How to say “used to be” in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/פעם-היה-1.m4a” /]פַּעַם הָיָה

Sometimes there’s a gap between what we say and what we mean, and I’m not talking about lying. Take for example the expression used to be in English – what does once upon a time have to do with using?

Hebrew’s term for this is more straightforward: פעם [audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/פעם-היה-2.m4a” /], literally, once, is how to say used to in Hebrew.

For example:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/פעם-היה-3.m4a” /] הגיבור הזה פעם היה ילד בדיוק כמוך.

This hero was once a boy just like you.

To be completely honest and rigorously literal, פעם didn’t always mean once. Originally, it referred to a knock, a cling or chime of some sort, which already within the Bible itself came to mean an instance. That’s how the word for bell – פעמון [audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/פעם-היה-4.m4a” /] – came about: a bell chimes at distinct times.