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asher553https://www.jpost.com/magazine/the-glamour-of-grammar-to-whom-it-may-concern?
From 2008, this Jerusalem Post article is a good explanation of a common usage in conversational Hebrew that takes a little getting used to. In general, the preposition "to" is expressed by the prefix l- (the letter Lamed) in front of a noun or preposition; so, "l'David" is "to David", "li" is "to me", etc.
But there's a special usage when something happens and it affects you in some way, for better or worse; in grammar, this is called the "benefactive" (even though it can refer to either a positive or negative effect). And in conversational Israeli Hebrew, it's very common to use the Lamed prefix to express this. So (in the example Dr. Hoffman gives), the English phrase "someone stole my radio" would be expressed literally as "someone stole the radio to me" (and not "from me").
(A close equivalent in colloquial English would be "on me", for example "my car died on me".)
So this is why in Hebrew you would express "my head hurts" as "the head hurts to me".
From 2008, this Jerusalem Post article is a good explanation of a common usage in conversational Hebrew that takes a little getting used to. In general, the preposition "to" is expressed by the prefix l- (the letter Lamed) in front of a noun or preposition; so, "l'David" is "to David", "li" is "to me", etc.
But there's a special usage when something happens and it affects you in some way, for better or worse; in grammar, this is called the "benefactive" (even though it can refer to either a positive or negative effect). And in conversational Israeli Hebrew, it's very common to use the Lamed prefix to express this. So (in the example Dr. Hoffman gives), the English phrase "someone stole my radio" would be expressed literally as "someone stole the radio to me" (and not "from me").
(A close equivalent in colloquial English would be "on me", for example "my car died on me".)
So this is why in Hebrew you would express "my head hurts" as "the head hurts to me".
