Breakdown of בדקנו את המסמך היטב.
את
direct object marker
לבדוק
to check
מסמך
document
היטבheitev
well; thoroughly
Questions & Answers about בדקנו את המסמך היטב.
How do you pronounce בדקנו את המסמך היטב?
A common pronunciation is:
badáknu et ha-mismách heytév
A more detailed breakdown:
- בדקנו = ba-DAK-nu
- את = et
- המסמך = ha-mis-MAKH
- היטב = hey-TEV
Notes:
- The kh sound in מסמך is like the ch in German Bach or Scottish loch.
- In everyday Israeli speech, stress usually falls near the end of these words, as shown above.
Why doesn’t the sentence include a separate word for we?
Because Hebrew verbs often already include the subject.
In בדקנו, the ending -נו means we in the past tense. So בדקנו by itself already means we checked or we examined.
That is why Hebrew does not need a separate pronoun here. You could add אנחנו for emphasis, but normally it is unnecessary:
- בדקנו את המסמך היטב = We checked the document thoroughly
- אנחנו בדקנו את המסמך היטב = We checked the document thoroughly / It was we who checked the document
What exactly is בדקנו grammatically?