lesson 78 children's rhyme: come clouds!

lesson 78

children's song
 

this sweet little song is a nice opportunity to learn a few new words like cloud, rain, garden and flower, the grammar however can be quite complex in places as it's often the case with chidren's poetry. I'll explain the new grammar but I won't build on it in later lessons.

bo'ou ananim                                            come clouds


bo'ou ananim                                            come clouds
habou geshem la ganim                           bring rain to the gardens
tif tif tipotai                                              drip drip my drops
geshem geshem li sdotai                          rain rain to my fields
la shiboletlai la 'ailan                               to my oats to the tree
ve la perach ha katan                              and to the little flower
she ba gan                                                 that is in the garden

hineh ananim                                             here you are clouds
habou geshem la ganim                            (same as above)
tif tif tipotai
geshem geshem li sdotai
la shiboletlai la 'ailan
ve la perach ha katan
she ba gan




new words:

ananim               clouds                      anan        cloud
geshem              rain
ganim                gardens                    gan             garden

tipotai                my drops                 tipot            drops                       tipah           drop
sdotai                 my fields                 sdot            fields                       sadeh          field
shiboletlai          my oats                   shibolt         oats

ailan                   tree
perach                flower
hineh                  here


le + ha = la
to + the = to the /for the
preposition and article are combined in one word exacctly as with be + ha = ba

grammar nerd alert
you don't have to read the following because it's about advanced grammar and as said above the following lessons won't be building on this. It's just if you want to know for curiosities sake.

the imperative
Generally Hebrew uses the future tense to express the imperative. Only a few exceptions are used in everyday language as for example: give! ten!     sit shev!     take! kach!       go! lech!
The imperative is only used in formal language, instruction manuals, fiction, poetry, documents and speeches. And since we're talking about a poem here:
bo'ou and habou are the imperative plural forms of of 'to come' and 'to bring'
lavo (to come)       ba (he came)             bo! (come! singular masc.)      bo'ou! (come! plural)
lehabi (to bring),   hebi (he brought),     habe! (bring! singular masc.)   habi'ou! (bring! plural)
the 'habou' in the song is a poetic abbreviation.

possesive plural endings
tipotai, sdotai and shiboletlai all have an 'ai' ending indicating a possession in the plural
tipah drop,  tipot drops and  tipotai my drops
sadeh field, sdot fields and sdotai my fields
(shibolt oats is more complicated and will be discussed much later)
we'll learn the possesive plural endings soon in this course but for active speaking one doesn't need them much because it's easier to express possession with 'shel + personal ending' at least at first.