Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Comments on Is there a difference between when I should use "אוטו" vs "רכב"?

Parent

Is there a difference between when I should use "אוטו" vs "רכב"?

+5
−0

I speak Hebrew as a second language, and probably worse than most people expect - I live in Israel, but my Hebrew is still not that great.

I ride with a cycling team, and one thing that we do is to shout if there's a car on the road, to alert the other riders to be careful. I have at times shouted אוטו and then been told I should have used רכב instead.

Is there a functional difference between these two words? I'm aware that רכב is an ancient Hebrew word that meant "chariot", and that אוטו comes from the English "automobile", but as far as I know they both meant the same thing. Is it that one is more formal (e.g. "car" vs "automobile"), or do they have slightly different nuances, or what?

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

1 comment thread

General comments (1 comment)
Post
+1
−0

From my experience as a speaker of Modern Hebrew as first language, the term רכב generally means "a vehicle" whilst the terms מכונית/אוטו generally mean "a car";
If I would relate to a car, I would say מכונית/אוטו because it's more accurate.

Many Modern Hebrew speakers tend to say רכב to describe just cars perhaps because in Israel (in which I don't reside) cars are a main method of transportation, a "prototype" for "vehicles" if you will and might keep be such until generally all currently developed metro lines would be completed until about year 2030.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

General comments (2 comments)
General comments
msh210‭ wrote about 4 years ago · edited about 4 years ago

The question was about רכב versus אוטו, not רכב versus מכונית.

deleted user wrote about 4 years ago

I have edited the answer.