how to say “to hospitalize” in Hebrew
לְאַשְׁפֵּז[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/לאשפז-1.mp3″ /]
Walking along Allenby St. in Tel Aviv the other week, I heard a familiar tune. It was a woman singing to a crowd Gidi Gov’s אלף כבאים – A Thousand Firefighters.
A verse in the second stanza goes:
[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/לאשפז-2.mp3″ /]אלף דוקטורים לא יצליחו לאשפז אותי.
A thousand doctors won’t be able to hospitalize me.
The word for to hospitalize is לאשפז[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/לאשפז-1.mp3″ /]. It’s an intensive verb of the root א.שׁ.פ.ז (a.sh.p.z) meaning guest (a hospital patient is a guest), probably borrowed from Ancient Persian or another non-Semitic language.
The verb can be flipped to the passive as well:
[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/לאשפז-3.mp3″ /]אושפזתי לשבוע אחרי הניתוח.
I was hospitalized for a week after the surgery.
