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Learn, Practice, and Perfect Your Hebrew: Weary, Bleary-Eyed, and Spent

The StreetWise podcast from TLV1 in Israel can help you use Hebrew to talk about how utterly exhausted you are

by
Rose Kaplan
March 08, 2016

Ani ayefa me-chayim, I’m tired of life. Ayefa met, dead tired. Oh, sorry, not actually. I’m just practicing my Hebrew thanks to Guy Sharett’s StreetWise Hebrew TLV1 podcast.

Seriously, though: Whether we live in Tel Aviv, New York City, or anywhere else in the Diaspora, feeling tired, exhausted, and drained like a dead battery are commonplace, especially in our always-on, networked environments. In this episode of StreetWise Hebrew, Sharett runs over some common language for ayefoot (tiredness) that you can use to tell your Hebrew-speaking friends just how shafuch (wiped—literally “spilled” in Hebrew) you are; so wiped, perhaps, that “nishpachti al ha-sapa,” “I crashed on the sofa” (literally, “I got spilled on the sofa”). (Along the way, Sharett shares this fantastic Rami Kletinstein pop tune with a country twang—think ’80s Don Henley, maybe.)

As always, follow along with the words and phrases below as you listen.

Words and expressions discussed:

Ayef, Ayefa – עָיֵף, עֲיֵפָה

Ayefoot – עֲיֵפוּת

Mi-ma ata ayef – ?מִמָּה אַתָּה עָיֵף

Ani ayef me-avoda – אֲנִי עָיֵף מֵעֲבוֹדָה

Ani shafuch – אֲנִי שָׁפוּך

Nishpachti al ha-sapa – נִשְפַּכְתִּי עַל הַסַּפָּה

Ani ma’uch tilim – אֲנִי מָעוּך טִילִים

Kamti hafuch – קַמְתִּי הָפוּך

Gamur – גָּמוּר

Karu’a me-ayefoot – קָרוּעַ מֵעֲיֵפוּת

Mootash – מוּתָש

Lenaker – לְנַקֵּר

Rose Kaplan is an intern at Tablet.