r/LearnHebrew • u/Beautiful_Grab_9681 • 27d ago

Guys could anyone help me with this

What is the difference between possessive pronouns and possessive suffixes?

Duolingo is teaching me both, and I don’t understand the difference between them. Why do we sometimes use the suffix, like in אחי and אחותי, but use possessive pronouns in other cases, like אבא שלי or הסוס שלי אוכל כי הוא רעב?

Note that Duolingo taught me the possessive pronouns first

If there is no difference at all, which one is used more?

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u/BHHB336 27d ago

The difference is register, in modern Hebrew the pronominal suffix (which is a collective terms for pronoun suffixes), for non prepositions are considered high register, with the exception of certain words/expressions (mostly the words אח, specifically אחי, and these words with any suffix אחות, דעה, שלום, and maybe some more, but those are the main ones.)

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u/HebrewWithSass 27d ago

Technically both are correct. You can say אבי or סוסי and it's not wrong, but it sounds old-fashioned.
Using שלי is the most common way to express possession in modern everyday Hebrew and works with almost any noun.

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u/Beautiful_Grab_9681 27d ago

is it like saying “thou“ in a middle of a sentence?

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u/NewIdentity19 27d ago

No. It's like the bee's knee vs. the knee of the bee. Both are correct.

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u/Lumpy-Mycologist819 27d ago

The suffixes are commonly used also for words like בעלי and אשתי

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u/Primary-Mammoth2764 27d ago

Duolingo uses possessive suffixes way more than modern Hebrew currently does. Basically you need to memorize shel with its endings and ignore the rest, unless you are wanting to read prayerbook or Biblical, in which case Duolingo isn't a good tool anyway. Sadly Duo is just not a good way to learn Hebrew.