Straight forward. This page is going to teach you two things
1: The meaning of the word “friend” in Hebrew.
2: How to find a Hebrew friend.
The thing is that people who come here look for those two things. Let’s first talk about how to say “friend” in Hebrew, then talk about making Hebrew friends.
The word friend in Hebrew
In Hebrew, the word for “friend” differs in gender. A male friend has a word and a female friend has another word. But good news is that the difference is just grammatical and tiny:
- The Hebrew word for a male friend “chaver”
Written this way:
And pronounced like this:Friend in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
The Hebrew word for a female friend is “chavera”
Written like this:
And pronounced like this:Female Friend in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
The male plural form is “chaverim”
Written like this:
Pronounced like this:Friends in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
The female plural form is “chaverot”
Written like this:
Pronounced like this:Female Friends in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
Israelis, when talking about friends, they tend to say “a friend of mine”, “a friend of ours” etc. Rather than saying directly “my friend” or “our friend”.
To say a friend of mine in Hebrew:
Friend of Mine in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
Chaver Sheli – חבר שלי
OR (for a female friend)
Female Friend of Mine in Hebrew (Audio Pronunciation)
Chavera Sheli – חברה שלי
I wanted to teach you as well how to say “a friend of ours”, “a friend of his” etc. But I thought I would save your time. If you would be interested in knowing more forms, let me know in a comment. I will either put more forms here, or I will just go ahead and e-mail you some.
Now, let’s move on
How to make Hebrew friends
Many Jewish people (mostly European and older ones) tend to be kind of paranoid online (isn’t all of us anyway?), probably because of the unkind history that hasn’t all died yet.
Anyway, most Hebrew speakers (Israelis and Jews all around the world) have become very friendly, more open than ever. They appreciate it alot when they know you just started to learn Hebrew! They would even usually ask you to try it out and say something in Hebrew to them.
Finding a Hebrew-speaking friend has become very easy today, the internet websites are full of Hebrew speakers, but the questions is who would you talk to without getting them bored? After all, we wouldn’t like people to know us for something.
Best way is to find a Hebrew speaker who is learning your language, or at least who is learning a language and shares the language love with you. Then your relationship will certainly be interesting and inspiring for both of you.
There are a few ways to find Hebrew language partners online, my favorite is LiveMocha.
With LiveMocha, you get some useless “sorry, yes useless” lessons and then you get wonderful exercises and “submissions”, when you do these exercises, you get reviews and feedback from Hebrew native speakers who would usually be generous enough to correct your mistakes and guide you through the right answers.
The great advantage of finding Hebrew friends this way is that those friend would certainly be extremely interested in language learning (since they are language learners themselves) and even more wonderful, they would be willing to help (they already have somehow!).
Another way to find Hebrew-speaking friends is using iTalki. But the issue with iTalki is that most of the Hebrew speakers there are actually there for commercial reason rather than passion. Because iTalki offers them sometimes the opportunity to teach Hebrew for money. So you can’t really treat them as “friends”.
Now the big question:
Can I make Hebrew-speaking friends on Facebook?
Hmm… Think about it. Those Israelis out there on Facebook are not there to teach you Hebrew! Sorry, no matter how interested you are in learning a foreign language, they don’t have to be. So be careful who you add there. If you find them on a Facebook page or group for Hebrew or languages learners, then go ahead and contact them, they might be interested in exchanging language partnership with you. They help you learn better Hebrew while you help them with your native language.
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