how to say “to enjoy” in Hebrew
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Every season has its perks. But with the arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere, now’s the time that people are really starting to enjoy themselves.
The Hebrew word for to enjoy is the same as that for to benefit – לֵהָנוֹת ( ).
Here’s an example using ליהנות in the sense of to enjoy:
Summer’s coming – now’s the time to start enjoying.
And here’s one using ליהנות in the sense of to benefit:
In the summer, one can enjoy/benefit from many events that the Jerusalem municipality is organizing.
As you can see, the two uses of ליהנות – to enjoy and to benefit – are not so distinct in Hebrew.
ליהנות is a נִפְעַל verb of the non-Biblical root ה.נ.ה (h.n.h). Since the letter ה (h) lacks the hard-consonant quality that other letters such as נ (n), ג (g) and ל (l) have, it tends to disappear or otherwise cause problems with pronunciation.
To help you get your mouth around the different ways of conjugating the verb ליהנות, here are a few examples:
Past tense
אֲנִי נֶהֱנֵתִי – I enjoyed
?אַתֶּם נֶהֱנֵתֶם – did you (plural) enjoy?
הִיא נֶהֱנְתָּה – she enjoyed
Present tense
הוּא נֶהֱנֶה – he is enjoying
אַתְּ נֶהֱנֵת – you (a female) enjoy
אֲנַחְנוּ נֶהֱנִים – we are enjoying
אַתֶּן נֶהֱנוֹת – you (plural, just females) enjoy
Future tense (note the ah vowel, like in the infinitive)
אֲנִי אֵהָנֶה – I will enjoy
אַתָּה תֵּהָנֶה – you (a male) will enjoy
הוּא יֵהָנֶה – he will enjoy
For more background and information on how to spell forms of ליהנות without vowels, see this article.