how to say “running” in Hebrew
רִיצָה
With the Tel Aviv marathon this week and the Jerusalem one next month, now’s a good time to do a piece on running – רִיצָה .
.Look at the second letter in ריצה (reading from right to left). It’s a י , which functions much like the letter y in English – it’s sometimes a vowel and other times a consonant.
, which functions much like the letter y in English – it’s sometimes a vowel and other times a consonant. Moreover, in many languages the y sounds often switch places with a oo or a w sound.
- You’ll find this in English in the tendency to pronounce the word would as wid.
- You’ll spot it in Yiddish, where the some Hassidic sects pronounce the word בָּרְכוּ as בָּרְכִי .
- And you’ll hear many, many examples of it in Hebrew, where a root letter ו often becomes a י in certain conjugations, a great example being the word ריצה.
ריצה refers to the act of running or to a run, but the verb to run is לָרוּץ . The root of that word is ר.ו.צ (r.w.ts). Note the switch, from ו in the root to י in the word for running.
. The root of that word is ר.ו.צ (r.w.ts). Note the switch, from ו in the root to י in the word for running.Here are some examples, to help you own the word ריצה and some related words:
הַבֹּקֶר יָצָאתִי לְרִיצָה קָלָה.
This morning I went out for a jog (a leisurely run).
in the infinitive and the future tense, where the ו is preserved:
הִיא אוֹהֶבֶת לָרוּץ.
She likes to run.
הוּא יָרוּץ בַּמָּרָתוֹן.
He will run in the marathon.
and in the past (and present) tense, where the ו and י disappear entirely:
הֵם רָצוּ מַהֵר מְאֹד.
They ran very fast.
For a full chart of how to conjugate simple verbs whose middle root letter is ו or י, see this page at ulpan.com.
רִיצָה נְעִימָה!
Have a nice run!
