לימוד היכרות בסיסית: שלום, מה שמך

How do you ask someone’s name in Hebrew?

מה שמך is the question every Hebrew course teaches first — literally “what is your name,” with “your” packed into the ending: shimkha to a man, shmekh to a woman. It’s perfectly correct. Yet on an Israeli street you’ll far more often hear איך קוראים לך (eich kor’im lekha) — literally “how do they call you?” Knowing both means you recognize the textbook question and the real-life one.

The answer works the same way: שמי (shmi), “my name,” is one word — שם (name) plus the tiny ־י that means “my.” So שלום, שמי משה is “Hello, my name is Moshe.” In everyday speech people usually match the street version instead: קוראים לי משה — “they call me Moshe.”