למה הוא לא יכול לבוא? כי הוא עובד.

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Breakdown of למה הוא לא יכול לבוא? כי הוא עובד.

• לא: not
• לעבוד: to work
• למה: why

Questions & Answers about למה הוא לא יכול לבוא? כי הוא עובד.

What does למה mean, and is it made of smaller parts?

למה means why.

Historically, it comes from ל־ + מה, literally something like for what / to what, but in modern Hebrew you usually just learn למה as the normal word for why.

It is pronounced roughly la-MA.

Why is the word order למה הוא לא יכול לבוא and not something closer to English word order?

This is normal Hebrew word order for this kind of question:

• למה = why
• הוא = he
• לא = not
• יכול = able/can
• לבוא = to come

So Hebrew is basically saying:

• Why he not can to come?

That sounds wrong in English, but it is perfectly natural in Hebrew.

Why is לא placed before יכול?

Because לא negates what comes after it. Here, what is being negated is יכול — can / is able.

So:

• הוא יכול לבוא = he can come
• הוא לא יכול לבוא = he cannot come

This is the standard way to make a sentence negative in Hebrew.