Una Palabra Sola Episode 11, florecer
We can be rigid in thinking of flourishing or flowering as only happening at certain times, in certain situations - but it happens more often than what we realize…
florecer: (v) to flower, bloom, flourish, prosper
Related words: floreciente, florido, la flor, dar flor, superarse, transformarse, realizarse
Antonyms: florecerse (to get moldy), morir (to die), fallar / fracasar (to fail)
From the Latin “floreo”, to bloom and “floresco”, flower, bloom, prosper, flourish
Life is all about the balance. How is the plant doing in its entirety? How are YOU doing? How’s your community?
2:23: We can use other words to flower (like dar flor)… but florecer is all about the entire plant; the entire picture flourishing.
11:28: Reflexive verbs (those that end in “se”) are those verbs that are reflected back: como ver (to see) and verse (to see yourself).
18:16: A full life requires balance. Are you nurturing yourself (including your internal monologues) and others? Or are you florecerse and getting burnt out?
21:14: Pinpoint and be aware of when things are going well, and when it’s time to back away. There are ample opportunities for blossoming and for failure.
25:19: Español thrives on keeping the verbs clear (knowing your pronouns and conjugations) and then adding all the embellishments and flourishes with adjectives or nouns.
For reflection:
Think of what’s happening internally: the talks you have with yourself, the goals, wishes, dreams, and desires. What does thinking about this feel like? Are you nurturing it as much as you’d like? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Think of who you ae to the outside world: at your work, in your community, in your neighborhood. Think of 3 words people have used to describe you (and if it feels good, translate them into español!). ___________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Practice conjugating florecer: Florezco (where you’re flourishing). Quiero florecer (where you’d like to be). __________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
Una PS has been a labor of love from the beginning. If you’d like to join our lil’ love fest via the Deseo program, click here to sign up! We all have our own wishes and desires when it comes to language, and with some resources and accountability, I can help make yours come true.
TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Hola y bienvenidos, hello and welcome to Una Palabra Sola, where we get to learn Spanish one word at a time. I'm your host, Megan Miller, founder and teacher at Aprovechar Language Solutions. Empezamos and let's dive in.
0:26
Hola hola otra vez, bienvenidos, welcome back to Una Palabra Sola, a podcast where we get to learn Spanish una palabra, or one word at a time. And if you are tuning into when this episode actually drops live, es mayo, it is May. Mayo, spelled just like the white sauce or the county. And it's not may-o, it is mie-oh. So with mayo, qué es el dicho, what is that phrase... April showers bring May flowers. So I thought that it was prudent to have a word that celebrates mayo. And that word is florecer. Florecer You might think of flor when it comes to florecer, and that is correct because this is un verbo. It is a verb that means to flower, to bloom, to flourish, to prosper. And this is really from the Latin floreo, to bloom or flower or begin to prosper or flourish. And as I already alluded to la flor is a flower and that is a related noun to florecer so florecer is the action, but la flor or the flower is actually the thing, if we're talking about blooming things. Also an adjective, and this is very fun to say, floreciente, is like blooming so you can have unas flores florecientes, those are blooming flowers which is a little redundant but for the purpose of today's lesson, go for it. Go all in.
2:23
This also might make you think of florido or florida, which is Florida for those that don't know. And that is basically bloomed. So you can also have florecido or florecida and that is the past participle of bloomed, so bloomed in the past. So florido, florida es otro adjetivo. If you don't want to say floreciente, unas flores florecientes, blooming flowers; you can also say un estado florido, or a flourishing or with bloom kind of state. So shout out to Florida, I guess. So those are all the related words of florecer. But really what it means is talking about something actually blooming, something actually flowering, something actually flourishing or prospering. This really made me think of life. Life in general. Because there is that distinction between dar flor and florecer. So dar flor is exactly what it is. But dar, to give; flor, flower, to give a flower. So basically dar flor is to flower. And florecer is to flower. Those might be synonymous to you. And you might be like Megan, why? Why are there multiple words just to say one thing? Like let's just talk about fucking flowers. But the thing with florecer is that it is la planta completa, or the entire plant, the entire picture, the whole picture. So is the thing thriving? is it blooming? Dar flor just means to flower. Like plants can flower but still not really thrive. You can look at my windowsill if you want to see more. Shoutout to Waffle the plant behind me in the back. Waffle, my new office plant is a purple waffle and that's where I got its name.
4:49
Hopefully it's still alive... But as we talk about things that are living and showing signs of that life, this is very similar to like social media. And just a very, very simple kind of in-your-face analogy, right. So our outside facing personas, they might have flores, you might dar flores on your social media. But how are you doing inwardly? Right? Are you actually thriving internally? Are you floreciendo? Are you flourishing? Are you just kind of showing flowers just to kind of show flowers? Because that's what is expected? Cue Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" here. So where are you kind of giving your flowers? Where are you showing those flowers? And where are you actually truly thriving?
5:54
It's a good distinction to know. It's a very good distinction to know, just in your everyday life. Where are you kind of showing up? And are you showing up with that full bouquet of flowers? Or are you showing up with a couple of thorns? are you resenting something? So if you show up with thorns that might be more of showing resentment to something, versus showing up with flowers might be like, Oh, well, I'm expected to show up here with flowers like meeting I don't know your partner's parents for the first time or, you know, going to a funeral or celebrating a holiday, it's always good to bring flowers. Are you actually just giving those flowers just to give them? Or how are you doing inside. Because I think as a society, we just put so much pressure on the outside to look a certain way, to appear a certain way, to say certain things. Versus internally, we might just be screaming into the ether. That doesn't get a lot of time or space or focus or attention, and it can be very easy to go through life, similar to a plant that you don't really feel any attachment to or that you don't really care for or care about. You can do that with your life - nobody's really here to say otherwise - but what are you missing by doing that? Versus being completely in to the full picture.
7:31
So some synonyms, dar flor is really with plantas only, I know, getting into a plant mom moment here. Also, you can superarse, transformarse, realizarse. All of these synonyms are really to make something more. So superarse, for example, is like to overcome something. Transformarse, it ends with se right, that is a reflexive verb at the end. So me transformo, I'm transforming myself, which better or worse, that's making me different in some way. And realizarse, so this is a fun little linguistic tidbit between Spanish and English. When we say to flourish, or to flower, or to bloom, or to prosper, a lot of times we will actually use like, flowering as a verb in relation to somebody. Oh, she's really flowered. Meaning like, oh, she was ugly before. And now she's better. Right? That's the same kind of outward focus. Or, oh, you know, he's, he's really flourished, and you bloomed into, you know, a big strong man, but whatever. Right? So, a lot of times we'll use these kinds of flowery verbs in relation to a person but in Spanish, no hay computación. There's just no, it does not compute: flowers or with plants only. So if you do want to say something about how someone is, you know, transformed or grown, or, you know, come into their own a little bit because I always I think that we all like, have those moments where we grow up and we have a lot of external, I don't know, external influence on how we look or how we dress or what we say, or how we think and then as we grew up, and we become a little bit more independent, and we develop that independent thought, that is really when the transformation happens. Alright, so if you want to talk about flowering, in terms of a person, in Spanish use realizarse. So realizar does not mean to realize.
10:00
It is spelled very, very similarly. And be sure to check out the show notes for the link that gives you the whole kit and caboodle. Which is a weird English saying anyways, so the whole damn thing. Be sure to check out those show notes. But realizarse is really, it's not necessarily to realize like, oh, I just realized, you know, I have an appointment and I'm late. Of course now I'm thinking, do I have an appointment and am I late? But it's not to realize in that perspective. It's really to realize, like, I have this dream and I'm making it happen. That is really the realizarse. And once again, that is a reflexive verb, right? All of these verbs end with se. So you always will put anytime that a verb ends with se, it means that it's reflexive, you're doing it to yourself. So superarse that is that verb superar. But then you put your pronoun at the beginning, so , or me supero. Or transformarse. Okay, well, I am transforming. So me transformo. Realizarse. Well, I could say like, realizo, I don't know, estas metas; these big hairy goals. Or I can say me realizo and that is something that I'm basically making inside myself. So that is the beauty of reflexive verbs. Because they really are things that you do to yourself a lot of times for yourself, you'll have that reflexive and it just, it shows that relationship, like are you doing it? And are you doing it? Because you want to do it? Are you is it internal work? Or is it external work? And this verb florecer, it really has that the internal versus external, I don't want to say una batalla, like a battle. But it's more like una pelea. It's more like a little fight, like maybe a little cat fight where you just kind of slap slap each other because that fight is really between your internal and your external. So internally, are you floreciendo? Are you flourishing internally? Versus Are you just appearing like you are? And if you're just appearing like you are okay, that's cool.
12:28
Are you okay with that? Do you want that? Or if you don't want that, if that doesn't feel comfortable, if it doesn't feel safe or secure, or like contentment or joy, what little things or shifts can you do to change that. So the other thing that I love about this verb and I don't know if it's weird to love a verb, but I do is that when this verb florecer becomes reflexive florecerse, it means to get moldy. So this is very much too much of a good thing. I don't know if you've ever gotten flowers, and you were just overwhelmed at how many fucking flowers you've just gotten, and what you're going to do with them or what one can do with them, and just the excess of it all. I don't know if you've ever had that moment, but that is really like too much of a good thing. Because yes, we want to be flourishing and blooming and prospering, but I think this is just the normal checks and balances that life gives us. You can't bloom in all areas of your life. Like, you can't prosper in all areas of your life at the same time. There's always something, right? There's always somethign that could be a little bit better, there's always something that could be a little tweaked, there's always something that could be massaged... there's always something. And that's part of the beauty I think of living, is you can say, OK, I'm good over here, but what I really want over here is more community. I want a stronger sense of self. Maybe I want to do something with my hands. Maybe I want to read about Buddhism. Whatever that is, there's got to be something to continue to pull you forward.
14:34
It can't be like OK, me realizo, so, you know, I've I've done all the inner work and I have no more demons and I've released all the shit that has been weighing me down, and all my relationships with my parents and family and friends, partner, all of that's good. So you know, I'm, I'm good, I'm set. If you are that way, I would love to speak with you because I am truly of the belief that in life, there's always something that pushes you forward in a way so that it's oh, I've mastered this. Where else can I use this beginner mindset?
15:16
Oh, yo hablo español, más o menos bien, like, I'm good. I'm good with my Spanish right now. What else can I learn? What more can I do? How can I grow? How can I help, in some way, shape, or form? Humans, as weird and fallible and malleable as we are. There's always something. We always need help in some way, shape, or form. And we all need help in different ways. And this is where you can look at la planta completa, you can look at the full plant as yourself and say, okay, am I thriving? Cool. And then you can look at la planta completa with, for example, family. How can I help? How can I help my aunt start a business? Or how can I help? You know, whatever. And you can look at la planta completa in your community, in your city, in your town, in your suburb, wherever. You can look at la planta completa in regards to something that you care about, some sort of value or mission, something that continues to drive you forward. Like, for example, I love animals. If I could be surrounded by puppies right now, I absolutely would be. So, OK. I know that I probably would not be able to adopt 55 dogs at this point, so could I go work at a shelter? Could I go volunteer for an hour a week? How can I help? So this is very much of florecer en la vida real, right? This is very much like okay, how can I flourish or bloom or prosper in real life? Because everything that I do has that reality bend to it. Like, we can't all be LeBron James or whomever that we look up to, going, they're doing 55 things and they're doing all of them really well. But are THEY doing them or is their TEAM doing them? So that's one way to look at it. But then the other way, the antonym [of florecer] is to get moldy; to do too much. And this is very much like burnout. If you are not taking care of your internal life, and making sure that you're flowering or blooming or flourishing in some way, shape, or form internally, and you focus completely externally, you're going to get moldy. You're going to get too much of a good thing. Life is going to be like, ergh, no. Look at your life, look at your choices. What about you? And, on the flip side, if you do all this internal work, and you're like, OK, I'm ready. I'm a good member of society. Life is going to be like, ergh. No. You are so self-centered, you're so self-focused. It's great that you've done this work, but how can you help others around you? So no matter what it is, if it's internal-facing or external-facing, or wherever your current
18:16
objetivos, your current goals are, there's always something to water. If we're going to go on the plant analogy, water at a reasonable pace. Don't overwater, I'm finding out that that is a thing, and it's a thing that I do. So don't overwater because you're gonna get fucking mold. Nobody wants mold. So it's really about finding un ritmo natural, a natural rhythm for you. As you are going about your flowering journey. I mean, another very just kind of in-your-face antonym is morir, to die. Which, for talking about plants, totally acceptable. If we're talking about people, please talk to a therapist first. Because that's that's a big jump between morir and florecer. There's a lot of complacency in the middle there. And really a better antonym that would serve you a little bit more, also two verbs are fallar or fracasar. So these are two antonyms. And they both mean to fail. So you can have un fallo, a failure, or you can have un fracaso, you can have a failure, and in that way, and that's going to be the opposite of flowering, blooming, prospering, flourishing. So a lot of times as we just kind of go through this, jungla, this jungle of life, and we don't really know what's under all the leaves that we're overturning. There are opportunities to flourish. And there are opportunities to fail. And both are good. We need both, esos dos lados. You need the two sides. Because otherwise, it's going to get boring to prosper all the time. Even Aladdin had a huge amount of failure in it (the movie) and as a human and morally; there was a lot that he had to fail at, in order to learn. It's top of mind, because that's how I spent my last Saturday. And then you have, you know, too much failure. Well, there are Wikipedia pages for that, but too much failure and then it becomes deprimido and it becomes depressing. And nobody wants to learn about that. Right? So as with everything, there's this natural balance, this natural rhythm. And really the objective of florecer, is to be able to pinpoint when things are going well. And then if that verb ever becomes reflexive, with florecerse it's okay. It's a little too moldy. It's it's a little bit too much of a good thing. Where can I pull back from that?
21:31
So the weird thing with florecer, and it's really weird. Let's face it, because it is a verb that ends in cer, but it does have that irregular yo. So in order to conjugate it, florezco, floreces, florece, florecemos, florecen. Florecéis, if you're in Spain there. So it does have that irregular yo conjugation, florezco. So, when I asked like, Okay, where are you giving your flowers? Where are you truly thriving? It's all about where we put that energy and really where we put that nourishment. That nurturing. So, what have you done for yourself, and what have you done for other people today? Is that a balance? Is it a 50/50 balance or is that more of an equilibrium balance, where it all adds up to 100%, but it's not necessarily equal. So, as I mentioned earlier, in English we tend to say things like, he's blossoming. He's thriving. He's coming out of his shell. In Spanish, the metaphor does not carry as well. It's so weird though, to me, because Spanish is such a much more flowery language, there's a lot of flourish and embellishment.
22:54
In English, it's very much like, TBD, AOP. Whatever we can put in an acronym to be more efficient. We're obsessed with that. EOD, things like that, where Spanish is much more like eh, por el final del día, or whenever, it's a little bit more of a flowery language. However, it's another example of these are two distinct languages, right? So Spanish, with the adjectives in the sentence structure. Yeah, it's flowery as fuck and I love it. With the verbs, it's actually much more efficient than English. Think about it, en los verbos, as long as you know the subject. I can say something like Oh, I don't know, Raúl se dejó el trabajo y ahora va a ir al supermercado para ir de compras y tiene novia y su nombre es Ana... And you know, okay, I was talking about Raúl, now I'm talking about Ana, and then I can say something like, ah sí, fueron a España la semana pasada. And, you know, I'm talking now about the two of them. Whereas in English it's like, okay, well, he's here and then she's there. And then now they went to... who went to Spain last week? So with verbs, Spanish is actually much more efficient. And it's that conjugation right you have to first know your pronombres, you have to know your pronouns, yo, tú, él, ella, usted, nosotros, vosotros if you're in Spain, and ellos, ellas, ustedes. You have to know your conjugations. And once again, shout out to the show notes. So, I will link the actual T-chart for this verb florecer. I will link this conjugation in there.
24:50
So you do have to know your pronouns. But once you do, it becomes a lot easier to translate sentences. Like oh, tú vas a hacer algo. I know for example that a) I'm talking to you, and b) I know that I'm talking to you, and we have a good relationship, maybe you're younger than me or we are in a very casual relationship because I'm using tú vs usted. Like, Ud. va a hacer algo, that is something it might be a little bit more formal relationship, there might be more distance between it. Maybe we just started working together, and I want to show you that respect by using usted, but it's still going to be you. Like I'm still talking to you. And there are these little matices, these little nuances, especially in verbs and verb conjugations that are just really, really useful, especially as you start to kind of walk through the language and, you know, pick up flowers as you want and point out little things as you want. So it's really good for dando un paseo, or just taking a stroll through the language. So with those verbs and those little matices, or those nuances between English and Spanish, you definitely want to make sure to keep the verb clear. You want to conjugate that verb and focus on the verb first, and then you can embellish with things vocabulary if you'd like, right, so, keep the base clear, and then pile your embellishments on top. And, of course, metaphors still exist, like the biggest in-your-face one is Como la flor by Selena Quintanilla. And this song is all about, like the flower, right? It's the first song that came to mind with florecer when I first was like, ah, I want to have a verb that really encapsulates the spirit of May, and how we all need to blossom, and bloom at least once a year. If you're an annual or a perennial, it doesn't matter. But we all need to kind of show off at least once a year and say, yeah, I'm doing good here. I'm flourishing. I am nurturing. I'm nurturing myself, I'm nurturing others.
27:39
I'm confident and just content, estoy contenta, with all of these. So if you are looking for those sentimientos de contenta, you're looking for those feelings of contentment, de alegría, de paz. Be sure to check out Deseo. So Deseo is my monthly Spanish program. You can find more details at Deseo Spanish program dot info. And really Deseo, it has two prerequisites. One, it does cost money. It's not that much money. It is a monthly membership that goes from $27 to $89. But it does cost money, just putting that out there. And two, you have to come with that wish, ese deseo. So when we talk about un deseo, it's a wish, it's a desire, it's something that I cannot teach. It doesn't matter how red in the face I get, it doesn't matter what visuals I use, I can't teach a want: you have to come with that want. But once you do, oh boy. We get into habits we get into neuroscience we get into daily Spanish practice y por supuesto, of course, we also get into real-life Spanish because that real-life Spanish, that is what actually means something.
29:21
It's what's needed in the world, is to have a language that you can actually utilize wherever you are en este pinche mundo so be sure to check out the show notes, transcript, request a word, or be on the show. And that lovely Florecer T-chart conjugation, check out aprovechar.me. Hasta la próxima vez, until next time. Un abrazo fuerte.