how to say “forgiveness” in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/סליחה-#.m4a” /]סְלִיחָה

If you’ve taken our Level 1 course, the first Hebrew word you learned was that for excuse me – סליחה[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/סליחה-#.m4a” /].

סליחה means literally forgiveness. The simple verb לסלוח[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/סליחה-#.m4a” /] means to forgive, so that to forgive and forget is לסלוח ולשכוח[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/סליחה-#.m4a” /].

Here’s סליחה in context:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/סליחה-#.m4a” /]אני רוצה לבקש ממך סליחה.

I (a male) want to ask forgiveness of you (a female).

Note that סליחה comes at the end, so that if we were to translate the sentence literally word-for-word into English, it would be: I want to ask of you forgiveness. This is typical Hebrew syntax (word order).