Lesson 39: At the Doctor

When you don’t feel well, you need to explain what’s wrong. Hebrew has a neat, fixed way to say something hurts — once you learn the pattern, you can plug in any body part.

At the clinic

Grammar: “it hurts me”

Hebrew doesn’t say “my head hurts”. Instead it says “hurts to-me the head”, using כּוֹאֵב (ko’ev) + a “to-me/to-you” word

• the body part with “the”:

Hebrew	Romanization	English
כּוֹאֵב לִי הָרֹאשׁ	ko’ev li harosh	my head hurts (lit. “hurts to-me the head”)
כּוֹאֵב לְךָ הַגָּרוֹן?	ko’ev lecha hagaron?	does your throat hurt?

For more than one body part, use the plural כּוֹאֲבִים (ko’avim): כּוֹאֲבִים לִי הָרַגְלַיִם (ko’avim li haraglayim, “my legs hurt”).

You can also use יֵשׁ לִי (yesh li, “I have”) for symptoms, and צָרִיךְ (tsarich, “need to”)

• an infinitive for advice.

Tip: לִי (li) = to me, לְךָ (lecha) = to you (m.), לָךְ (lach) = to you (f.). Same little words you’ll use everywhere.

Vocabulary