"לא לצבוע את החולצה שלה!"
Translation:Don't color her shirt!
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So, how does the imperative work here? (They haven't taught us much about that yet, if any at all)
It is historically incorrect, but we use the infinitive tense as a very casual way to state the imperative. It works well enough.
The 'technically correct' ways are either אל תצבע/י (the negative plus the 2nd person future tense "you will not paint!) Or the more forceful option אל צבע/י! (negative plus imperative tense "DON'T PAINT!")
When you're starting out in Hebrew and don't remember a particular 2nd or 3rd person verb tense, using the infinitive gets the message across. It sounds highly informal and slangy, but you can be understood.
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Starts with ל, there are few variations.
Here it's לXXוX
To paint/color - לצבוע
Color - צבע
Is there a difference in Hebrew for the words to dye, to color, and to paint?
I'm hearing litzboa. Shouldn't it be litzvoa? according to the rule someone just told me about on DL. (whereby a daghesh lene is not added to a word when you add a prefix) Because the infinitive is tzvoa, so when you add li it would make litzvoa not litzboa.
It's definitely with a 'b'.
see: https://www.pealim.com/dict/1759-litzboa/
I never really relied on rules, but how absorb each word as its own, allowing my brain to see patterns and make its own rules.
Earlier there was a similar case when the audio had a 'b' and I thought it would want a 'v' so went through the comments and someone told me it's definitely a 'v' in such cases. Maybe they were wrong, or maybe they were right and this is the exception.
I'm hearing לא as "loo" (rhymes with who) rather than "loh" (rhymes with snow) here - is that correct? If so, is there some rule where it's pronounced loo rather than loh? Or is it a regional thing?
Is this an alternative way of saying "...על תצבע"? I've never seen or heard a negative command like this. Perhaps it's more formal?
Yes, it is another form of a negative command. It is actually less formal and less personal. This form is more like what you would expect to hear in the army or to small children. Also maybe in a rushed/hurried/excited context.
לא ידעתי את זה. תודה רבה! זה ברור, כנירא, שאני צריך לצפות יותר תלוזיה.
Hey man, great job on the hebrew! i just wanted to point out a little correction that hopefully will prove to be helpful to you and possibly others. We can't say אני צופה טלוויזיה, or like you said, אני צריך לצפות יותר טלוויזיה. You can either say אני צופה בטלוויזיה, or אני רואה טלוויזיה. The second option is colloquial, and probably wouldn't be accepted in an essay. so the correct form of what you wrote would be, either 1) אני צריך לצפות יותר בטלוויזיה, or 2) אני צריך לראות יותר טלוויזיה.
Ah, you're right. I've heard it like that a dozen times. Thanks for the correction!
My errors are more numerous than the correct parts. תודה שתיקנת אותי.
You're right. I guess it comes down to the difference between magic markers and fabric dye. I misread the sentence as "Don't scribble on her shirt."
Hm, would "No coloring her shirt!" work too? Or does it not convey the same meaning?
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I guess I was misinformed as I was told that it was inappropriate to start a negative imperative with 'lo' as that was a form reserved only for the ten commandments in the bible and could be construed as offensive.
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This construct is used in impersonal or gender-neutral language. Since Hebrew imperative uses different forms when addressing a man, a woman or multiple people, this construct לא + infinitive is often used as a gender-neutral imperative. It's not offensive.
I am not sure if they accept it, but it would have been equally correct to say אל תצבע (to a man), אל תצבעי (to a woman) or אל תצבעו (to a group of people).
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Shouldn't "blouse" be accepted for חולצה? The hint for החולצה has only "the shirt", and "don't dye her blouse" was rejected with the correction "Don't dye her shirt".
Morfix defines חֻלְצָה as "shirt, blouse".
There's even a bit of irony here in the apparent usage trends. My decades-old "Pocket Books" edition Ben-Yehuda dictionary defines חֻלְצָה as "blouse; jerkin", but not "shirt", and defines "shirt" only as "כֻּתֹּנֶת, חָלוּק".
So from the Morfix definitions of those last 2 words, I can understand why the trend would be to use חולצה for both shirt and blouse.
But, then, what word do (or would) our course developers use for blouse?
b106 rich739183
- 1545
Isn't "blouse" much less commonly used than "shirt"? They always include the most common translations, with the possibility to report other possibilities. If it's not accepted by now, it means either 1) nobody has actually reported it, only written here in the forum, or 2) somebody has reported it, but the course developers decided not to include it as a valid translation, or 3) they simply haven't come to this particular sentence. There are thousands and thousands of sentences after all.
Blouse is not mentioned even once in this course, so it's impossible to know what word they use.
"To dye" does not mean "to color" exactly. Also, in English, a woman's shirt is called a blouse (never a shirt) for some strange reason.
I disagree that women’s shirts are never called shirts; they are called shirts all the time and the word blouse I believe is becoming less used. The Oxford Languages Dictionary defines blouse as a woman's upper garment resembling a shirt, typically with a collar, buttons, and sleeves.
So if a woman is wearing a tank top, that’s a shirt, but probably wouldn’t be called a blouse.
I'm 75 years old, so probably English has moved on. Thanks. Really makes sense, since the only real difference there has ever been is that the buttons are on a different side.
