כואב לי הגב
“כואב לי הגב” (коэв ли ха-гав) — my back hurts in Hebrew. Phrase, level A2. You know koev — hurts — and gav — the back: it is not the back that hurts but the back hurts to me. The same build in koev li harosh — my head hurts. In a live sentence: “כואב לי הגב, אני עייף.” — My back hurts, I am tired. Written with the characters כ, ו, א, ב, ל, י, ה, ג, ב.
In short
| Written in Hebrew | כואב לי הגב |
| Read in Latin letters | коэв ли ха-гав |
| Translation | my back hurts |
| Part of speech | phrase |
| Level | A2 |
Why it looks that way
You know koev — hurts — and gav — the back: it is not the back that hurts but the back hurts to me. The same build in koev li harosh — my head hurts
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- כואב לי הגב, אני עייף.коэв ли ха-гав, ани аяф.My back hurts, I am tired.
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “my back hurts” in Hebrew?
«כואב לי הגב», read “коэв ли ха-гав”. In a live sentence: “כואב לי הגב, אני עייף.” — My back hurts, I am tired. Phrase, level A2; written with the characters כ, ו, א, ב, ל, י, ה, ג, ב.
How is “כואב לי הגב” written in Latin letters?
коэв ли ха-гав. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
You know koev — hurts — and gav — the back: it is not the back that hurts but the back hurts to me. The same build in koev li harosh — my head hurts. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.