how do you say “kind” and “type” in Hebrew?
מין, סוג
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So there are (at least) two words for “type” or “kind” in Hebrew: מִין (meen) and סוּג (soog). What’s the difference? When should one use which?
First of all, they’re very close synonyms. The English equivalents to these words are also a pair of synonyms: type and kind. The first comes from a Greek/Latin root (via the Norman/French invasion to Britain in 1066), and the second is a genuine Germanic root.
The difference between the two now-English words? It’s subtle, at best.
מין appears in Biblical Hebrew – this I know from the first chapter of Genesis. In that context, the word refers to a species.
I looked up סוג and confirmed my suspicion: the word doesn’t appear in Biblical Hebrew at all! (if someone has seen it in the Bible, please challenge me) It probably comes from a different language – possibly Aramaic.
The two Hebrew words – מין and סוג – have very similar meanings. A distinction I can draw is that מין tends to refer to what we’d call in English a sort of something, whereas סוג is more descriptive.
For example, you might speak about three different types of shoes – שְׁלֹשָׁה סוּגֵי נַעֲלָיִים (shloh-SHAH soo-GHEI nah-ah-LAH-yeem). You wouldn’t say three different sorts of shoes.
But you would say אֵיזֶה מִין אוֹכֶל זֶה? (EI-zeh meen OH-khel zeh) – what kind/sort of food is this? if what you mean is “I don’t really like this food,” or perhaps, “I like it a lot, and I’m curious as to what country it came from.”
מין also has the meaning of gender or sex, whereas סוג doesn’t have anything to do with those.
I hope this helped to clarify.
