Translation
hey!
Word origin
A natural attention-calling exclamation that Esperanto shares with its source languages, German he, French hé and English hey. Zamenhof adopted the sound as it stood.
- Origin
- onomatopoeic
- English cognates
- hey
Examples
, !
Hey, wait for me!
, ?
Hey, what are you doing there?
, !
Hey, look at that beautiful bird!
He is for catching someone's attention, friendly or sharp depending on your tone, exactly like English "hey". That gives each of the little interjections its own job: he hails a person, ha marks the penny dropping, ho sighs or addresses solemnly, nudges the conversation along. Like all interjections it takes no endings and sits outside the grammar. In older texts you may also meet hej, a later import from the same family; he is the form the dictionaries and the corpus prefer.
Where this fits
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he: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "he" (hey!): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 22.