yes, there is a widespread use of Hebrew "personal you" to address an  unspecified person/s or express a generic statement, so in many  cases (sometimes even in _most _cases) you will see
"כשזה קורה לך, אתה לא מצפה שהכול יהיה כמו שזה היה לפני זה"
"כשמשעמם לך, אתה בדרך כלל מחפש משהו שיעסיק אותך"
In  this case, most speakers will make the pronouns agree with the  listener's/s' gender and number as if they were speaking personally and  not in general (אתה>את/אתם), but you can usually still tell apart between  personal/generic by the ammount of emphasis on the pronouns("כשזה קורה *לך*, *אתה *לא  מצפה שהכול יהיה כמו שזה היה לפני זה"). This is not "borrowed from  English", but just used to emphasise the informality and perhaps to  imply that the listeners should imagine themselves in the described  scenario (just like in English and other lnguages).

And yes,  some people make the pronouns agree with _themselves_  and not the listener/s. especially when they're talking in general, but have  themselves personally in mind: "כשאני ממהרת לעבודה בבוקר, אין לי זמן  לעצמי" 
>"כשאת ממהרת לעבודה בבוקר, אין לך זמן לעצמך". Therefore, a female speaker can say to a male listener "כשאת בהריון/מניקה".

And  finally, there is a growing acceptance of the irregular exlusive use of  "אתה" and its equivalents (yet it is considered highly informal). This  last phenomenon, as you've noticed, probably caused by the high rate of  multilinguality in Israel and reflects the strong influence of English  and/or Russian in practicular (often comes hand in hand with such jewels  such as "taking a picture = לקחת תמונה" and the like).


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## Tararam

Haha... this reminds me of something.
When watching TV, you often hear during interviews a man using the "generic" you in the feminine form:
"כשאת יודעת מה את רוצה, את עושה את זה" (When you know what you want, you do it) which discloses the gender of the interviewer, in this case - a woman.


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## trigel

C_J said:


> And  finally, there is a growing acceptance of the irregular exlusive use of  "אתה" and its equivalents (yet it is considered highly informal). This  last phenomenon, as you've noticed, probably caused by the high rate of  multilinguality in Israel and reflects the strong influence of English  and/or Russian in practicular (often comes hand in hand with such jewels  such as "taking a picture = לקחת תמונה" and the like).



.כפי שאמרתי, לדעתי ההתפתחות הזאת מתרחשת משום שהיא תואמת את הדפוס בו כינויים סתמיים אחרים הם ממין זכר אם לא מציינים נשים או חופצים נקביים


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## C_J

trigel said:


> .כפי שאמרתי, לדעתי ההתפתחות הזאת מתרחשת משום שהיא תואמת את הדפוס בו כינויים סתמיים אחרים הם ממין זכר אם לא מציינים נשים או חופצים נקביים



Maybe, but this still is an erroneous usage. Personal pronouns are not indefinite, and are not interchangeable. Hebrew "ata" strongly implies you are referring to 2nd person m (unlike English "you" or Russian "ты" which are often used "generically").

The correct, natural and "short" way would be using the infinitive, or default plural (without pronouns):
"One does not simply walk into mordor"  [="you do not simply walk into mordor"]
"זה לא פשוט להיכנס למורדור", "למורדור לא נכנסים בקלות"

Indefinite pronoun changes the meaning a bit:
"איש לא יכול להיכנס למורדור בקלות"
Personal pronoun used for present company:
"אתה לא יכול להיכנס למורדור בקלות"
Might be found in legal usage:
"את/ה לא יכול/ה להיכנס למורדור בקלות"


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