how to say “if only!” in Hebrew
[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /]הַלְּוַואי, מִי יִתֵּן, לוּ יְהִי
Hebrew has several ways of expressing a wish such as “if only!” The one that Israelis use in everyday speech is הלוואי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /], as in:
[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /]הלוואי והיה לי זמן לעשות את הכול.
If only I had time to do it all.
הלוואי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /] comes from Aramaic, a language closely related to Hebrew and the one in which the Talmud was written.
Another expression – less common but still used from time to time – is מי יתן[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /] – literally, who would give (that something would happen), as in:
[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /]מי יתן ולא נחזור לבחירות תוך חצי שנה.
If only (let it be that) we don’t go back to elections within half a year.
This expression of wish – מי יתן – goes back to the Bible itself, as does the third, quite flowery expression: לו יהי[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/הלוואי-#.m4a” /] – literally, if only it were. This last expression has fallen out of spoken use, but it does serve as the title of Naomi Shemer’s 1973 adaptation of the Beatles’ Let It Be (for the Hebrew song, see tomorrow’s Dose of Hebrew).
