לסיים
“לסיים” (лесайэм) — to finish in Hebrew. Verb, level B1. To finish, to bring to an end: work, a conversation, studies. You know lesayem et beit hasefer — to finish school: the same verb. In a live sentence: “סיימתי את העבודה לפני השבת.” — I finished the work before Saturday. Written with the characters ל, ס, י, י. A word from the everyday Hebrew course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Hebrew | לסיים |
| Read in Latin letters | лесайэм |
| Translation | to finish |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | B1 |
Why it looks that way
To finish, to bring to an end: work, a conversation, studies. You know lesayem et beit hasefer — to finish school: the same verb
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.
- סיימתי את העבודה לפני השבת.сийамти эт ха-авода ле-фней ха-шабат.I finished the work before Saturday.
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 “to finish” in Hebrew?
«לסיים», read “лесайэм”. In a live sentence: “סיימתי את העבודה לפני השבת.” — I finished the work before Saturday. Verb, level B1; written with the characters ל, ס, י, י.
How is “לסיים” written in Latin letters?
лесайэм. 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?
To finish, to bring to an end: work, a conversation, studies. You know lesayem et beit hasefer — to finish school: the same verb. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.