Hebrew Time #19 - Flowers

[MaeMcA]

Hello everyone!

שלום
לכולם

Welcome to Hebrew Time #19! For those of us who are joining now – Hebrew Time is a series of weekly posts about the Hebrew language, Israel, and the Jewish people.

You can see the previous post here.

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I spent last week touring Transylvania with a group of Israelis, about 80% of whom were related to me somehow within the last 5 generations:) While I was wandering around enjoying the sunshine and the novel sensation of wearing sandals in May, they were getting all excited over apple blossoms and dandelions. In recognition of the fact that growing vegetation is a precious commodity in Israel (because water is also precious), I have decided that today we will learn about flowers:)

Let’s start with the first word I ever spoke - פרח - flower.

The plural is פרחים.

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Before we get to the actual names, a quick biology lesson…:)

ניצן - bud

גבעול - stem

עלה - leaf

שורש - root

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And now to some of Israel’s flowers…

אירוס - Iris. Only found in the north.

אמנון ותמר - pansy

חצב - squill. A spring flower.

חבצלת - pancratium (sand lily) . This is a flower which often grows on the sands on Israel’s beaches.

כלנית - wind anemone. Literally means “little bride” and flowers in the warm Israeli winter.

נורית - daisy

פרג - poppy. Found in the north and centre of Israel.

לוע הארי - snapdragon. A flower commonly found all over Israel.

רקפת - cyclamen. Ditto this one.

סיגל - violet

צבעוני - tulip. If you were paying attention last week, you would know that this literally means “colourful”:) Found in the south

שושן - lily.

And finally…

ורד - rose.

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Before you go, here and here are two famous Israeli songs about two of the flowers we have learnt today…see if you can figure out which ones!

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We can't finish without telling you:

להתראות!

See you later!

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That was Hebrew Time #19, thanks for joining us! Hooray!

Be up-to-date with our progress on the Hebrew for English speakers course by checking up our incubator page here!

Join our facebook group here!

Thanks DvirBartov for helping me write this post!

That's it!
עד שבוע הבא!

Until next week!

[Brina431719]

תודה!!

[CedarPrince]

Keep up the hard work on the Hebrew course! So excited!

[Fennec92]

Wow that was pretty cool, thank you.

[AnCatDubh]

Er, שׁוֹשָׁן shoshán is actually ‘lily’... וֶרֶד véred is ‘rose’.

[MaeMcA]

You're right...I'm not sure why i wrote that:D

[AnCatDubh]

Because שושנה shoshaná was apparently the Biblical word for ‘rose’? :Þ

[JewishPolyglot]

Nu, as long as she doesn't make any mistakes like that in the course. But I trust her not to.

[MaeMcA]

She being the cat's mother? :P Don't worry, that's why we have a team:)

[JewishPolyglot]

ואני קווה שאוכל לצרף :)

[GiladTi]

I am pretty sure נורית is buttercup, and morfix approved that...
daisy is חִננית, the white flower with the yellow center...