# בהצלחה = "for success"?



## akhooha

Would "בחצלחה" be translated as "for success? The phrase is written on an amulet. Also, would it be pronounced "ba-ha-tzalakhah?" Thank you.


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## Drink

It literally means "with success", but better translated as "good luck". It is pronounced in Modern Hebrew as "be-hatzla*kha*". The "be" means "in/with", like Arabic ب, and "hatzlakha" means "success" and is the verbal noun of hitzliakh "to succeed", which is in binyan hif`il (equivalent to Arabic form IV verbs أَفْعَلَ). Also, the correct spelling is בהצלחה (note the second letter is ה, not ח).


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## akhooha

Thanks for your reply. Yes, it should have been "בהצלחה". Sorry for the typo. I know this is off-topic, but I just looked up הצלח on an online Hebrew dictionary and indeed it gave "succeed" as the translation. But, when I entered צלח (without the beginning ה), it gave "unsuccessful" as a translation. Is the ה somehow acting as a negativizer? (I had originally thought that the ה was being used as "the" for the hypothetical noun צלחה ..... but I guess that's not the case.....


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## Drink

I don't know what dictionary you used, but I don't think צלח can mean unsuccessful. The ה in הצלחה and הצליח is equivalent to the alif in إفعال and أفعل. It's just part of binyan hif`il. Note that הצלח (hatzleakh) is the imperative of הצליח (hitzliakh).


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## akhooha

Thanks for your quick reply and for your explanation. It is clear now.
The dictionary I used was doitinhebrew.com. It appears it's not a good one. Can you recommend a decent one? Thank you.


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## Drink

Morfix is a really good one.


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## akhooha

Thanks for the recommendation of Morfix. They defined "צלח" as:
"to succeed, to be successful", which makes a lot more sense than doitinhebrew.com's translation as "unsuccessful".
Thanks again.


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## Drink

Yes, צלח (tzalakh) is binyan pa`al (equivalent to Arabic form I فَعَلَ).


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## elroy

The Arabic equivalent is بالنجاح.  The only difference is that in Arabic the definite article is required.


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