In short

Hebrew has one article and it means “the”. You make any noun definite by gluing the prefix ה־ (ha-) onto its front, with no space: בית (bayit, “a house”) becomes הבית (ha-bayit, “the house”). There is no word for “a/an” — a bare noun already carries the indefinite meaning, so ספר (sefer) on its own is “a book”.

The one twist is that the little prepositions ב־ (be-, “in”), כ־ (ke-, “as/like”) and ל־ (le-, “to/for”) swallow the article when they meet it: they keep their letter but take over the article’s a-vowel, and the ה disappears in writing. So “in the house” is not בהבית but בבית (ba-bayit). The preposition מ־ (me-, “from”) is the exception that does not fuse.

The rule

• Definite = prefix ה־, attached with no space. ה־ is never a stand-alone word. Write הילדה (ha-yalda, “the girl”), הספר (ha-sefer, “the book”) — one unbroken word. A space (ה ילדה) is a spelling error.
• There is no indefinite article. Hebrew has nothing for English “a/an”. The bare noun does that job: בית (bayit) = “a house”, ילד (yeled) = “a boy”. You only ever add something (ה־) to go from “a N” to “the N”; you never add anything to get “a”.
• The reading is “ha” almost everywhere. Before an ordinary consonant it is ha- with a doubling of that consonant (הבית ha-bayit, הספר ha-sefer). Before the gutturals א ע ה ח ר the vowel just lengthens — הארץ (ha’aretz, “the land”), העיר (ha-ir, “the city”) — but in everyday speech you still simply say “ha”. Careful/literary Hebrew shifts a handful of guttural words to a he- reading (ההרים, literary he-harim, “the mountains”), yet Israelis normally read ha throughout; learn ha as your default.
• ב / כ / ל fuse with the article. When one of these one-letter prepositions is put in front of a definite noun, the ה is absorbed: the preposition keeps its letter, takes the a-vowel, and the ה is dropped from the spelling. ב + הבית → בבית (ba-bayit, “in the house”); ל + הילד → לילד (la-yeled, “to the boy”); כ + הרגיל → כרגיל (ka-ragil, “as usual”). You write one prefix letter plus the noun without its ה.
• מ does NOT fuse. The preposition מ־ (“from”) keeps the ה visible: מ + הבית → מהבית (me-ha-bayit, “from the house”). Do not drop the ה here.
• Unvocalized forms can be ambiguous. Because Modern Hebrew is written without vowels, בבית can be read be-vayit (“in a house”, indefinite) or ba-bayit (“in the house”, definite) — the a-vowel that marks “the” is invisible. Context decides which one is meant.

Forms & patterns

Indefinite → definite (just prefix ה־):

Before gutturals (א ע ה ח ר) — still read “ha” in speech:

Fusion into ב / כ / ל — the ה is absorbed, its a-vowel jumps onto the preposition:

Indefinite vs. definite after a preposition (same spelling, different vowel):

Examples

Common mistakes

• ה בית -> הבית - ה־ is a prefix, not a word; attach it with no space (ha-bayit).
• אני רוצה א קפה -> אני רוצה קפה - Hebrew has no article “a”; the bare noun קפה already means “a coffee”. Don’t invent a word for “a/an”.
• בהבית -> בבית - after ב the article is absorbed; never write both ב and ה. It reads ba-bayit (“in the house”).
• להילד -> לילד - same fusion with ל: ל + הילד → לילד (la-yeled), the ה drops.
• כהרגיל -> כרגיל - כ also swallows the article: ka-ragil (“as usual”).
• מבית (for “from the house”) -> מהבית - מ does not fuse; keep the ה. מבית = mi-bayit (“from a house”), מהבית = me-ha-bayit (“from the house”).

Tips

• Reflex to build: to say “the N”, glue ה־ on the front; to say “a N”, change nothing — the noun is already indefinite.
• Say “ha” by default, in speech, even before gutturals (הארץ ha’aretz, העיר ha-ir). The literary he- reading (ההרים he-harim) is optional polish, not the everyday form.
• With ב / כ / ל, write one prefix letter + the noun without ה, and pronounce the a-vowel: בבית (ba-bayit), לילד (la-yeled), כרגיל (ka-ragil).
• Remember the odd one out: מ keeps the ה — מהבית (me-ha-bayit), not מבית.
• Since nothing is vocalized, treat בבית / לעיר as two-way: context tells you “in a house / in the house”. If you must be unambiguous, rephrase or rely on the surrounding words.
• The wrong-letter traps still apply: keep א vs ע and ח vs כ distinct — הארץ (ha’aretz) with א, not with ע.
• Definiteness later spreads onto adjectives (הבית הגדול, ha-bayit ha-gadol) and triggers the object-marker את (et) — but that comes in lessons 7 and 20. Here, just master the ה־ itself and its fusion.

In short

Every Modern Hebrew noun is either masculine — זכר (zachar) — or feminine — נקבה (nekeva). There is no third, neuter category: a table is “he” and a bed is “she”. You can guess the gender from the ending most of the time: endings like ־ה (-a), ־ת (-t) and ־ית (-it) mark feminines, while a plain consonant ending marks the default masculine.

Gender is not decoration. It is a lexical fact stored with the word, and it silently controls everything that agrees with the noun later — adjectives, the present-tense verb, numbers, demonstratives. So the moment you learn a noun, learn its gender with it. A handful of common words break the ending rule, and those you simply memorize.

The rule

Two genders, no neuter. Every noun is either זכר (zachar, masculine) or נקבה (nekeva, feminine). English “it” has no Hebrew equivalent: an object is grammatically “he” or “she” depending on the noun. There is nothing neutral to fall back on, so each noun must land in one of the two boxes.

Gender is a property of the word, not something you compute. Because gender governs later agreement, getting it wrong makes the whole phrase wrong further down the line. You cannot recalculate it each time from meaning — a bed מיטה (mita) is feminine and a table שולחן (shulchan) is masculine for no real-world reason. Store the gender together with the noun, the way a dictionary marks it ז / נ.

Reliable feminine endings. In the singular, three endings almost always signal feminine:

• ־ה (-a): ילדה (yalda) ‘girl’, מיטה (mita) ‘bed’, שאלה (she’ela) ‘question’;
• ־ת (-t): רכבת (rakevet) ‘train’, דלת (delet) ‘door’;
• ־ית (-it): עברית (ivrit) ‘Hebrew’, מכונית (mechonit) ‘car’.

The related ending ־ות (-ut) is feminine too: חנות (chanut) ‘shop’.

The default is masculine. A noun that ends in a plain consonant, with no feminine ending, is almost always masculine: ילד (yeled) ‘boy’, שולחן (shulchan) ‘table’, ספר (sefer) ‘book’, כלב (kelev) ‘dog’. When nothing marks the word, assume masculine.

The traps run both ways. Two groups break the ending rule and must be memorized:

• Some nouns end in ־ה but are masculine: לילה (layla) ‘night’, אבא (aba) ‘dad’, סבא (saba) ‘grandpa’, שדה (sade) ‘field’. Natural gender helps here — אבא and סבא name male beings, so they stay masculine whatever the ending.
• Some unmarked (consonant-ending) nouns are feminine: עיר (ir) ‘city’, יד (yad) ‘hand’, דרך (derech) ‘road’, ארץ (eretz) ‘land, country’, רגל (regel) ‘leg’. As a rule of thumb, paired body parts skew feminine: יד (yad) hand, רגל (regel) leg, עין (ayin) eye, אוזן (ozen) ear.

Do not over-generalize either way. “Every ־ה is feminine” is false (לילה, אבא), and “every unmarked noun is masculine” is false (עיר, יד). The endings are a strong first guess, not a guarantee — treat the trap words as exceptions you know by heart.

Forms & patterns

Endings and their gender (singular dictionary form):

The traps — words whose ending points the wrong way:

Examples

Common mistakes

• הלילה ארוכה -> הלילה ארוך (ha-layla aroch) - לילה ends in ־ה but is masculine, so the predicate is masculine.
• אבא טובה -> אבא טוב (aba tov) - אבא ends in ־ה yet names a male, so it stays masculine.
• העיר גדול -> העיר גדולה (ha-ir gdola) - עיר has no feminine ending but is feminine; do not read “unmarked” as masculine.
• היד כואב -> היד כואבת (ha-yad koevet) - יד is feminine (a paired body part), so the verb is feminine.
• הדרך ארוך -> הדרך ארוכה (ha-derech aruka) - דרך is one of the unmarked feminines, not a masculine.
• הדלת סגור -> הדלת סגורה (ha-delet sgura) - the ־ת ending is feminine, so agreement is feminine.
• המכונית חדש -> המכונית חדשה (ha-mechonit chadasha) - ־ית is a feminine ending; treat מכונית as feminine.

Tips

• Read the last letter first: ־ה, ־ת and ־ית almost always mean feminine, and a bare consonant usually means masculine. That one glance settles most nouns.
• Remember there is no neuter: every noun is either הוא (hu, “he”) or היא (hi, “she”). If you catch yourself reaching for “it”, pick a gender instead.
• Learn gender with the word. Store it as “mita, fem.” and “shulchan, masc.”, never just the sound — the gender is what drives all later agreement.
• Natural gender overrides the ending for people: אבא (aba) and סבא (saba) end in ־ה but name males, so they are masculine.
• Memorize the two trap sets as short lists: masculine ־ה words (לילה, אבא, סבא, שדה) and unmarked feminines (עיר, יד, דרך, ארץ, רגל).
• Use the body-part rule of thumb: paired parts lean feminine (יד, רגל, עין, אוזן) — handy when you meet a new one.
• When a dictionary or app tags a noun ז (זכר) or נ (נקבה), trust the tag over the ending; that label is there precisely for the exceptions.
• Fix a new noun’s gender by ear: say it inside a tiny phrase with a known adjective (בית גדול vs מיטה גדולה) so the agreement sound sticks.

In short

Modern Hebrew builds almost every plural with one of two suffixes: ־ים (-im), the default masculine ending, and ־ות (-ot), the default feminine ending. You strip whatever the singular ends in and glue the suffix on: סוס (sus) ‘horse’ → סוסים (susim), מיטה (mita) ‘bed’ → מיטות (mitot). Learn those two suffixes and you can already pluralize most A1 nouns.

The one thing that trips learners is that the suffix is not a gender label. A batch of common nouns takes the “wrong-looking” ending — masculine שולחן (shulchan) ‘table’ pluralizes to שולחנות (shulchanot) with feminine ־ות, feminine מילה (mila) ‘word’ pluralizes to מילים (milim) with masculine ־ים. The gender you learned in lesson 3 never changes; only the sound of the ending does. A short set of irregular plurals (women, men, cities) simply has to be memorized.

The rule

Two productive suffixes. The masculine plural ending is ־ים (-im) and the feminine plural ending is ־ות (-ot). Most nouns follow their gender: masculine nouns take ־ים, feminine nouns take ־ות. Start every plural from that expectation and adjust only for the memorized exceptions below.

Strip the singular ending before you add the suffix. You never just tack the suffix onto the whole dictionary word — you first remove the singular marker:

• Masculine on a consonant: add ־ים directly. סוס (sus) → סוסים (susim) ‘horses’, כלב (kelev) → כלבים (klavim) ‘dogs’.
• Masculine ending in ־ה: drop the ־ה, then add ־ים. מורה (moré) ‘teacher’ → מורים (morim), not מורהים.
• Feminine ending in ־ה: drop the ־ה, then add ־ות. מיטה (mita) → מיטות (mitot) ‘beds’, שאלה (she’ela) → שאלות (she’elot) ‘questions’.
• Feminine ending in ־ית: the ending becomes ־יות (-iyot). מכונית (mechonit) ‘car’ → מכוניות (mechoniyot), מונית (monit) ‘taxi’ → מוניות (moniyot).

The suffix can “lie” about gender. A closed set of very common nouns takes the ending that belongs to the other gender. They are still perfectly regular in sound — you just have to know which ending each one takes:

• Masculine nouns that take feminine ־ות: שולחן (shulchan) → שולחנות (shulchanot) ‘tables’, לילה (layla) → לילות (leilot) ‘nights’, מקום (makom) → מקומות (mekomot) ‘places’.
• Feminine nouns that take masculine ־ים: מילה (mila) → מילים (milim) ‘words’, שנה (shana) → שנים (shanim) ‘years’, ביצה (beitza) → ביצים (beitzim) ‘eggs’.

The suffix does NOT change the gender — this is the chief point. שולחנות (shulchanot) is still masculine; מילים (milim) is still feminine. Everything that agrees with the noun — adjectives, the present-tense verb, demonstratives, numbers — tracks the fixed lexical gender you learned in lesson 3, never the ־ים / ־ות ending you see on the surface. So “big tables” is שולחנות גדולים (shulchanot gdolim) with a masculine plural adjective, and “beautiful words” is מילים יפות (milim yafot) with a feminine plural adjective. Agreement is covered in lessons 6–12; here just fix the principle: read the ending for the sound of the plural, never for the gender.

A handful of plurals are suppletive — memorize them whole. These do not come from the singular by any suffix rule; they are separate stems you learn by heart: אישה (isha) → נשים (nashim) ‘women’, איש (ish) → אנשים (anashim) ‘men’, עיר (ir) → ערים (arim) ‘cities’, בית (bayit) → בתים (batim) ‘houses’, בן (ben) → בנים (banim) ‘sons’.

Segholate nouns shift their vowels — learn the plural as a word. Two-syllable nouns like ספר (sefer) ‘book’ and ילד (yeled) ‘boy’ change their inner vowels in the plural: ספרים (sfarim), ילדים (yeladim), כלבים (klavim). At A1 do not try to compute this — just memorize each plural as a whole word. The vowel machinery behind it — the noun patterns, or משקלים (mishkalim) — is a later topic.

Forms & patterns

The productive patterns — strip the singular ending, then add the suffix:

The “lying suffix” nouns — the ending points to the wrong gender, but the gender never moves:

Suppletive / irregular plurals to memorize whole:

Examples

Common mistakes

• מורהים -> מורים (morim) - drop the singular ־ה before adding ־ים; you never keep both.
• מיטים -> מיטות (mitot) - a feminine ־ה noun takes ־ות, not ־ים.
• שולחנים -> שולחנות (shulchanot) - שולחן is one of the masculine nouns that takes the ־ות ending; memorize it.
• מילות -> מילים (milim) - מילה is feminine but takes the ־ים ending; the suffix does not follow the gender here.
• שולחנות גדולות -> שולחנות גדולים (shulchanot gdolim) - שולחן stays masculine, so the adjective is masculine plural even though the noun ends in ־ות.
• מילים יפים -> מילים יפות (milim yafot) - מילה stays feminine, so the adjective is feminine plural even though the noun ends in ־ים.
• אישות / אישים (for women) -> נשים (nashim) - “women” is a suppletive plural, unrelated to the suffix rules.
• עירים -> ערים (arim) - עיר has an irregular plural stem; learn it as a whole word.

Tips

• Learn every new noun with its plural, not just its gender — say “sefer, sfarim” the way you say “sefer, masculine”.
• Default first, then adjust: expect masculine → ־ים and feminine → ־ות, and only override for the memorized exception words.
• Always strip the singular ending before adding the suffix; ־ה and ־ית disappear before the plural goes on.
• The ending is a sound, not a gender tag. To choose an adjective or verb, recall the noun’s lexical gender from lesson 3, not the ־ים / ־ות you see.
• Keep a short flashcard list of the “lying suffix” nouns — שולחן, לילה, מקום on one side; מילה, שנה, ביצה on the other.
• Remember ־ית becomes ־יות (an extra yod): מכונית → מכוניות, not מכוניתים.
• The suppletives are few — נשים, אנשים, ערים, בתים, בנים — so drilling them once pays off for good.
• Do not try to derive segholate plurals (sefer → sfarim) at A1; the vowel shift belongs to the noun-pattern lesson. Just memorize the plural.

In short

Modern Hebrew builds present-tense “X is Y” sentences with no word for “is” or “are”. You simply place the subject — הנושא (ha-nose) — next to its predicate — הנשוא (ha-nasu) — and stop. אני מורה (ani mora) is a complete sentence meaning “I am a teacher”: literally just “I — teacher”. This kind of sentence, with no verb at all, is called המשפט השמני (ha-mishpat ha-shemani), the nominal sentence.

For an English speaker the hard part is not learning a new form but unlearning one: there is nothing to translate the “is/are/am” with. The verb היה (haya, “to be”) exists in Hebrew for the past and future, but in the present it is simply absent. So every time your English says “is”, “are”, or “am”, the Hebrew says nothing.

The rule

Subject + predicate, and nothing in between. A present-tense statement of who or what something is needs only two parts placed side by side: the subject (הנושא, ha-nose) and the predicate (הנשוא, ha-nasu). No linking verb joins them. אני מורה (ani mora) = “I am a teacher”; הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol) = “the house is big”. The gap where English wants “is” stays empty.

Never translate English “is / are / am / be”. This is the single rule to hammer. Do not reach for היה (haya) — in the present it does not exist, and inserting it is an outright error. Do not borrow יש (yesh, “there is”) as a stand-in; that is a different construction (existence, taught later). The nominal sentence links its two parts by pure juxtaposition.

The predicate can be four kinds of thing. What follows the subject may be:

• a noun — אני מורה (ani mora), “I am a teacher”; דנה סטודנטית (Dana studentit), “Dana is a student”;
• an adjective — הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol), “the house is big”; הקפה חם (ha-kafe cham), “the coffee is hot”;
• a prepositional phrase — אנחנו מישראל (anachnu mi-Yisrael), “we are from Israel”; אבא בעבודה (aba ba-avoda), “dad is at work”;
• a place adverb — הם כאן (hem kan), “they are here”; היא שם (hi sham), “she is there”.

The subject can be a pronoun, a proper noun, or a definite noun. All three work the same way. A pronoun: את יפה (at yafa), “you (f.) are beautiful”. A proper noun: דנה סטודנטית (Dana studentit), “Dana is a student”. A noun with the article ה־ (ha-, from lesson 2): הקפה חם (ha-kafe cham), “the coffee is hot”. Reuse everything you already have — the pronouns of lesson 1, the article ה־ of lesson 2, the gender of lesson 3, and the plurals of lesson 4.

A predicate adjective stays bare — no ה־ on it. This is the classic trap. הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol) is a sentence: “the house is big”. But הבית הגדול (ha-bayit ha-gadol), with ה־ also on the adjective, is not a sentence at all — it is just the noun phrase “the big house”, waiting for a predicate. Putting the article on the predicate adjective silently turns your sentence into a fragment. (Why the article must match on an attributive adjective, and the word order inside such phrases, is the topic of lesson 7; here just keep the predicate adjective article-free.)

A predicate noun is usually indefinite. For “I am a teacher”, say אני מורה (ani mora) — no article. אני המורה (ani ha-mora), with ה־, means the more specific “I am the teacher”. English hides this because “a teacher” and “the teacher” look similar in the frame “I am ___”, but Hebrew marks the difference plainly.

Forms & patterns

The nominal sentence is a two-slot frame. Nothing fills the join:

The four predicate types:

The three kinds of subject:

Where English inserts a form of “to be”, Hebrew inserts nothing:

Sentence vs. phrase — the ה־ trap on the adjective:

Examples

Common mistakes

• אני היה מורה -> אני מורה (ani mora) - there is no present-tense “to be”; היה (haya) belongs to the past, so drop it entirely.
• הבית הוא גדול -> הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol) - a simple adjective predicate needs no linking word; the pronoun-copula הוא is a separate later construction (lesson 28), not used here.
• אני יש מורה -> אני מורה (ani mora) - יש (yesh) means “there is / exists”, not the copula “am”; the nominal sentence links its parts with nothing.
• הבית הגדול (meant as “the house is big”) -> הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol) - ה־ on the adjective makes it the phrase “the big house”, not a sentence; keep the predicate adjective bare.
• אני המורה (meant as “I am a teacher”) -> אני מורה (ani mora) - a predicate noun stays indefinite for “a teacher”; with ה־ it means “I am the teacher”.
• הקפה חמה -> הקפה חם (ha-kafe cham) - קפה (kafe) is masculine, so the predicate adjective is masculine חם, not feminine חמה.
• אנחנו ישראל (meant as “we are from Israel”) -> אנחנו מישראל (anachnu mi-Yisrael) - “from” is the prefix מ־; a bare noun would say “we are Israel”.

Tips

• Build the sentence in two beats with a tiny pause and nothing between them: “ani … mora”, “ha-bayit … gadol”. That silent gap is the copula.
• Whenever your English has “am / is / are / be” in the present, translate it as zero — write the subject, then the predicate, and stop.
• Remember the four predicate types: a noun, an adjective, a prepositional phrase (with מ־, ב־, ל־ …), or a place word like כאן (kan) / שם (sham) / פה (po).
• Keep the predicate adjective article-free. הבית גדול is a sentence; the moment you add ה־ to the adjective (הבית הגדול) you have only “the big house”.
• A predicate noun is normally indefinite: אני מורה = “I am a teacher”. Add ה־ only when you truly mean “the”.
• The predicate adjective still matches the subject’s gender and number by ear (הבית גדול but הדירה גדולה) — the full agreement rules come in lesson 7.
• Order is subject first, predicate second. This same frame is how you will later say “who is where” and answer simple questions about people and things.
• היה (haya) is real Hebrew — but only for the past (“was”) and future (“will be”). In the present it disappears completely.

In short

The Modern Hebrew present tense is really a participle — the בינוני (binoni, “the in-between”). Unlike an English verb, it does not conjugate for person (I / you / he). It conjugates like an adjective, agreeing only in gender and number with its subject. That gives you exactly four forms per verb: masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, feminine plural.

Because the form says nothing about who is doing the action, the subject pronoun cannot be dropped — אני כותב (ani kotev) and הוא כותב (hu kotev) use the very same word כותב, so the pronoun is what tells them apart. And one present-tense form covers both English “I write” and “I am writing”: Hebrew has no separate progressive. This lesson builds the pattern on the base binyan, pa’al (also called קל, kal), using strong (fully regular) roots.

The rule

• The present tense is the binoni, and it agrees like an adjective. It marks gender + number only — never person. So a single verb has four forms: m.sg, f.sg, m.pl, f.pl. Pick the one that matches your subject’s gender and number, exactly as you would pick an adjective.

• The pa’al shape: an “o” after the first root letter. Take a three-letter root such as כ־ת־ב (k-t-v, “write”) and slot it into the pa’al present pattern. The masculine singular is CoCeC: כותב (kotev) — an “o” (written with ו) after radical one, an “e” after radical two. That “o” is the audible signature of the pa’al present; if you don’t hear it, it isn’t pa’al.

• Feminine singular adds ־ת (-et). From the m.sg you build the f.sg by adding the ending and shifting the stress onto it: כותב → כותבת (kotev → kotevet), לומד → לומדת (lomed → lomedet). Note it is -et, spelled with a final ת.

• Plurals reduce the vowel — kotvim, NOT kotevim. The masculine plural takes ־ים (-im) and the feminine plural takes ־ות (-ot), and the stress jumps to that ending, so the “e” of the singular drops: כותב → כותבים (kotev → kotvim), לומד → לומדים (lomed → lomdim). Do not say kotevim; the middle vowel is squeezed out.

• The subject pronoun stays obligatory. In the past and future the verb ending encodes the person, so Hebrew can drop the pronoun. Here it cannot: אני חושב, אתה חושב and הוא חושב (ani / ata / hu choshev) are identical. Strip the pronoun and you lose “who”. So in the present, always name the subject.

• No copula — the binoni IS the verb. A present-tense clause is just Subject + binoni: אני כותב (ani kotev, “I write”). Never wedge a הוא / היא between them — ani hu kotev is wrong. The pronoun-as-copula you met with noun and adjective predicates (lesson 5) does not appear once there is a real verb.

• One tense, two English meanings. Hebrew has a single present. אני כותב = both “I write” and “I am writing”; context supplies the difference. There is no separate progressive to build.

Forms & patterns

The four forms of כ־ת־ב (write), and which subjects take them:

The pattern across several strong roots (note: “o” after radical one; -et in f.sg; the singular “e” drops in both plurals):

Person is invisible — the same form serves every person of the same gender/number (root ח־ש־ב):

All three masculine-singular rows are the same word, and all three feminine-singular rows are the same word — which is exactly why the pronoun in front of the verb is mandatory.

Examples

Common mistakes

• אני כותבים מכתב -> אני כותב מכתב (ani kotev michtav) - number must agree: a singular subject takes a singular form, not the plural.
• היא כותב -> היא כותבת (hi kotevet) - gender must agree: a feminine subject takes the ־ת form, not the bare masculine.
• הם כותבות -> הם כותבים (hem kotvim) - הם is masculine plural, so the verb is the m.pl כותבים, not the feminine כותבות.
• אני הוא כותב -> אני כותב (ani kotev) - no copula with a verb; never insert הוא between the subject and the binoni.
• כותבים מכתב (no pronoun) -> אנחנו כותבים מכתב (anachnu kotvim michtav) - the form is blind to person, so the subject pronoun must stay; drop it and “who” disappears.
• הם כותבים (kotevim) -> הם כותבים (kotvim) - the singular “e” drops in the plural; say kotvim, not kotevim.
• הם אוכלימ -> הם אוכלים (hem ochlim) - word-final mem is the sofit ם, never the medial מ.

Tips

• Learn every pa’al verb as a set of four. A dictionary lists the m.sg (כותב, kotev); you generate the other three from the pattern.
• Listen for the “o” after radical one — kotev, lomed, shomer, roked, choshev. That vowel is the pa’al-present signature; no “o”, no pa’al present.
• Build the f.sg by adding -et and moving the stress onto it: kotev → koTEvet, lomed → loMEdet.
• Reduce the plurals: kotev → kotvim / kotvot, lomed → lomdim / lomdot — the middle “e” is squeezed out. Never kotevim.
• Because person is invisible, keep the subject pronoun — unlike the past and future, where you can drop it. אני / אתה / הוא כותב are the same word.
• A present-tense sentence is simply Subject + binoni. Don’t add a הוא / היא “to be”; that copula belongs only to noun and adjective predicates (lesson 5).
• Remember one form does double duty: אני כותב is both “I write” and “I am writing.” Hebrew has no separate progressive.
• Drill by pairing subject and verb out loud — היא לומדת, הם אוכלים, הבנות רוקדות — until the gender/number match becomes automatic.

In short

A Modern Hebrew adjective comes after the noun it describes, and it agrees with that noun. Where English says “a good boy”, Hebrew says ילד טוב (yeled tov) — literally “boy good”. The adjective then copies the noun’s gender and number, and adds one more ending to match: masculine or feminine, singular or plural. So “a good girl” is ילדה טובה (yalda tova) and “new books” is ספרים חדשים (sfarim chadashim).

There is one extra layer Hebrew adds that English does not: definiteness agreement. When the noun is definite (carries ה־), the adjective repeats that ה־ too — הבית הגדול (ha-bayit ha-gadol, “the big house”), with two ha-. Drop the second ha- and you no longer have a phrase; you have a whole sentence: הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol, “the house is big”). Counting the ha- is how you tell “the big house” from “the house is big”.

The rule

The attributive adjective follows its noun. Put the noun first and the describing word second — the reverse of English. ילד טוב (yeled tov, “a good boy”), ספר חדש (sefer chadash, “a new book”), מכונית אדומה (mechonit aduma, “a red car”). Never front the adjective: טוב ילד is not Hebrew.

It agrees in gender and number. The adjective takes one of four forms to match the noun — masculine singular (no ending), feminine singular ־ה (-a), masculine plural ־ים (-im), feminine plural ־ות (-ot). These are exactly the four endings you already met on the present-tense verb (the binoni, lesson 6): if you can inflect כותב / כותבת / כותבים / כותבות, you can inflect any adjective. So ילד טוב, ילדה טובה (yalda tova), ילדים טובים (yeladim tovim), ילדות טובות (yeladot tovot).

Agree with grammatical gender, not with the ending you see. The adjective matches the noun’s real gender and number (lessons 3 and 9), which the noun’s own ending does not always reveal. עיר (ir, “city”) looks unmarked but is feminine, so it takes a feminine adjective: עיר גדולה (ir gdola). נשים (nashim, “women”) ends in ־ים but is feminine, so the adjective is ־ות: נשים יפות (nashim yafot), never נשים יפים. שולחנות (shulchanot, “tables”) ends in ־ות but is masculine, so the adjective is ־ים: שולחנות גדולים (shulchanot gdolim), never שולחנות גדולות. Match the word, not its tail.

A definite noun repeats ha- on the adjective. This is definiteness agreement, and Hebrew has no English parallel. If the noun carries the article ה־ (lesson 2), the adjective carries it too: הבית הגדול (ha-bayit ha-gadol, “the big house”), הילדה החדשה (ha-yalda ha-chadasha, “the new girl”), המכוניות האדומות (ha-mechoniyot ha-adumot, “the red cars”). The ha- on the adjective still fuses/behaves like any other ה־, so a preposition on the noun does not change it: בבית הגדול (ba-bayit ha-gadol, “in the big house”) — ב swallows the noun’s article (lesson 2), but the adjective keeps its own ha-.

Attributive vs. predicative: count the ha-. With a definite noun, two ha- make a noun phrase (a thing): הבית הגדול (ha-bayit ha-gadol) = “the big house”. One ha-, on the noun only, makes a sentence — the verbless nominal sentence of lesson 5, “the house is big”: הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol). The predicative adjective is indefinite (no ha-) and simply agrees in gender and number. With an indefinite noun the two readings share one spelling — בית גדול (bayit gadol) is both “a big house” and “a house is big”; context decides.

Stack multiple adjectives after the noun. Each one follows, each one agrees, and each one repeats ha- when the noun is definite, usually joined by ו־ (ve-, “and”): הבית הגדול והיפה (ha-bayit ha-gadol ve-ha-yafe, “the big and beautiful house”).

Forms & patterns

The four agreeing forms of common adjectives:

The endings — the same four as the binoni (lesson 6):

Two notes on the table. אדום shifts its vowel: the o of adom becomes u once an ending follows — aduma, adumim, adumot. יפה is a spelling trap: the masculine yafe and the feminine yafa are both written יפה (unvocalized), so only the noun beside it — or the pronunciation — tells you which.

The core contrast, driven by the ha- count:

Gender traps — the adjective follows the noun’s true gender, not its ending:

Examples

Common mistakes

• טוב ילד -> ילד טוב (yeled tov) - the adjective follows the noun; never front it English-style.
• ילדה טוב -> ילדה טובה (yalda tova) - the adjective must agree in gender; a feminine noun takes the ־ה form.
• ספרים חדשה -> ספרים חדשים (sfarim chadashim) - agree in number too; a plural noun takes a plural adjective.
• הבית גדול (for “the big house”) -> הבית הגדול (ha-bayit ha-gadol) - a definite noun repeats ha- on its adjective; without it, הבית גדול means “the house is big”.
• הבית הגדול (meaning “the house is big”) -> הבית גדול (ha-bayit gadol) - the predicative adjective is indefinite; the second ha- would turn the sentence into the phrase “the big house”.
• עיר גדול -> עיר גדולה (ir gdola) - agree with grammatical gender: עיר is feminine even without a feminine ending.
• נשים יפים -> נשים יפות (nashim yafot) - נשים is feminine despite the ־ים plural, so the adjective takes ־ות.
• שולחנות גדולות -> שולחנות גדולים (shulchanot gdolim) - שולחן is masculine despite the ־ות plural, so the adjective takes ־ים.

Tips

• Build the word-order reflex: noun first, adjective second. Think “boy good”, “house big” — then never front the adjective the way English does.
• Match three things on the adjective at once: gender, number, and — if the noun is definite — the article ha-.
• The four adjective endings are the same four you learned for the binoni (lesson 6): — / ־ה / ־ים / ־ות. Reuse that muscle memory.
• Agree with the noun’s real gender and number, not its ending. Recall the traps: עיר and נשים are feminine, שולחנות is masculine (lessons 3 and 9).
• The ha- test tells a phrase from a sentence: two ha- (הבית הגדול) = “the big house” (a thing); one ha- (הבית גדול) = “the house is big” (a statement).
• Since the text is unvocalized, remember יפה is both yafe (m) and yafa (f) — one spelling, two sounds; the noun beside it decides.
• Watch the transliteration for vowel shifts: גדול gadol but גדולה gdola; אדום adom but אדומה aduma. The ending is added and the vowels reshuffle.
• Stack adjectives freely, all after the noun and all agreeing — each also carrying ha- when the noun is definite: הבית הגדול והיפה (ha-bayit ha-gadol ve-ha-yafe).

In short

To ask a content question in Modern Hebrew you put a question word — a מילת שאלה (milat she’ela) — at the front and follow it with an ordinary statement. מי את? (mi at?) “who are you?”, מה זה? (ma ze?) “what is it?”, איפה המורה? (eifo ha-more?) “where is the teacher?”. The words to learn are מי (mi, who), מה (ma, what), איפה (eifo, where), מתי (matai, when), למה (lama, why), איך (eich, how), כמה (kama, how much), and the “which”-word איזה / איזו / אילו (eizeh / eizo / eilu), which agrees in gender and number.

To ask a yes/no question, do the easiest thing imaginable: say the statement and let your voice rise at the end. את מדברת אנגלית? (at medaberet anglit?) is both “you speak English” and “do you speak English?” — the only difference is the tone. Crucially, Hebrew has no “do / does / did”: there is nothing to translate the English auxiliary with. A formal written option, האם (ha’im), exists and is covered below, but everyday speech leaves it out.

The rule

Content questions: question word first, then a statement. The interrogative opens the clause and the rest of the sentence keeps its normal shape. מתי השיעור? (matai ha-shiur?) “when is the lesson?” is just מילת שאלה + the nominal sentence השיעור. You already know how to build the part after the question word from lessons 5–12; you are only adding a word in front.

The core question words. Memorize these as a set: מי (mi) “who”, מה (ma) “what”, איפה (eifo) “where”, מתי (matai) “when”, למה (lama) “why”, איך (eich) “how”, כמה (kama) “how much / how many”. The everyday “why” is למה (lama); its literary twin מדוע (madua) means exactly the same but sounds bookish — recognize it, and say למה.

“Which” is איזה / איזו / אילו and it agrees. Unlike the others, the “which”-word changes shape to match the noun after it, exactly like an adjective (lesson 7): masculine איזה (eizeh), feminine איזו (eizo), plural אילו (eilu). איזה ספר? (eizeh sefer?) “which book?” (m.), איזו מסעדה? (eizo mis’ada?) “which restaurant?” (f.), אילו שפות? (eilu safot?) “which languages?” (pl.).

מה (what) ≠ איזה (which). This is the trap for English speakers, because English uses “what” for both. Use מה (ma) for an open, unrestricted question (“what is it?”), and איזה / איזו / אילו for a choice out of a set (“which restaurant [of the ones here]?”). מה מסעדה? is wrong; you want איזו מסעדה?.

Yes/no questions: statement + rising intonation, and no do-support. The plain colloquial way to ask a yes/no question is to keep the statement unchanged and raise your voice at the end (in writing, just add ”?”). את מדברת עברית? (at medaberet ivrit?) = “do you speak Hebrew?”. There is no auxiliary verb: Hebrew never inserts a word for English “do / does / did”, and it does not reorder the sentence. Answer with כן (ken) “yes” or לא (lo) “no”.

The formal particle האם (ha’im). In careful, literary, or written Hebrew a yes/no question may open with the particle האם (ha’im) placed before the statement: האם את מדברת עברית? (ha’im at medaberet ivrit?). It carries no extra meaning — it only marks the sentence as a yes/no question — and in everyday speech it sounds stiff, so overusing it is a mistake of register, not grammar. It always stands first in the clause.

Careful: האם (ha’im) is not אם (im). They look and sound almost alike but do opposite jobs. האם (ha’im) opens a yes/no question. אם (im) means “if” and introduces a condition (taught with conditionals later); it never turns a sentence into a question. Don’t swap one for the other.

Forms & patterns

The content question words:

The agreeing “which”-word — pick the form to match the noun:

Yes/no question — two registers, same meaning:

The frame is always “question word, then a normal statement”:

Examples

Common mistakes

• מה מסעדה טובה? -> איזו מסעדה טובה? (eizo mis’ada tova?) - “which one out of a set” is איזה / איזו / אילו, not מה; מה asks an open “what?”.
• איזה מסעדה טובה? -> איזו מסעדה טובה? (eizo mis’ada tova?) - מסעדה (mis’ada) is feminine, so the “which”-word must be the feminine איזו, not masculine איזה.
• את עושה מדברת אנגלית? -> את מדברת אנגלית? (at medaberet anglit?) - Hebrew has no do-support; never insert a verb for English “do / does”. The plain statement with a rising tone is the question.
• המורה איפה? -> איפה המורה? (eifo ha-more?) - the question word opens the clause; don’t strand it at the end.
• את לומדת עברית למה? -> למה את לומדת עברית? (lama at lomedet ivrit?) - keep מילת השאלה clause-initial, in front of the statement.
• את מדברת אנגלית האם? -> האם את מדברת אנגלית? (ha’im at medaberet anglit?) - the particle האם stands first, before the whole statement, never at the end.
• אם את מדברת עברית? (meant as “do you speak Hebrew?”) -> האם את מדברת עברית? (ha’im at medaberet ivrit?) - אם (im) means “if”, not the question particle; the yes/no particle is האם (ha’im).

Tips

• Everyday yes/no questions are effortless: say the statement, lift your voice at the end, done — no extra word, no reordering.
• Never translate English “do / does / did” in a question. There is nothing for it in Hebrew.
• Keep the question word at the very front of the clause; the rest of the sentence stays in its normal order.
• מה (ma) = open “what?”; איזה / איזו / אילו = “which one (from a set)?” and it must agree in gender and number with its noun.
• Learn מה זה? (ma ze?) “what is it?” as a fixed chunk — it’s one of the first things you’ll say.
• Answer a yes/no question with כן (ken) or לא (lo).
• האם (ha’im) is correct but formal — good in writing and exams, heavy in speech. In conversation, drop it and use intonation.
• Say למה (lama) for “why”. מדוע (madua) means the same but is literary; recognize it, don’t reach for it when speaking.

In short

To point something out — “this is a book”, “these children” — Modern Hebrew uses the demonstratives כינויי הרמז (kinuyei ha-remez): זה (ze) for a masculine thing, זאת (zot) for a feminine thing, and אלה (eleh) for any plural. They agree with the noun in gender and number, exactly the way an adjective does, and they carry no niqqud once you leave the reading lessons.

The catch for an English speaker is that Hebrew uses the same words in two different shapes for two different jobs. Placed before a bare noun they make a whole sentence — זה ספר (ze sefer) = “this is a book”. Placed after a definite noun, with the article ה־ (ha-) repeated on the demonstrative, they just modify it — הספר הזה (ha-sefer ha-ze) = “this book”. English “this” hides that split; Hebrew makes you choose.

The rule

Three near-deixis forms, agreeing in gender and number. Use זה (ze) for a masculine singular thing, זאת (zot) for a feminine singular thing, and אלה (eleh) for a plural of either gender — there is no gender split in the plural. The choice tracks the noun’s lexical gender from lessons 3–9, never the sound of its ־ים / ־ות ending: מילים (milim) “words” is feminine, so “these words” is המילים האלה (ha-milim ha-eleh) with the plural form regardless.

Job 1 — predicative “this is …”: demonstrative first, no article. To say “this/that is X”, put the demonstrative in front of an indefinite noun and stop — it is a nominal sentence (lesson 5) with the demonstrative as subject: זה ספר (ze sefer) “this is a book”, זאת מפה (zot mapa) “this is a map”, אלה ילדים (eleh yeladim) “these are children”. Nothing links the two parts, and no ה־ appears.

Neutral “this / that” uses masculine זה. When you are not pointing at one named noun — reacting to a whole situation or asking about an unknown thing — the default is masculine זה: זה יפה (ze yafe) “that’s nice”, זה בסדר (ze beseder) “that’s OK”, and the everyday question מה זה? (ma ze?) “what is this?”, מי זה? (mi ze?) “who is that?”.

Job 2 — attributive “this X”: demonstrative AFTER the noun, article doubled. To modify a specific noun, the demonstrative behaves like an adjective (lesson 7): it comes after the noun, and — because the noun is definite — it too takes ה־. The article therefore appears twice: הספר הזה (ha-sefer ha-ze) “this book”, literally “the-book the-this”; המורה הזאת (ha-mora ha-zot) “this teacher (f.)”; הילדים האלה (ha-yeladim ha-eleh) “these children”. Both the noun and the demonstrative wear the article; drop either one and the phrase breaks.

Everyday vs. literary forms. The feminine singular has two spellings: everyday זאת (zot) and bookish זו (zo). The plural likewise has everyday אלה (eleh) and literary אלו (elu). There is also a purely literary attributive pattern with the demonstrative after the noun and no articles at all — ספר זה (sefer ze) “this book” — which you will meet in formal writing. In speech and ordinary text, use זאת / אלה and the doubled-article pattern.

Far deixis, in one line. For “that … over there” as opposed to “this … here”, Modern Hebrew reuses the third-person pronouns from lesson 1 as demonstratives: masculine ההוא (ha-hu), feminine ההיא (ha-hi), and their plurals — הילד ההוא (ha-yeled ha-hu) “that boy”. Same doubled-article shape; no need to drill it now.

Forms & patterns

The near-deixis paradigm — pick the form from the noun’s gender and number:

Job 1 — predicative “this is …” (demonstrative + indefinite noun, no article):

Job 2 — attributive “this …” (definite noun + demonstrative, article on both):

Same two nouns, two jobs — watch the article appear and disappear:

Examples

Common mistakes

• ספר הזה -> הספר הזה (ha-sefer ha-ze) - the attributive pattern doubles the article; the noun must also carry ה־, not just the demonstrative.
• זה ספר (meant as “this book”) -> הספר הזה (ha-sefer ha-ze) - predicative זה ספר is a full sentence “this is a book”; to modify a noun, put the demonstrative AFTER it with the doubled ה־.
• זה מפה -> זאת מפה (zot mapa) - מפה is feminine, so use feminine זאת, never masculine זה.
• המורה הזה (for a female teacher) -> המורה הזאת (ha-mora ha-zot) - the demonstrative matches gender; a female teacher takes feminine הזאת.
• הספרים הזה -> הספרים האלה (ha-sfarim ha-eleh) - a plural noun takes the plural demonstrative אלה, not the singular זה.
• הילדים אלה -> הילדים האלה (ha-yeladim ha-eleh) - the plural is attributive too, so it also needs its own ה־: האלה, not bare אלה.
• הזה ספר -> זה ספר (ze sefer) - the demonstrative comes first only in the article-free predicative sentence; you cannot put הזה before the noun.

Tips

• Two jobs, two shapes: article-free before a bare noun = “this is X” (a sentence); with ה־ after a definite noun = “this X” (a phrase). Decide which you mean first.
• Match the noun: זה for masculine singular, זאת for feminine singular, אלה for any plural — the plural has no gender split.
• In the attributive pattern the article shows up twice, once on the noun and once on the demonstrative: הספר הזה, literally “the-book the-this”. If you wrote only one ה־, it is wrong.
• Pick the form from the noun’s lexical gender (lessons 3–9), not from its ־ים / ־ות ending: המילים האלה (ha-milim ha-eleh), because מילה is feminine, stays plural either way.
• For a general reaction with no single noun in mind, reach for masculine זה: מה זה? (ma ze?), זה יפה (ze yafe), זה בסדר (ze beseder).
• Everyday speech says זאת and אלה. The variants זו / אלו and the article-less literary ספר זה (sefer ze) sound bookish — recognize them in reading, but produce זאת / אלה yourself.
• “That one over there” (far deixis) just reuses the lesson-6 pronouns with the same doubling: הילד ההוא (ha-yeled ha-hu), הילדה ההיא (ha-yalda ha-hi).

In short

To say whose something is, Modern Hebrew uses the little word של (shel, “of”). You name the thing first, then add של plus the owner: הבית שלי (ha-bayit sheli) is literally “the-house of-me” — “my house”. The owner can be a person’s name (הכלב של יוסי, ha-kelev shel Yosi, “Yosi’s dog”) or a pronoun folded into של as an ending: שלי (sheli, my), שלך (shelcha, your), שלו (shelo, his), and so on.

These endings are not new vocabulary — they are the subject pronouns of lesson 1 stuck onto של. So שלי/שלך/שלו/שלה line up with אני/את·ה/הוא/היא. Like those pronouns, they mark masculine vs. feminine only; there is no polite “your” and no T/V distinction. The one thing to burn in from the start: the possessed noun keeps its ה־ (the article of lesson 2). It is always הבית שלי, never בית שלי.

The rule

• The frame is [definite noun] + של + owner. Put the possessed thing first — with its article — then של, then whoever owns it. הבית שלי (ha-bayit sheli, “my house”), הספר של המורה (ha-sefer shel ha-mora, “the teacher’s book”). This is the reverse of English “my house”, where the owner comes first; in Hebrew the owner comes last.

• The possessed noun keeps its ה־. This is the single biggest trap. “My house” is הבית שלי (ha-bayit sheli), with ה־ on בית. Drop it and בית שלי is wrong. The thing you own is a specific, definite thing (“the house, which is mine”), so it carries the definite article from lesson 2 just as it would on its own.

• The pronoun owners fuse into של as suffixes. Instead of writing של plus a separate pronoun, Hebrew glues the ending on: של + אני → שלי (sheli), של + הוא → שלו (shelo). Say שלי, never של אני. The full set — שלי/שלך/שלו/שלה/שלנו/שלכם/שלכן/שלהם/שלהן — is in the table below and mirrors the ten pronouns of lesson 1 (with 1st person gender-neutral, as always).

• A name or full noun just follows the bare word של. When the owner is spelled out — a name, or a noun with its own article — you do not fuse anything: הכלב של יוסי (ha-kelev shel Yosi), הספר של המורה (ha-sefer shel ha-mora), המכונית של אבא (ha-mechonit shel aba). Only pronoun owners turn into the שלי/שלך endings.

• Only the suffix agrees — with the OWNER, never with the possessed noun. של itself never changes to match the thing owned. “My book” and “my books” are both שלי: הספר שלי (ha-sefer sheli) and הספרים שלי (ha-sfarim sheli). The ending changes only to track the owner’s gender and number: שלו (shelo) = his, שלה (shela) = her, שלהם (shelahem) = their.

• שלך is one spelling for two words. Written unvocalized, שלך covers both shelcha (“your”, to a man) and shelach (“your”, to a woman). You hear the difference in speech; on the page it is identical. Choose which you mean by the listener’s gender — there is no polite third option.

• Possession can be the whole sentence. Because Hebrew has no present-tense “to be” (lesson 5), a של phrase can be the predicate: הספר הזה שלי (ha-sefer ha-ze sheli) = “this book is mine”. Subject (הספר הזה) + predicate (שלי), nothing in between. (של is really a preposition inflecting for its object; the general mechanism behind these endings is lesson 17, and the tighter bound form ביתי comes much later in lesson 41.)

Forms & patterns

The של paradigm — the owner-suffixes, laid out like the pronoun grid of lesson 1 (person down, gender across). Note that 1st person makes no gender distinction:

The frame in action — [definite noun] + של + owner:

של never agrees with the possessed noun — the same שלי, whatever the gender or number of the thing owned:

Examples

Common mistakes

• בית שלי -> הבית שלי (ha-bayit sheli) - the possessed noun must keep its ה־; without the article it is not “my house”.
• שלי הבית -> הבית שלי (ha-bayit sheli) - don’t copy the English “my house” order; in Hebrew the noun comes first, then של.
• הבית שלו (meaning “her house”) -> הבית שלה (ha-bayit shela) - the suffix agrees with the owner: שלו (shelo) = his, שלה (shela) = her.
• הספרים שליים -> הספרים שלי (ha-sfarim sheli) - של never pluralizes to match the possessed noun; “my books” is still just שלי.
• של אני -> שלי (sheli) - a pronoun owner fuses into של as a suffix; say שלי, not של + the separate word אני.
• שלכה (for “your”, m.) -> שלך (shelcha) - “your” is written שלך — one unvocalized spelling for both shelcha (m.) and shelach (f.); there is no ה in it.

Tips

• Build the phrase in order: point at the thing (with its ה־), say של, then say whose. “ha-bayit … sheli.”
• The endings are just the pronouns you already know: שלי/שלך/שלו/שלה = ani / at·a / hu / hi → my / your / his / her. Learn the grid once and it covers everything.
• Keep the ה־ glued to the possessed noun every time: הבית שלי, הכלב שלה, המפתחות שלנו — never a bare noun.
• של stays frozen; only the tail moves. הספר שלי, הספרים שלי, הדירה שלי — same של, same שלי, whatever the noun’s gender or number.
• For a named owner, use the bare word של + the name or full noun: הכלב של יוסי, הספר של המורה. Fusing (שלי-type endings) is only for pronoun owners.
• To say “this is mine”, just make a nominal sentence (lesson 5): הספר הזה שלי — subject, predicate, no verb.
• שלך = shelcha to a man, shelach to a woman: identical on the page, different by ear. Pick by the listener’s gender; there is no polite form.
• Register: in everyday speech שלהם / שלכם often cover feminine groups too, though careful Hebrew keeps the feminine שלהן / שלכן. Learn the full set as the standard.

In short

To say that something exists or is present, Modern Hebrew uses one little word: יש (yesh), “there is / there are”. To say that something is absent or does not exist, it uses its opposite: אין (ein), “there isn’t / there aren’t”. יש חלב במקרר (yesh chalav ba-mekarer) = “there’s milk in the fridge”; אין קפה (ein kafe) = “there’s no coffee”. That is the whole toolbox for stating existence in the present.

The gift here is that both words are completely frozen. Unlike an adjective or a verb, they never change for gender or number — one כלב (kelev) or a hundred כלבים (klavim), masculine or feminine, near or far, it is always plain יש or plain אין. English has three shapes (“there is / there are / there isn’t”); Hebrew has just these two invariant particles.

The rule

Two frozen particles: יש for existence, אין for its absence. יש (yesh) asserts that something is there; אין (ein) denies it. יש מקום (yesh makom) = “there’s room”; אין מקום (ein makom) = “there’s no room”. They are a matched pair — the positive and the negative of the same idea.

They never inflect — this is the core point. Whatever follows, יש and אין keep their exact shape. There is no masculine/feminine form and no plural. יש כלב (yesh kelev, “there’s a dog”), יש כלבים (yesh klavim, “there are dogs”), יש עוגה (yesh uga, “there’s a cake”) — all begin with the identical יש. Do not try to make it “agree”; there is nothing to agree with.

The existent noun is normally indefinite. You are announcing that some thing exists, so it comes without the article: יש חלב (yesh chalav), “there’s milk” — not יש החלב. Using ה־ (ha-) here would point to a specific, already-known item and clash with the “there is a…” meaning.

Add location with כאן / שם or a ב־ phrase. To say where the thing is, drop in a place word — כאן (kan, “here”), שם (sham, “there”), פה (po, “here”) — or a prepositional phrase with ב־ (be-/ba-, “in/at”). יש ילדים בגן (yesh yeladim ba-gan) = “there are kids in the garden”; שם יש מסעדה (sham yesh mis’ada) = “there’s a restaurant over there”. The order is flexible; יש/אין may open the sentence or follow the location.

Yes/no questions are made by intonation alone. No word order changes and no helper is added — you simply say the statement with a rising question tone and write a ”?”: יש מים? (yesh mayim?, “is there water?”). The natural short answers reuse the particle itself: כן, יש (ken, yesh) “yes, there is”; לא, אין (lo, ein) “no, there isn’t”. The everyday exchange יש בעיה? לא, אין בעיה (yesh be’aya? lo, ein be’aya) — literally “is there a problem? no, no problem” — is a fixed phrase you will hear constantly.

אין denies existence — it is not the general word for “not”. Reserve אין for saying that something is absent. The all-purpose “not” that negates verbs and adjectives is לא (lo), and it belongs to the negation lesson. So “there’s no coffee” is אין קפה (ein kafe), but “I don’t drink coffee” uses לא, not אין.

No subject pronoun, no copula. A יש/אין sentence has no הוא/היא (hu/hi) and no linking word — the particle stands on its own. This is a different construction from the nominal sentence of lesson 5, which juxtaposes a subject and a predicate. Here יש/אין simply posits or denies that something is out there.

Present tense only. יש and אין speak about the here-and-now. “There was” and “there will be” switch to forms of היה (haya) — היה (haya) for the past, יהיה (yihye) for the future — which are handled with the copula later. At A1, keep יש/אין firmly in the present.

Forms & patterns

The two particles — one shape each, forever:

The basic frame — particle + indefinite noun (+ optional location):

One particle for every gender and number — nothing changes:

Yes/no question and its short answers — intonation only:

Examples

Common mistakes

• יֵשִׁים / יש רבים -> יש (yesh) - יש never takes a plural; one word covers “there is” and “there are” alike.
• יש החלב במקרר -> יש חלב במקרר (yesh chalav ba-mekarer) - the existent noun stays indefinite; drop the ה־.
• לא קפה (meant as “there’s no coffee”) -> אין קפה (ein kafe) - to deny existence use אין; לא is the general “not” of the negation lesson.
• אינה קפה / ישה עוגה -> אין קפה / יש עוגה (ein kafe / yesh uga) - יש and אין have no feminine form; they are frozen.
• הוא יש חלב -> יש חלב (yesh chalav) - no subject pronoun and no copula; יש stands entirely on its own.
• היה חלב במקרר (meant as present “there is”) -> יש חלב במקרר (yesh chalav ba-mekarer) - היה is past “there was”; present existence is יש.
• אני אין זמן (meant as “I have no time”) -> אין לי זמן (ein li zman) - bare אין denies plain existence; the “I have / haven’t” sense needs ל־, which is a later lesson.

Tips

• Whenever your English says “there is / there are / there’s no”, reach for exactly one of two words: יש or אין. Nothing else is needed.
• Never bend יש/אין for gender or number: יש כלב, יש כלבים, יש עוגה — all start with the identical יש.
• Keep the existent thing indefinite: say יש חלב, not יש החלב.
• To ask, just lift your voice — יש מים? — and answer short with the particle: כן, יש / לא, אין.
• Learn אין בעיה (ein be’aya, “no problem”) as one ready-made everyday phrase.
• Watch the אין vs. לא split: אין denies that something exists, לא is the general “not”. Mixing them is the classic slip.
• Plural-looking nouns like מים (mayim, “water”) still take plain יש/אין — the particle doesn’t react to the ־ים ending.
• יש/אין are present only. For “there was” / “there will be” you’ll switch to היה / יהיה later — don’t force it now.

In short

Modern Hebrew has two full sets of the numbers 1–10, and you pick the set by the gender of the thing you are counting. The twist that surprises everyone is that the choice runs backwards from what the endings suggest: the numbers that end in ־ה (-a) — שלושה (shlosha), ארבעה (arba’a), חמישה (chamisha) — the very ending that means “feminine” on a noun, are the forms you use with masculine nouns. The bare, ־ה-less numbers שלוש (shalosh), ארבע (arba), חמש (chamesh) go with feminine nouns. This mismatch is called תקבולת המין, “gender polarity”.

Two numbers behave specially. “One” comes after its noun and simply agrees with it like an adjective: ילד אחד (yeled echad), ילדה אחת (yalda achat). “Two” has a short bound form שני / שתי (shnei / shtei) that clips onto the front of a noun, and a free-standing form שניים / שתיים (shnayim / shtayim) used only when nothing follows. Everything from 3 to 10 stands in front of a plural noun.

The rule

Numbers come before the noun — except “one”. For 2–10 the number precedes a plural noun: שלושה ספרים (shlosha sfarim) ‘three books’, חמש בנות (chamesh banot) ‘five girls’. Only אחד / אחת (‘one’) follows its noun, like an adjective: ספר אחד (sefer echad), מיטה אחת (mita achat).

Two sets, chosen by the noun’s gender. Each of 3–10 has a masculine-noun form and a feminine-noun form. Decide which to use by the lexical gender of the counted noun (lesson 3), the same gender that drives adjective and verb agreement — not by anything you see on the surface of the plural.

The polarity is inverse — this is the whole trick. The forms that end in ־ה count masculine nouns; the bare forms count feminine nouns:

• masculine: שלושה בנים (shlosha banim) ‘three sons’, חמישה שקלים (chamisha shkalim) ‘five shekels’, עשרה אנשים (asara anashim) ‘ten people’;
• feminine: שלוש בנות (shalosh banot) ‘three daughters’, חמש שאלות (chamesh she’elot) ‘five questions’, עשר דקות (eser dakot) ‘ten minutes’.

So the ־ה on שלושה is not a feminine marker here — read it as the masculine-counting form and pair it with a masculine noun.

“One” agrees like an adjective. אחד (echad) follows a masculine noun, אחת (achat) follows a feminine noun, matching gender the way any adjective would: יום אחד (yom echad) ‘one day’, שנה אחת (shana achat) ‘one year’. It is the only number that sits after the noun and the only one that does not show the polarity flip.

“Two” has a bound form and a free form. Before a noun, use the construct (bound) form: masculine שני (shnei) + noun, feminine שתי (shtei) + noun — שני ספרים (shnei sfarim) ‘two books’, שתי דלתות (shtei dlatot) ‘two doors’. The absolute forms שניים (shnayim) / שתיים (shtayim) stand alone — when you answer “how many?” with just “two”, or when you count out loud — and are never placed directly before a noun.

Check the gender, not the plural ending. A noun’s plural suffix can point the “wrong” way (lesson 4): שנה (shana) is feminine but pluralizes שנים (shanim), and כיסא (kise) is masculine but pluralizes כיסאות (kis’ot). The number still follows the fixed gender: שבע שנים (sheva shanim, feminine number) and ארבעה כיסאות (arba’a kis’ot, masculine number). Ignore the ־ים / ־ות you see; count by the gender you learned with the word.

A couple of notes. שמונה is written the same for both genders — masculine shmona and feminine shmone are one unvocalized spelling, so let the noun tell you how to say it. And when you recite numbers with no noun (counting, doing sums, reading a phone number), Israelis default to the feminine set: אחת, שתיים, שלוש, ארבע…

Forms & patterns

The two sets for 3–10 — the ־ה forms count masculine nouns, the bare forms count feminine nouns:

“One” — follows the noun and agrees like an adjective:

“Two” — bound form before a noun, absolute form standing alone:

Examples

Common mistakes

• שלוש בנים -> שלושה בנים (shlosha banim) - בנים is masculine, so it takes the ־ה-ending number; the bare form is for feminine nouns.
• שלושה בנות -> שלוש בנות (shalosh banot) - בנות is feminine, so it takes the bare form; the ־ה form is reserved for masculine nouns.
• חמש שקלים -> חמישה שקלים (chamisha shkalim) - שקל is masculine, so the number is the ־ה form; do not read that ־ה as feminine.
• ילדה אחד -> ילדה אחת (yalda achat) - “one” agrees like an adjective, so a feminine noun needs אחת, not אחד.
• אחד ילד -> ילד אחד (yeled echad) - “one” comes after its noun; only 2–10 stand in front of the noun.
• שניים ספרים -> שני ספרים (shnei sfarim) - before a noun use the bound form שני, never the standalone שניים.
• שתיים דלתות -> שתי דלתות (shtei dlatot) - the absolute שתיים cannot sit before a noun; use the bound שתי.
• שבעה שנים -> שבע שנים (sheva shanim) - שנה is feminine even though its plural שנים looks masculine; count by the gender, not the ending.

Tips

• Reverse your instinct: the ־ה-looking number (שלושה) goes with masculine nouns, the bare number (שלוש) with feminine. Drill the pair “shlosha banim / shalosh banot” until the flip feels automatic.
• Only “one” behaves like an adjective — it follows the noun and matches its gender (ילד אחד / ילדה אחת). Everything from 2 to 10 comes before the noun.
• Keep the two shapes of “two” apart: bound שני / שתי glued in front of a noun, free שניים / שתיים only when nothing follows (answering “how many?” or counting aloud).
• Pick the number by the noun’s lexical gender (lesson 3), never by the plural suffix — שנים and כיסאות end in “wrong” letters, yet their nouns’ genders still decide the form.
• שמונה is one spelling for both genders (shmona with masculine nouns, shmone with feminine); let the noun tell you how to read it.
• When you count with no noun — reciting numbers, doing sums, reading out a phone number — use the feminine set: אחת, שתיים, שלוש, ארבע…
• Leave 11 and up, telling the time, and ordinals (“first, second”) to later lessons; here just lock in 1–10 with concrete, countable objects.

In short

Modern Hebrew has two kinds of everyday preposition. Three of the most common are single letters glued to the front of the next word with no space — ב (be-, “in / at”), ל (le-, “to / for”) and מ (mi-/me-, “from”). The rest are ordinary separate words — עם (im, “with”), על (al, “on / about”) and אל (el, “to / toward”). With just these six you can already say where something is, where you are going, where you came from, and what you are doing something with.

Two things to watch from the start. English “with” splits into two Hebrew words: a tool takes ב (בסכין be-sakin, “with a knife”), a companion takes עם (עם חברים im chaverim, “with friends”). And אל (el) is a bit literary — in everyday speech “to a place” is simply ל.

The rule

• The prefixes ב ל מ attach with no space. They are one-letter words that lean on the next noun and are written as part of it: בתל אביב (be-Tel Aviv, “in Tel Aviv”), לירושלים (le-Yerushalayim, “to Jerusalem”), מחיפה (me-Haifa, “from Haifa”). A space (ב תל אביב) is a spelling error, exactly like the article ה־ in the previous article lesson.
• ב (be-) = “in / at”, and also “by means of”. One little letter covers both place and instrument. Place: בבית (be-vayit, “in a house”), בעיר (be-ir, “in a city”). Instrument — “using / by means of”: כותב במחשב (kotev be-machshev, “writing on a computer”), חותך בסכין (chotech be-sakin, “cutting with a knife”). If you can rephrase English “with” as “by means of”, it is this instrumental ב.
• ל (le-) = “to / for”. Direction toward a place — נוסע לירושלים (nosea le-Yerushalayim, “travelling to Jerusalem”) — and the recipient or beneficiary of something: מתנה לחבר (matana le-chaver, “a gift for a friend”).
• מ (mi-/me-) = “from”. Same letter, two readings. Before an ordinary consonant it is mi- with a doubling of that consonant: מבית (mi-bayit, “from a house”), מתל אביב (mi-Tel Aviv). Before the gutturals א ה ח ע and before ר it softens to me-: מחיפה (me-Haifa), מאמריקה (me-Amerika), מרחוב (me-rechov, “from a street”). The spelling never changes — only the vowel you pronounce. A literary variant is the separate word מן (min), seen mostly in set phrases (מן הסתם, min ha-stam, “presumably”); everyday Hebrew uses the prefixed מ.
• עם (im) = “with (someone)”. This is accompaniment — being together with a person or thing: אני עם חברים (ani im chaverim, “I’m with friends”), נפגשים עם המורה (nifgashim im ha-mora, “meeting with the teacher”). עם is never the tool of an action; that is ב.
• על (al) = “on”, and “about”. Physical position — הספר על השולחן (ha-sefer al ha-shulchan, “the book is on the table”) — and the topic of talk or thought: מדברים על סרט (medabrim al seret, “talking about a movie”).
• אל (el) = “to / toward”, literary. It points in a direction, but in ordinary speech Israelis reach for ל instead. Say נוסעים לחיפה (nos’im le-Haifa), not נוסעים אל חיפה. Keep אל for a more formal or set directional feel: פנתה אל התלמידים (panta el ha-talmidim, “she turned to the pupils”).
• With a definite noun, ב and ל fuse with the article. בבית can mean “in the house” (ba-bayit) and לילד “to the boy” (la-yeled), the ה being swallowed. That fusion belongs to the article lesson — see Definite article ha- & its fusion after ב/כ/ל. Here we stay with plain, indefinite nouns and proper names.
• Full nouns only, for now. This lesson attaches prepositions to nouns. To say “to me / on me / from me” the preposition instead fuses with a pronoun ending (li, alai, mimeni) — a separate paradigm covered in Prepositions inflected for pronoun (li / lecha / lo).

Forms & patterns

Prefixed prepositions — glued to the noun, no space:

Reading of מ (“from”) — the vowel depends on the next sound:

Independent prepositions — written as separate words:

The two Hebrew words for English “with”:

Examples

Common mistakes

• ל ירושלים -> לירושלים - a one-letter preposition attaches with no space; le-Yerushalayim is one written word.
• אני חותך עם סכין -> אני חותך בסכין - a tool is instrumental ב (be-sakin); עם is only for company, never for an instrument.
• אני נמצא בחברים -> אני עם חברים - accompaniment (“with friends”) is עם (im chaverim); ב here would mean “inside friends”.
• נוסעים אל חיפה -> נוסעים לחיפה - everyday “to (a place)” is ל (le-Haifa); אל is literary/directional.
• מחיפה = mi-Haifa -> מחיפה = me-Haifa - before the gutturals א ה ח ע and before ר, מ is read me-, not mi-.
• מירושלים = me-Yerushalayim -> מירושלים = mi-Yerushalayim - before an ordinary consonant מ is mi-; me- is reserved for gutturals and ר.

Tips

• The prefixes ב ל מ are always glued to the next word — no space, ever. If you could slip a space in, the spelling is wrong.
• ב does two jobs with one letter: place (in / at) and instrument (by means of). “In Tel Aviv” and “with a computer” are both plain ב.
• English “with” is two Hebrew words. Ask yourself: could I say “by means of”? → ב (בסכין). Do I mean “together with”? → עם (עם חברים).
• מ keeps one spelling but two sounds: mi- before normal consonants, me- before א ה ח ע ר. Learn the trigger sounds, not new letters.
• על covers both “on” (physical) and “about” (a topic): הספר על השולחן and מדברים על סרט.
• Use ל for everyday “to somewhere”; save אל for literary or set directional phrases. Israelis say לירושלים, not אל ירושלים.
• These are the full-noun forms. “To me / on me / from me” fuses the preposition with a pronoun ending (li, alai, mimeni) — that comes next.
• With a definite noun, only ב and ל swallow the ה (בבית → ba-bayit); מ, עם, על and אל never fuse — that spelling detail lives in the article lesson.

In short

Modern Hebrew has no verb “to have.” To say “I have a brother,” it reuses the existential יש (yesh, “there is”) from lesson 11 and adds a possessor built from the preposition ל־ (le-, “to”): יש לי אח (yesh li ach) — literally “there is to me a brother.” Turn it negative by swapping יש for אין: אין לי אח (ein li ach) “I don’t have a brother.”

The possessor forms — לי (li), לך (lecha / lach), לו (lo), לה (la), לנו (lanu)… — are best learned as ready-made “have” chunks. Two things never move: יש itself never changes (there’s no verb, so nothing to conjugate), and the negator is always אין, never לא. Keep this “have” sentence apart from a “my / your” phrase like הכלב שלי (ha-kelev sheli, “my dog”, lesson 10): one asserts that you have something, the other just names whose it is.

The rule

Hebrew has no verb “to have.” Where English conjugates a verb (I have, she has), Hebrew states existence and points it at an owner with ל־ (le-, “to”). יש לי אח (yesh li ach) is literally “there-is to-me a-brother.” Nothing here is a “have”-verb; there is nothing to conjugate.

The frame is יש / אין + ל־possessor + the thing owned. Build every possession sentence the same way: the existential word first, then the ל־ possessor, then the noun you own. יש לי זמן (yesh li zman, “I have time”), אין לה אוטו (ein la oto, “she doesn’t have a car”). In a yes/no question the pieces stay in place and only the tone rises: יש לך זמן? (yesh lecha zman? “do you have time?”).

The possessor is ל־ plus a pronoun ending — learn the set as “have” chunks. לי (li) = “I have”, לך (lecha, m / lach, f) = “you have”, לו (lo) = “he has”, לה (la) = “she has”, לנו (lanu) = “we have”, and so on. These are the same inflected-preposition forms you will meet systematically in lesson 17; here just memorize them as fixed possession words.

With a name or a full noun, ל attaches — and fuses with the article. Glue ל onto the possessor with no space: יש לדני כלב (yesh le-Dani kelev, “Dani has a dog”). When the possessor is definite, ל swallows the article ה exactly as in lesson 2: יש למורה שאלה (yesh la-mora she’ela, “the teacher has a question”) — ל + ה + מורה gives la-, spelled למורה.

יש never changes. It does not agree, and it does not pluralize. Whether you have one thing or many, it stays יש: יש לי ספר (yesh li sefer, “I have a book”) and יש לי ספרים (yesh li sfarim, “I have books”) use the very same word. There is no ישים and no feminine form.

Negate with אין, not לא. The opposite of יש is the ready-made negator אין (ein) — “there isn’t.” “I don’t have money” is אין לי כסף (ein li kesef), never לא יש לי כסף and never יש לי לא כסף. Treat אין ל־ as one unit meaning “…doesn’t have.”

Possession sentence vs. possessive phrase. יש לי כלב (yesh li kelev) is a whole sentence: “I have a dog.” הכלב שלי (ha-kelev sheli) is just a noun phrase: “my dog” (lesson 10). Don’t reach for שלי when you mean to say that something exists for you — that job belongs to יש / אין ל־.

Colloquially, את slips in before a definite thing. In speech, when the thing owned is definite, you’ll hear את added: יש לי את הספר (yesh li et ha-sefer, “I have the book”). Recognize it now; the direct-object marker את gets its full treatment in lesson 15. With an indefinite noun it never appears — plain יש לי אח, not יש לי את אח.

Forms & patterns

The possessor set — learn each as one “have” chunk:

Note the spelling trap: the masculine לך (lecha) and the feminine לך (lach) are written identically (unvocalized); only the noun and the pronunciation tell them apart.

Possessors from a name or noun — ל attaches and, if definite, fuses with the article:

Like the article after ב / כ / ל in lesson 2, לילד spells both le-yeled (“to a boy”) and la-yeled (“to the boy”) — same letters, different vowel; the definite ה has vanished into the a.

The frame, assembled:

Sentence vs. phrase — don’t confuse them:

Examples

Common mistakes

• אני יש כלב -> יש לי כלב (yesh li kelev) - there is no verb “to have”; possession is יש + a ל־possessor, literally “there is to me a dog.”
• לא יש לי זמן -> אין לי זמן (ein li zman) - negate יש with אין, never with לא; אין already means “there isn’t.”
• יש לי לא כסף -> אין לי כסף (ein li kesef) - don’t tack לא onto יש; the whole “have not” is the single unit אין ל־.
• ישים לי ספרים -> יש לי ספרים (yesh li sfarim) - יש never pluralizes and never agrees; it’s the same word whether you have one thing or many.
• הכלב שלי (meant as “I have a dog”) -> יש לי כלב (yesh li kelev) - הכלב שלי is the phrase “my dog” (lesson 10); to say you have a dog you need the יש לי sentence.
• יש ל המורה שאלה -> יש למורה שאלה (yesh la-mora she’ela) - attach ל with no space, and before the article it fuses to la-.
• יש לי את אח -> יש לי אח (yesh li ach) - the colloquial את appears only before a definite thing (יש לי את הספר), never before an indefinite noun.

Tips

• Drill the possessor set as fixed “have” words: לי = “I have”, לך = “you have”, לו = “he has”, לה = “she has”, לנו = “we have”. Once they’re automatic, possession is effortless.
• Hold onto the literal logic: יש לי = “there is to me” = “I have.” Hebrew owns nothing with a verb — it says a thing exists to someone.
• יש is a rock: it never conjugates, agrees, or pluralizes. If you feel the urge to change it, don’t.
• Flip to the negative by swapping one word: יש לי → אין לי. Never לא יש.
• With a name or a definite noun, glue ל on and let it fuse: לדני (le-Dani), למורה (la-mora) — the article ה disappears into the vowel, just like ב / כ / ל in lesson 2.
• Keep the two structures straight: יש לי כלב is a sentence (“I have a dog”); הכלב שלי is a phrase (“my dog”, lesson 10). One tells you that you have; the other only names whose.
• For contrast you can front the possessor: לי יש זמן, אבל לו אין (li yesh zman, aval lo ein) “I have time, but he doesn’t.” The neutral order still puts יש first.
• Past and future “have” are not built with יש; they use היה / יהיה (haya / yihyeh) and do agree with the thing owned — that comes in lesson 28.

In short

Modern Hebrew puts a small word, את (et), in front of a direct object — but only when that object is definite. It is a grammatical signpost, not a preposition: it has no meaning of its own and it is never translated into English. אני רואה את הכלב (ani roe et ha-kelev) is simply “I see the dog”; the את just flags that “the dog” is the thing being seen.

The whole trick is definiteness. If the object is the dog, or Dan, or Dana’s book, or this book, it is definite, and את must come before it. If it is just a dog — any dog — there is no את at all. So the same verb gives you two shapes: אני רואה כלב (ani roe kelev) “I see a dog” versus אני רואה את הכלב (ani roe et ha-kelev) “I see the dog”. English marks the difference with “a” vs “the”; Hebrew adds את on top.

The rule

• את marks a definite direct object — and nothing else. It stands right before the object noun phrase, after the verb, in ordinary Subject–Verb–Object order: אני קורא את הספר (ani kore et ha-sefer) “I’m reading the book”. It tags what the action falls on, never the subject and never an indefinite object.

• One word, no changes. Unlike an English or a Hebrew preposition, את never inflects for the gender or number of the object. The same את precedes a masculine, feminine, singular or plural definite object: את הכלב (et ha-kelev), את המפה (et ha-mapa), את הילדים (et ha-yeladim). It is a single invariable particle.

• את is silent in English. There is no English word for it. Do not try to render it as “the”, “at”, or “to” — those jobs belong to other words. את only tells you the noun after it is a definite object.

• Indefinite object → no את. An object with no definiteness (just “a book”, “some water”, “children”) takes nothing: אני רואה כלב (ani roe kelev), הוא כותב מכתב (hu kotev michtav). Adding את here is a mistake — את is reserved for the definite.

• What counts as “definite” (all from earlier lessons). An object triggers את when it is:

  • a noun with the article ה־ (lesson 2): הספר (ha-sefer) → את הספר (et ha-sefer);
  • a proper name — a person or a place — which is inherently definite and takes no ה־: דן (Dan) → את דן (et Dan); תל אביב (Tel Aviv) → את תל אביב (et Tel Aviv);
  • a noun possessed with של (shel) (lesson 10), which is definite: הספר של דנה (ha-sefer shel Dana) → את הספר של דנה (et ha-sefer shel Dana);
  • a noun with a demonstrative (lesson 9): הספר הזה (ha-sefer ha-zeh) → את הספר הזה (et ha-sefer ha-zeh).

• Pronoun objects belong to a later lesson. When the object is a pronoun (“me”, “him”, “it”), את fuses with it into one word — אותי (oti), אותך (otcha), אותו (oto). Those inflected forms are inherently definite too, but you meet them in lesson 30; here we stay with full noun objects.

• Colloquial elision: את ה־ → “ta-”. In speech, את followed by the article ה־ blurs together and is heard as “ta-”: אני רואה את הכלב comes out as ani roe ta-kelev. This is normal spoken Hebrew — but in writing you always keep the two words in full: את הכלב.

Forms & patterns

The particle is invariable — one form for every definite object:

The four definiteness triggers, each turning a bare object into an את object:

Minimal contrast — the only difference is definiteness:

Examples

Common mistakes

• אני רואה הכלב -> אני רואה את הכלב (ani roe et ha-kelev) - a definite object (ה־) must be marked; you cannot drop את before it.
• אני אוכל את תפוח -> אני אוכל תפוח (ani ochel tapuach) - an indefinite object takes no את; only definite objects are marked.
• אני רואה דן -> אני רואה את דן (ani roe et Dan) - a proper name is inherently definite, so it needs את even though it has no ה־.
• אני מכיר הספר של דנה -> אני מכיר את הספר של דנה (ani makir et ha-sefer shel Dana) - a של-possessed noun is definite; mark it with את.
• אני רואה הילד הזה -> אני רואה את הילד הזה (ani roe et ha-yeled ha-zeh) - a noun with a demonstrative is definite, so it takes את too.
• את הכלב רואה אותי (meaning “the dog sees me”) -> הכלב רואה אותי (ha-kelev roe oti) - את never marks the subject; the doer of the action is bare.
• אני אוהב את עברית -> אני אוהב עברית (ani ohev ivrit) - a language name here is treated as indefinite, so no את.

Tips

• Ask one question about the object: the or a? If it is definite — has ה־, or is a name, a של-phrase, or a demonstrative — put את in front. If it is indefinite, put nothing.
• את is invariable: one word for a masculine, feminine, singular or plural object. Never try to make it “agree”.
• Remember it is untranslated. When you turn a Hebrew sentence into English, את simply disappears — don’t hunt for an English word for it.
• Keep the order S–V–את–O: subject, verb, then את and its definite object — אני קורא את הספר (ani kore et ha-sefer).
• Two look-alikes spelled את: the object marker et and the pronoun at “you (f.sg)” from lesson 1. Position tells them apart — and both can even share a sentence: את רואה את הכלב? (at roa et ha-kelev?).
• In speech את ה־ contracts to “ta-” (roe ta-kelev). Understand it by ear, but write את הכלב in full.
• When the object is a pronoun, את turns into אותי / אותו (oti / oto) — that is lesson 30. A separate look-alike, the preposition את “with” (colloquial איתי, iti), inflects differently and belongs to lesson 17.
• Definiteness inside construct (smichut) phrases works differently and comes later — for now, apply את to the simple triggers above.

In short

You now have the two halves of a Modern Hebrew statement. Lesson 5 gave you the verbless clause — a subject and a predicate with no “to be” between them. Lesson 6 gave you the present tense, the בינוני (binoni), which agrees with its subject in gender and number but never in person. This lesson snaps them together into a full verbal clause and fixes the order of the pieces.

The neutral, everyday order is Subject – Verb – Object – adjunct: the doer first, then the present-tense verb, then whatever it acts on, then extras like time or place. The verb keeps agreeing with the subject exactly as an adjective would — הילד אוכל (ha-yeled ochel) but הילדה אוכלת (ha-yalda ochelet) — and because the binoni carries no person, the subject pronoun stays put. Keep every object in this lesson indefinite (a letter, coffee, Hebrew); once the object is definite it needs the marker את, which is lesson 15’s job.

The rule

• The default frame is S – V – O – adjunct. Put the subject first, the verb second, the object (if any) third, and adjuncts of time or place last: אני שותה קפה בבוקר (ani shote kafe ba-boker, “I drink coffee in the morning”). This is the unmarked order — the one you reach for when nothing is being emphasised.

• The verb agrees with the subject in gender and number — never person. The predicate is the binoni, so it behaves like an adjective: pick the form that matches the subject’s gender and number. One pa’al verb therefore shows four faces — הילד אוכל / הילדה אוכלת / הילדים אוכלים / הילדות אוכלות (ha-yeled ochel / ha-yalda ochelet / ha-yeladim ochlim / ha-yeladot ochlot). Whether the subject is “I”, “you”, or “he” changes nothing in the verb.

• Keep the subject pronoun — the present tense hides “who”. Because the binoni marks gender and number but not person, אני קורא and הוא קורא (ani kore / hu kore) use the identical word קורא. Drop the pronoun and you lose the person entirely, so in the present the subject is obligatory: say אני קורא, never a bare קורא. (Past and future encode the person in the verb and can drop the pronoun — that comes later, in lessons 21 and 43.)

• No copula inside a verbal clause. A real verb already is the predicate, so nothing sits between subject and verb: אני שותה קפה (ani shote kafe), not ani hu shote kafe. The pronoun-copula you met with noun and adjective predicates (lesson 5) does not appear once there is a genuine verb.

• The object follows the verb; adjuncts follow the object. Direct objects come right after the verb (דנה כותבת מכתב, Dana kotevet michtav), and time/place phrases trail at the end (אנחנו לומדים עברית בערב, anachnu lomdim ivrit ba-erev). A fronted time adverb — בבוקר אני שותה קפה — is a natural variant, but it belongs to information structure (lesson 69); the neutral default keeps the adjunct last.

• Verb-first (VSO) is Biblical / poetic, not Modern. Old and literary texts open with the verb — ויאמר, ותלך — but everyday Modern Hebrew is subject-first. Recognise VSO when you read it; never produce it as a plain Modern statement.

Forms & patterns

The default template — Subject → Verb → Object → adjunct:

One verb, four subjects — the agreement grid (root א־כ־ל, “eat”; the verb tracks gender + number, not person):

Person is invisible — same subject, same clause, whoever it is (the verb never changes for person; only the pronoun does):

All three masculine rows are the same verb אוכל — which is exactly why the pronoun in front is mandatory.

Examples

Common mistakes

• אוכל הילד תפוח -> הילד אוכל תפוח (ha-yeled ochel tapuach) - Modern Hebrew is subject-first; verb-first (VSO) is Biblical/poetic, not everyday speech.
• קורא ספר (no subject) -> אני קורא ספר (ani kore sefer) - the binoni marks no person, so dropping the pronoun loses “who”; keep it in the present.
• הילדה אוכל -> הילדה אוכלת (ha-yalda ochelet) - the verb must match the subject’s gender; a feminine subject takes the ־ת form.
• הילדים אוכלות -> הילדים אוכלים (ha-yeladim ochlim) - agreement is gender AND number; a masculine plural subject takes ־ים, not the feminine ־ות.
• דנה מכתב כותבת -> דנה כותבת מכתב (Dana kotevet michtav) - the object comes after the verb; the default is S–V–O, not object-before-verb.
• אני הוא שותה קפה -> אני שותה קפה (ani shote kafe) - no copula with a real verb; never wedge הוא / היא between the subject and the binoni.

Tips

• Build every basic statement on one spine: Subject → Verb → Object → adjunct (time and place last).
• In the present, keep the subject pronoun — the binoni shows gender and number but never person, so אני קורא can’t lose its אני.
• Match the verb to the subject in gender and number, not person: the same אוכל serves אני, אתה, and הוא.
• Objects sit right after the verb; adjuncts of time or place trail at the end — אני שותה קפה בבוקר.
• Opening with a time adverb (בבוקר אני שותה קפה) is a natural variant, but it is a marked, focus-shifting order — see information structure (lesson 69). The neutral default still ends with the adjunct.
• Keep this lesson’s objects indefinite (a letter, coffee, a book) so no marker is needed; a definite direct object triggers את (lesson 15).
• Verb-first order — ויאמר, ותלך — is Biblical. Read it, but never produce it as Modern Hebrew.
• Drill clauses aloud subject-first until the S–V–O spine and the gender/number match on the verb become automatic.

In short

English says “to me”, “for you”, “with him” — a preposition and then a separate little pronoun. Modern Hebrew refuses to leave the pronoun standing on its own: it fuses it onto the preposition as a suffix. So “to me” is one word, לי (li); “for you” is בשבילך (bishvilcha); “with him” is איתו (ito). You never say ל אני or עם הוא — the pronoun always melts into the preposition. This process is called נטיית מילות היחס (netiyat milot ha-yachas), “the inflection of the prepositions”.

There are two suffix patterns to learn, and the choice depends on the preposition. A singular-base group (ל־, ב־, של, אצל, בשביל) takes the endings לי/לך/לו (li/lecha/lo). A plural-base group (על, אל, אחרי) takes a different, longer set — עליי/עליו/עליה (alai/alav/aleha). Two prepositions are simply irregular and must be memorized on their own: עם “with” (איתי, iti) and מ־ “from” (ממני, mimeni). Good news: you have already met this exact singular-base set on של in lesson 10 and inside יש לי in lesson 14.

The rule

A pronoun after a preposition must fuse — it is never a separate word. The bare prepositions of lesson 13 (ל־, ב־, על, עם, מ־ …) combine with a full noun as usual — לחבר (la-chaver, “to the friend”), על השולחן (al ha-shulchan, “on the table”). But the moment the object is a pronoun (“me, you, him…”), Hebrew drops the standalone pronoun and welds a suffix onto the preposition instead: not ל אני but לי (li), not על הוא but עליו (alav). Memorize the whole fused word, not “preposition + pronoun”.

Pattern 1 — the singular-base set: ל־, ב־, של, אצל, בשביל. These take the suffix family לי/לך/לו/לה/לנו/לכם/להם. The endings are: -i (me), -cha/-ach (you m/f), -o (him), -a (her), -anu/-enu (us), -chem/-chen (you pl), -hem/-hen (them). This is the same set you drilled on של in lesson 10 — שלי/שלך/שלו (sheli/shelcha/shelo) — so most of the work is already done. Watch one wrinkle: for the “them” cell, ל, ב and של keep -hem (להם, בהם, שלהם), but the longer bases אצל and בשביל switch to -am (אצלם etzlam, בשבילם bishvilam).

Pattern 2 — the plural-base set: על, אל, אחרי. These prepositions inflect as if their base were a plural construct, so the suffixes are longer: עליי/עליך/עליו/עליה/עלינו/עליכם/עליהם (alai/alecha/alav/aleha/aleinu/aleichem/aleihem). Two things to flag. First, in ktiv male the 1st-person singular is written with a double yod — עליי (alai), אליי (elai), אחריי (acharai) — never a single yod. Second, the 3rd-person masculine singular is spelled ־יו but read -av: עליו is alav (“on/about him”), אליו is elav (“to him”), אחריו is acharav (“after him”). The spelling looks like it should say “-iyu”; it does not.

עם “with” is suppletive — say איתי, not עמי. In everyday Modern Hebrew, עם swaps to a completely different inflected stem, אית־: איתי/איתך/איתו/איתה/איתנו/איתם (iti/itcha/ito/ita/itanu/itam), “with me / you / him / her / us / them”. The older forms עמי/עמו (imi/imo) still exist, but they belong to literary and formal register — recognize them in reading, but produce איתי/איתו yourself.

מ־ “from” is irregular — ממני, ממך, ממנו. The preposition מ־/מן inflects on its own pattern: ממני (mimeni, from me), ממך (mimcha/mimech, from you), ממנו (mimeno, from him), ממנה (mimena, from her), ממנו (mimenu, from us), מכם (mikem, from you pl), מהם (mehem, from them). Note the built-in ambiguity: ממנו is both “from him” (mimeno) and “from us” (mimenu) — one spelling, two words, told apart only by the vowel and the context.

Same spelling, different vowel, splits masculine/feminine “you”. Just like the free pronouns אתה/את, the 2nd-person suffix has a masculine and a feminine reading that often share their letters: לך is lecha to a man but lach to a woman; likewise בך (becha/bach), שלך (shelcha/shelach), איתך (itcha/itach). The unvocalized spelling hides the difference — the addressee’s gender chooses the vowel.

You have already been using these. יש לי (yesh li, “I have”), אין לו (ein lo, “he doesn’t have”) from lesson 14 are exactly this inflected ל־. And שלי/שלך (sheli/shelcha) from lesson 10 are the same suffix set on של. This lesson simply spreads that machinery across the rest of the common prepositions.

Forms & patterns

Pattern 1 — singular-base, full paradigm on ל־ (to / for):

The same singular-base suffixes on the other prepositions of this group:

Pattern 2 — plural-base, full paradigm on על (on / about):

The same plural-base suffixes on אל and אחרי:

עם (with) — suppletive stem אית־ (literary עמ־ shown for recognition only):

מ־ (from) — irregular; note ממנו does double duty:

Examples

Common mistakes

• ל אני -> לי (li) - the pronoun fuses onto the preposition as a suffix; it is never written as a separate word.
• עם אני / עם הוא -> איתי / איתו (iti / ito) - עם is suppletive: its inflected stem is אית־, so “with me” is איתי and “with him” איתו.
• עלי (single yod, meant “about me”) -> עליי (alai) - the plural-base 1st-person singular is a double yod in ktiv male: עליי, not עלי.
• הם מדברים על אני -> הם מדברים עליי (hem medabrim alai) - “about me” is the fused עליי; you cannot leave על and a pronoun apart.
• מ אני / מן אני -> ממני (mimeni) - “from me” is the single irregular word ממני.
• בשביל אתה -> בשבילך (bishvilcha) - “for you” fuses exactly like שלך; keep it one word.
• לך read as lecha to a woman -> לך read lach - the 2nd person still splits m/f under one spelling: לך = lecha to a man, lach to a woman.

Tips

• Whenever a pronoun would follow a preposition, fuse it. Train the reflex “לי, not ל + אני”.
• Two families to keep apart: the singular-base set (ל, ב, של, אצל, בשביל) with לי/לך/לו, and the plural-base set (על, אל, אחרי) with עליי/עליו/עליה.
• Remember the double-yod ktiv male in the plural-base “me”: עליי (alai), אליי (elai), אחריי (acharai).
• Read the ending ־יו as -av: עליו = alav, אליו = elav, אחריו = acharav. It looks like “-iyu”; it isn’t.
• You already own this suffix set from של (lesson 10) — שלי/שלך/שלו — and from יש לי (lesson 14); the very same endings ride ל, ב and the rest.
• עם is the trap: say איתי/איתו in speech, never עמי. Keep עמי/עמו for reading formal Hebrew.
• ממנו is doubly loaded: “from him” (mimeno) and “from us” (mimenu) share one spelling — the vowel and the context tell them apart.
• One spelling, two vowels for “you”: לך is lecha to a man, lach to a woman — and likewise בך, שלך, איתך.

In short

To say what someone wants, needs, or is able to do, Modern Hebrew pairs two verbs: an agreeing modal followed by an infinitive. אני רוצה לאכול (ani rotze le’echol) = “I want to eat”; היא צריכה ללכת (hi tzricha lalechet) = “she needs to go”. The pattern is always subject + modal + infinitive (+ object).

The trick is that the two verbs behave in opposite ways. The modal agrees in gender and number with the subject — just like any present-tense binoni you met in lesson 6 — while the infinitive is frozen. The infinitive, called שם הפועל (shem ha-po’al, “the name of the verb”), is the dictionary form: it always begins with ל־ (le-/li-) and never changes for person, gender, or number. Learn to keep the second verb rigid and let only the first one move.

The rule

• The infinitive is the invariant ל־ form. שם הפועל (shem ha-po’al) is what a dictionary lists: לכתוב (lichtov, “to write”), לאכול (le’echol, “to eat”), ללכת (lalechet, “to go”). It carries no marking for who, how many, or which gender. Once you have it, it never bends — it is the one truly fixed verb form in the language.

• It always keeps its ל־ prefix. The leading ל־ (spelled attached, no space) is part of the form, not a separate word. There is no “bare” infinitive in Hebrew as there is in English: you cannot strip the ל־ off לכתוב the way English drops “to” from “to write”. Say and write the whole thing — לאכול, ללכת, לשתות — every time.

• Three everyday modals: רוצה, צריך, יכול. רוצה (rotze) = “want”, צריך (tzarich) = “need / have to”, יכול (yachol) = “can / be able to”. Each is an ordinary present-tense verb, so each has four forms (m.sg, f.sg, m.pl, f.pl) and must agree with the subject.

• The modal agrees — the infinitive does not. All the grammatical work happens on the modal: match it to the subject’s gender and number, exactly as you learned for the binoni in lesson 6. The infinitive that follows just sits there unchanged. הוא רוצה ללכת / היא רוצה ללכת / הם רוצים ללכת — the modal shifts (rotze → rotza → rotzim) while ללכת (lalechet) stays put.

• Word order: subject + modal + infinitive (+ object). אני צריך לכתוב מכתב (ani tzarich lichtov michtav, “I need to write a letter”). The object, if any, comes after the infinitive, and if it is definite it still takes את (et) from lesson 15: אני רוצה לקרוא את הספר (ani rotze likro et ha-sefer, “I want to read the book”).

• Watch the unpointed רוצה — rotze or rotza. Because we write without niqqud, the masculine רוצה (rotze) and the feminine רוצה (rotza) are spelled with the exact same three letters. A man reading אני רוצה says ani rotze; a woman reading the identical text says ani rotza. The spelling doesn’t tell you — the speaker’s gender does. (The other two modals differ in writing: צריך vs צריכה, יכול vs יכולה.)

• To make it negative, put לא before the modal. At this stage negation is simple: drop לא (lo, “not”) in front of the modal, never the infinitive. הם לא רוצים ללמוד (hem lo rotzim lilmod, “they don’t want to study”). The full machinery of negation comes later; for now, לא + modal is all you need.

Forms & patterns

The infinitive (shem ha-po’al) — one frozen ל־ form per verb:

The three modals, agreeing in gender + number (like any binoni):

The pattern in action — only the modal moves, the infinitive is fixed (verb: ללכת, lalechet):

Negation at A2 — לא goes before the modal:

Examples

Common mistakes

• היא צריכה הולכת -> היא צריכה ללכת (hi tzricha lalechet) - after a modal you use the frozen infinitive, never a conjugated present-tense form.
• אני רוצה אכול -> אני רוצה לאכול (ani rotze le’echol) - the infinitive always keeps its ל־ prefix; you cannot drop it the way English drops “to”.
• היא צריך ללכת -> היא צריכה ללכת (hi tzricha lalechet) - the modal must agree in gender; a feminine subject takes צריכה, not צריך.
• הם יכול לעזור -> הם יכולים לעזור (hem yecholim la’azor) - the modal agrees in number too; a plural subject takes יכולים.
• הם רוצים לא ללמוד -> הם לא רוצים ללמוד (hem lo rotzim lilmod) - to say they don’t want to, put לא before the modal, not before the infinitive.
• אני רוצה (ani rotze, spoken by a woman) -> אני רוצה (ani rotza) - the unpointed רוצה is read rotze by a man but rotza by a woman; match the pronunciation to the speaker.
• אני צריך ללכת עכשיו הבית -> אני צריך ללכת הביתה (ani tzarich lalechet ha-bayta) - the object/goal keeps its normal marking; only the infinitive itself is frozen.

Tips

• Think of the pair as one moving part and one fixed part: the modal moves (agrees), the infinitive is fixed. Get the agreement right on the first verb and forget the second.
• The infinitive is the form you memorize from a dictionary. It always starts with ל־ and always sounds the same, so you only ever learn it once.
• Never re-conjugate the infinitive. There is no לאוכלת or ללכתים — the whole point of שם הפועל is that it has no gender/number.
• Agree the modal exactly like the present-tense binoni of lesson 6: רוצה / רוצה / רוצים / רוצות, צריך / צריכה / צריכים / צריכות, יכול / יכולה / יכולים / יכולות.
• Remember the silent-gender trap: רוצה is written the same for a man (rotze) and a woman (rotza). Read it aloud according to who is speaking.
• To negate, just slot לא before the modal: אני לא יכול, היא לא רוצה, הם לא צריכים.
• A definite object of the infinitive still needs את (et): רוצה לקרוא את הספר — the modal-plus-infinitive frame doesn’t change that rule.
• Separate “someone wants to do” (infinitive) from “someone wants that someone else do” — the latter needs a she- clause and comes much later; here both verbs share one subject.

In short

Almost every Hebrew verb — and a huge share of its nouns — is built from two pieces: a root (שורש, shoresh), which is a bare skeleton of usually three consonants, and a binyan (בניין, “building”), a fixed vowel-and-prefix pattern you pour the root into. The root carries the idea; the binyan shapes it into an actual, pronounceable word with a particular grammatical flavour.

Take the root כ־ת־ב (k-t-v), the idea of “writing”. Slot it into different binyanim and you get a family of related words: כותב (kotev, “writes”), נכתב (nichtav, “was written”), הכתיב (hichtiv, “dictated”), התכתב (hitkatev, “corresponded”). Same three consonants every time; the binyan is what changes. This lesson is about seeing that machinery — how to pull the root out of a word, and how one root re-appears across the seven binyanim. The actual conjugations come in the next lessons.

The rule

• A verb = consonantal root + vocalic template. The root (שורש) is only consonants — כ־ת־ב, ל־מ־ד — with no vowels of its own. The vowels (and any prefixes like נ־, ה־, הת־) come entirely from the binyan. Change the binyan and you keep the root but rebuild the word around it.

• One root recurs across the binyanim as related-but-distinct verbs. From כ־ת־ב you can build כותב (kotev, pa’al, “writes”), נכתב (nichtav, nif’al, “was written”), הכתיב (hichtiv, hif’il, “dictated”) and התכתב (hitkatev, hitpa’el, “corresponded”). They share an obvious thread — all about writing — but each is its own verb with its own meaning, not a tense of the others.

• There are seven binyanim, and each one has a typical voice/function. The seven are pa’al, nif’al, pi’el, pu’al, hif’il, huf’al, hitpa’el. Roughly: pa’al is the plain active; nif’al is often the passive/middle of pa’al; pi’el is an active binyan (often intensive or transitive); pu’al is the passive of pi’el; hif’il is causative (“make/cause to…”); huf’al is the passive of hif’il; hitpa’el is reflexive/reciprocal. “Roughly” matters — see the warnings.

• The whole system is named after a dummy root, פ־ע־ל. The word פעל happens to mean “did / acted”, and grammarians reuse its three letters as the model. Each binyan’s name is simply what פ־ע־ל looks like inside it: פעל, נפעל, פיעל, פועל, הפעיל, הופעל, התפעל. So when you say a verb “is pi’el”, you mean it follows the same vowel pattern as פיעל.

• פ / ע / ל also label the three radical positions. Because פ־ע־ל is the model, its letters name the slots of any root: the פ (pe) = the 1st radical, ע (ayin) = the 2nd radical, ל (lamed) = the 3rd radical. In כ־ת־ב the pe is כ, the ayin is ת, the lamed is ב. This is why verb classes get names like “pe-nun” or “lamed-he” (which radical position holds the awkward letter) — you meet those in the gzarot lessons.

• The root’s spelling never changes, even when its sound does. A root letter from the בגדכפת set (ב, כ, פ) flips between a hard and a soft sound depending on the binyan — כותב (kotev) vs. מכתב (michtav) — yet it is the same letter כ and the same root כ־ת־ב. Begadkefat — the b/v–k/ch–p/f alternation taught in the reading & pronunciation guide — changes pronunciation, never the identity of the root.

• Not every root fills all seven slots, and meanings are related, not mechanical. The seven-binyan table is the full inventory, not a checklist each root completes: most roots live in only a few binyanim. And the meaning shift from one binyan to another is motivated but loose — you can guess, but you must confirm the real dictionary meaning, not compute it.

• A binyan is a verb template — don’t confuse it with a mishkal. Nouns are built from roots too, but by their own patterns called משקלים (mishkalim). מכתב (michtav, “letter”) shares the root כ־ת־ב with the verbs, yet it is a noun in a mishkal, not a binyan. Keep the two systems apart (mishkalim are lesson 63).

Forms & patterns

One root, several binyanim — כ־ת־ב (k-t-v, “write”):

(This root simply does not use the other three binyanim — that is normal.)

A second root, ל־מ־ד (l-m-d): one root, two clearly different verbs.

The seven binyanim, named by the model root פ־ע־ל (“do”):

Radical positions — the פ / ע / ל labels applied to a real root:

Examples

Common mistakes

• השורש של כותב הוא כו־ת־ב (ארבע אותיות) -> השורש הוא כ־ת־ב (shoresh: k-t-v) - the ו is a vowel-letter supplied by the binyan, not a radical; the root is the three consonants only.
• נכתב וכותב הן מילים לא קשורות -> לשתיהן אותו שורש כ־ת־ב (li-shteihen oto shoresh) - same three consonants, different binyanim → related verbs (write / be written), not strangers.
• כותב ומכתב שורשים שונים כי אחד עם k ואחד עם kh -> אותו שורש כ־ת־ב (oto shoresh) - begadkefat only flips the sound of ב/כ/פ; the letter and the root stay identical.
• כל שורש חייב למלא את כל שבעת הבניינים -> רוב השורשים ממלאים רק חלק מהם (rov ha-shorashim memal’im rak chelek mehem) - the seven-slot table is the whole inventory, not a quota each root must complete.
• מכתב הוא בניין של הפועל -> מכתב הוא שם עצם במשקל, לא בניין (michtav — shem etzem be-mishkal) - binyanim are verb templates; noun templates are mishkalim (lesson 63).
• לימד הוא זמן עבר של לומד -> הם בניינים שונים (binyanim shonim) - lomed is pa’al (“learns”) and limed is pi’el (“taught”); they’re separate verbs from one root, not two tenses of one verb.

Tips

• To find a root, mentally strip the prefixes and the vowel-letters ו/י; the consonants left standing — usually three — are the shoresh. In מתכתבים, peel off מ־, the ־ים ending and the ו-vowel to reach כ־ת־ב.
• Learn every new verb as a root + binyan pair, the way a dictionary and a native speaker file it — not as an isolated shape.
• Get comfortable with the פ־ע־ל labels. “This verb is hif’il”, “that root is lamed-he” is the everyday language of Hebrew grammar, and every verb lesson after this leans on it.
• Expect the sound of ב / כ / פ to flip between forms of one root (kotev ~ michtav) while the written root holds steady — that is begadkefat (the hard/soft alternation from the reading & pronunciation guide), not a new root.
• Treat cross-binyan meaning as a hint, not a formula: nif’al often passive of pa’al, pi’el often intensive, hitpa’el often reflexive — then check the actual meaning.
• Keep binyan (verb) and mishkal (noun) in separate mental drawers, even though both draw on the same roots.
• Spotting the shared root turns one word into a cluster you half-know already: meet מכתב and you’ve got a head start on כותב, נכתב, הכתיב and התכתב.

In short

You already build the pa’al present (binoni) — כותב (kotev), כותבת (kotevet), כותבים (kotvim), כותבות (kotvot). The three derived binyanim — פיעל (pi’el), הפעיל (hif’il) and התפעל (hitpa’el) — form their present the same way: four forms, agreeing in gender + number only, never person. Everything you learned in lesson 6 about how the binoni behaves carries straight over.

What changes is the shape. Each derived binyan has its own vowel skeleton, but they share one loud giveaway: every derived present form opens with מ (m-). Pa’al starts on the first root letter (כותב); the derived binyanim stack a מ in front (מדבר, מדליק, מתלבש). Hear or see that מ and you know at once the verb is not pa’al. This lesson covers strong (fully regular) roots only.

The rule

• All three derived binyanim mark the present with a מ prefix. Read the vowel right after that מ to tell them apart: me- is pi’el (מדבר, medaber), ma- is hif’il (מדליק, madlik), mit- is hitpa’el (מתלבש, mitlabesh). No other present tense begins with מ, so the prefix is your fastest recognition cue.

• Pi’el — the pattern meCaCeC. Slot the root into me·Ca·CeC: from ד־ב־ר (d-b-r, “speak”) you get מדבר (medaber). Feminine singular adds ־ת (-et): מדברת (medaberet). The plurals take ־ים / ־ות and, exactly as in pa’al, the singular “e” drops: מדברים (medabrim), מדברות (medabrot). Another: ל־מ־ד in pi’el is מלמד (melamed, “teaches”), not the pa’al לומד (lomed, “learns”) — same root, different binyan, different meaning.

• Hif’il — the pattern maCCiC, and watch the feminine. From ד־ל־ק (d-l-k, “light/kindle”) the m.sg is מדליק (madlik, “turns on”). Here the feminine singular does not take ־ת: it ends in ־ה (-a) — מדליקה (madlika), never madleket. The plurals are מדליקים (madlikim) and מדליקות (madlikot), and because hif’il’s stressed “i” is stable, nothing drops. Likewise ר־ג־ש → מרגיש (margish, “feels”), מרגישה (margisha), מרגישים (margishim), מרגישות (margishot).

• Hitpa’el — the pattern mitCaCeC, and it is reflexive in flavour. From ל־ב־ש (l-b-sh, “dress”) comes מתלבש (mitlabesh, “gets dressed”). Feminine singular adds ־ת: מתלבשת (mitlabeshet). Plurals drop the “e” like pi’el: מתלבשים (mitlabshim), מתלבשות (mitlabshot). Also ר־ג־ש in hitpa’el is מתרגש (mitragesh, “gets excited”) — same radicals as the hif’il מרגיש, but a different binyan and meaning.

• A sibilant-initial hitpa’el root metathesizes the ת. When the first root letter is a sibilant — ס, שׁ, שׂ — the ת of the מת prefix swaps places with it. So ש־מ־ש (“use”) is not mit-shamesh but משתמש (mishtamesh); ס־ד־ר (“arrange, manage”) is not mit-sader but מסתדר (mistader). The מ stays put; only the ת slides in behind the sibilant.

• Otherwise it is business as usual from lesson 6. The binoni agrees in gender and number, never person — one form covers “I / you / he”. The subject pronoun therefore stays obligatory (אני מדבר and הוא מדבר are the same word), there is no copula, and one form means both “speaks” and “is speaking”.

Forms & patterns

Spot the prefix — the three derived binyanim vs. pa’al (m.sg shown):

Pi’el (meCaCeC) — f.sg -et, “e” drops in the plural:

Hif’il (maCCiC) — f.sg is -a (not -et), nothing drops:

Hitpa’el (mitCaCeC) — f.sg -et, “e” drops in the plural:

Hitpa’el with a sibilant first radical — the ת metathesizes (מ stays, ת moves behind the sibilant):

Examples

Common mistakes

• הוא דבר עברית -> הוא מדבר עברית (hu medaber ivrit) - never drop the מ; every derived present verb opens with it, and without the prefix you are left with a bare root, not a verb.
• היא מדלקת אור -> היא מדליקה אור (hi madlika or) - hif’il feminine singular ends in -a (madlika), not -et; there is no “madleket”.
• הוא מתשמש במחשב -> הוא משתמש במחשב (hu mishtamesh ba-machshev) - a sibilant-initial hitpa’el root metathesizes: the ת of the prefix trades places with the ש (mit-shamesh → mishtamesh).
• אני מתסדר בעבודה -> אני מסתדר בעבודה (ani mistader ba-avoda) - same metathesis with ס — the ת slips in behind it (mit-sader → mistader), never *mit-sader.
• הם מדברות -> הם מדברים (hem medabrim) - gender still has to agree: הם is masculine plural, so it takes the m.pl form.
• הם מדברים (medaberim) -> הם מדברים (medabrim) - in pi’el and hitpa’el the singular “e” drops in the plural, exactly as in pa’al (kotev → kotvim); say medabrim, not medaberim.
• אני הוא מדבר עברית -> אני מדבר עברית (ani medaber ivrit) - no copula with a verb; the binoni is the whole predicate, so never wedge a הוא / היא in front of it.

Tips

• The מ is your radar. Pa’al present has no prefix (kotev); a present verb that starts with מ is almost always pi’el, hif’il or hitpa’el. Read the vowel after it — me-, ma-, mit- — to name the binyan.
• Feminine singular splits by binyan: pi’el and hitpa’el take ־ת (medaberet, mitlabeshet), but hif’il takes ־ה / -a (madlika). Don’t level them into one ending.
• Plurals reduce in pi’el and hitpa’el — the singular “e” drops: medaber → medabrim, mitlabesh → mitlabshim. Hif’il keeps its “i”: madlik → madlikim, nothing drops.
• For a sibilant-initial hitpa’el (ס, שׁ, שׂ), swap the ת behind the sibilant and drill the result as one word: mishtamesh, mistader. That way the metathesis becomes automatic and you never say *mit-shamesh.
• Same radicals can live in different binyanim — ר־ג־ש gives מרגיש (margish, “feels”) in hif’il but מתרגש (mitragesh, “gets excited”) in hitpa’el; ל־מ־ד gives pa’al לומד (learns) vs. pi’el מלמד (teaches). Learn the binyan, not just the root.
• All of lesson 6 still applies: agree in gender + number only (never person), keep the subject pronoun, use no copula, and remember one form covers both “speaks” and “is speaking”.
• This is strong roots only. Roots with a guttural or a missing radical shift these vowels; those weak-root (gzarot) patterns come later.

In short

Modern Hebrew’s past tense works on a different principle from the present. Where the binoni (lesson 6) marked only gender and number, the past marks person — I, you, he, she, we, they — by hanging a suffix on the root. So on the very same three letters כ־ת־ב (k-t-v, “write”) you get כתבתי (katavti, “I wrote”), כתבת (katavta, “you wrote”), כתב (katav, “he wrote”), כתבה (katva, “she wrote”). This lesson builds the full set for the base binyan pa’al on strong (שלמים, shlemim) roots — the fully regular ones with three solid consonants.

Because the ending itself names the subject, the pronoun becomes optional: כתבתי on its own already means “I wrote”. The form to memorize is the third-person masculine singular, the bare CaCaC stem — כתב (katav), למד (lamad), שמר (shamar) — and every other person is that stem plus a person-suffix.

The rule

• The past marks person, unlike the present. In the binoni, אני כותב / אתה כותב / הוא כותב are the identical word כותב (kotev) and only the pronoun tells them apart. In the past each person has its own ending: כתבתי / כתבת / כתב are three different words. The verb, not the pronoun, now carries “who”.

• The base is the 3ms: the CaCaC pattern. The dictionary/base form is the third-person masculine singular, an “a” after each of the first two radicals: כתב (katav), למד (lamad), שמר (shamar), סגר (sagar, “closed”), גמר (gamar, “finished”). Everything else is built by adding a suffix to this stem.

• Nine person-suffixes — one set for every strong pa’al verb. ־תי (-ti, I), ־ת (-ta, you m.sg), ־ת (-t, you f.sg), — (nothing, he), ־ה (-a, she), ־נו (-nu, we), ־תם (-tem, you m.pl), ־תן (-ten, you f.pl), ־ו (-u, they). Learn these once and they transfer to any strong root.

• Vowel-suffix forms reduce the stem — katav → katva, katvu. Before the vowel-initial endings ־ה (3fs) and ־ו (3cp), the stem’s second “a” drops and the stress moves to the ending: כתב → כתבה (katav → katva), כתב → כתבו (katav → katvu); שמר → שמרה / שמרו (shamar → shamra / shamru). Do not insert an extra vowel — it is katva, never *katava.

• The 2nd-plural forms shift stress and thin the first vowel. כתבתם (ktavtem) and כתבתן (ktavten) put the stress on the suffix, so the first “a” thins to almost nothing: k(a)tavtem. They are a touch formal — very common in writing, less so in casual speech, where people often keep the fuller sound — but the written form is כתבתם / כתבתן.

• The pronoun is now optional. Since the ending encodes the person, כתבתי, למדנו, שמרתי stand alone. The third-person forms (כתב, כתבה, כתבו) are the exception you usually still name — הוא כתב, היא כתבה, הם כתבו — because the bare verb doesn’t tell you which he/she/they.

• A definite object still takes את. Tense changes nothing about object marking (lesson 15): כתבתי את המכתב (katavti et ha-michtav, “I wrote the letter”), היא סגרה את הדלת (hi sagra et ha-delet, “she closed the door”).

• Two forms collide unvocalized — read them by context. With no niqqud, כתבת is both katavta (you m., “you wrote”) and katavt (you f.); likewise למדת = lamadta / lamadt. Only the person you are addressing tells you which. (Don’t confuse these past forms with the present feminine כותבת, kotevet — that one carries a ו.)

Forms & patterns

The full pa’al past on כ־ת־ב (write) — suffix, pronoun, and form:

The same nine suffixes on two more strong roots (ל־מ־ד “learn/study”, ש־מ־ר “guard/keep”):

The reduction, up close — the middle “a” drops before a vowel ending:

Present vs. past: what marks “who” (root כ־ת־ב):

Examples

Common mistakes

• אני כתב את המכתב -> (אני) כתבתי את המכתב (katavti et ha-michtav) - the past shows the subject with a suffix; “I wrote” is כתבתי, and adding אני doesn’t fix the bare 3ms verb.
• הוא כתבה -> הוא כתב (hu katav) - כתבה (katva) is 3f.sg “she wrote”; the 3m.sg “he wrote” is the bare stem כתב (katav).
• היא כתבה (katava) -> היא כתבה (katva) - no extra vowel: the middle “a” drops before ־ה, so katva, not *katava.
• הם כתבו (katavu) -> הם כתבו (katvu) - the same reduction before ־ו: katvu, not *katavu.
• את כתבתָ -> את כתבת (katavt) - to a woman the ending is bare ־ת (katavt); ־תָ (katavta) is the masculine “you wrote”.
• כתבתי המכתב -> כתבתי את המכתב (katavti et ha-michtav) - a definite object still needs את, exactly as in the present; the tense doesn’t change that.
• אתמול אני כותב מכתב -> אתמול כתבתי מכתב (etmol katavti michtav) - a completed past action needs the past; don’t leave it in the present binoni כותב.

Tips

• Memorize the nine suffixes as one block — ־תי, ־ת, ־ת, —, ־ה, ־נו, ־תם, ־תן, ־ו — because they are identical for every strong pa’al verb. Learn the pattern, not each verb.
• Treat the 3m.sg (katav, lamad, shamar) as the peg: it is the bare CaCaC stem, and you build all eight other persons by attaching an ending to it.
• Watch the reduction: before ־ה (she) and ־ו (they) the stem’s second “a” drops — katav → katva / katvu, shamar → shamra / shamru. Never say *katava or *katavu.
• Because the ending already names the subject, drop the pronoun for 1st and 2nd person (כתבתי, למדנו). The third-person forms usually keep הוא / היא / הם, since the verb alone doesn’t say which one.
• Don’t drag present-tense habits across: 1c.sg כתבתי is the same for a man and a woman — the past does not split 1st/2nd person by gender the way the binoni does.
• Read the unvocalized collisions by context: כתבת is katavta to a man, katavt to a woman; the sentence and the addressee decide, not the spelling.
• Anchor the past with a time word — אתמול (etmol, “yesterday”), אמש / אתמול בלילה (last night) — so you reflexively switch out of the present.

In short

You already conjugate the base binyan pa’al in the past (lesson 21): a fixed set of person endings — ־תי, ־ת, ∅, ־ה, ־נו, ־תם/־תן, ־ו — hangs off the stem and tells you who did the action. The good news for the three derived binyanim — pi’el, hif’il and hitpa’el — is that those endings are exactly the same. Nothing new to memorize on the suffix side.

What changes from binyan to binyan is only the stem the endings attach to. And unlike the present tense (the בינוני, binoni, of lesson 20), which marks gender and number but never person, the past tense does mark person: דיברתי (dibarti) is unambiguously “I spoke”, so the subject pronoun can be dropped. Recognize each binyan by its third-person-masculine-singular shape — דיבר (diber), הזמין (hizmin), התלבש (hitlabesh) — and you can build its whole past paradigm. This lesson uses strong roots only.

The rule

• The person endings are the pa’al endings — reused unchanged. Whatever the binyan, the past attaches ־תי (-ti, “I”), ־ת (-ta “you” m / -t “you” f), nothing at all for “he” (∅), ־ה (-a, “she”), ־נו (-nu, “we”), ־תם/־תן (-tem / -ten, “you” pl), ־ו (-u, “they”). Learn the endings once with pa’al; here you only swap the stem in front of them.

• Tell the three binyanim apart by the 3ms form. The bare “he did” form is the fingerprint. Pi’el has no prefix and an i–e stem: דיבר (diber). Hif’il has a ה prefix and an i…i stem written with a yod: הזמין (hizmin). Hitpa’el has the whole התـ prefix and ends …e: התלבש (hitlabesh). No prefix vs הـ vs התـ — that is your first read on any past verb.

• Pi’el: stem דיב־, “e” softens to “a” before a suffix. The 3ms דיבר (diber) has i–e; add a person ending and the second vowel opens to a: דיברתי (dibarti), דיברת (dibarta / dibart), דיברנו (dibarnu). Only “she” and “they” keep a reduced stem with a stressed ending: דיברה (dibra), דיברו (dibru).

• Hif’il: the critical i→a drop. In the 3rd person the stem keeps its i — and its yod: הזמין (hizmin), הזמינה (hizmina), הזמינו (hizminu). But in the 1st and 2nd person the i drops to a and the yod disappears: הזמנתי (hizmanti) — never hizminti — הזמנת (hizmanta / hizmant), הזמנו (hizmanu), הזמנתם (hizmantem). Same with הסביר (hisbir, “he explained”) → הסברתי (hisbarti, “I explained”), not hisbirti. This single alternation is the one real trap of the lesson.

• Hitpa’el: the whole התـ rides along, “e” → “a” like pi’el. The prefix התـ (hit-) stays attached through every person. The 3ms התלבש (hitlabesh) softens its e to a before a suffix: התלבשתי (hitlabashti), התלבשנו (hitlabashnu); “she” and “they” reduce: התלבשה (hitlabsha), התלבשו (hitlabshu).

• Sibilant metathesis carries over from the present. When the first root letter is a sibilant, the ת of התـ swaps places with it — exactly as in lesson 20 — and the swap stays put in the past: ש־מ־ש gives השתמש (hishtamesh) → השתמשתי (hishtamashti, “I used”); ס־ד־ר gives הסתדר (histader) → הסתדרתי (histadarti, “I managed / got along”). Write the swapped order, not התשמשתי.

• Past marks person, so the pronoun is optional. Because ־תי can only mean “I” and ־נו only “we”, the subject is already inside the verb: דיברתי is a complete sentence, “I spoke”. This is the opposite of the present binoni (lesson 20), where the identical form serves every person and the pronoun must stay.

Forms & patterns

Pi’el — root ד־ב־ר (speak), 3ms דיבר (diber):

Hif’il — root ז־מ־ן (invite / order), 3ms הזמין (hizmin):

Notice the split: the i (with its yod) survives only in הזמין / הזמינה / הזמינו — the 3rd person. Everywhere a person suffix is added it becomes a and the yod is gone.

Hitpa’el — root ל־ב־ש (get dressed), 3ms התלבש (hitlabesh):

The three 3ms shapes side by side — your recognition anchor:

Sibilant metathesis in hitpa’el (unchanged from the present):

Examples

Common mistakes

• הזמינתי אותו -> הזמנתי אותו (hizmanti oto) - hif’il drops the stem i to a once a person suffix is added: the yod disappears and you say hizmanti, never hizminti.
• הסבירתי את הדרך -> הסברתי את הדרך (hisbarti et ha-derech) - the same drop: 1sg is hisbarti; the i of הסביר (hisbir) survives only in the 3rd person — הסביר, הסבירה, הסבירו.
• דיברתי (diberti) -> דיברתי (dibarti) - in pi’el the 3ms “e” of דיבר (diber) opens to “a” before a suffix: you say dibARti, not diberti.
• התשמשתי במילון -> השתמשתי במילון (hishtamashti be-milon) - when the first root letter is a sibilant, the ת of the התـ prefix swaps places with it: hi-sht-amashti, never a plain hit- + shamashti.
• הוא דיברתי -> הוא דיבר / אני דיברתי - the ending already names the person: ־תי is “I”, so it cannot sit under הוא. Match the suffix to the subject.
• אני מדבר עם המורה אתמול -> אני דיברתי עם המורה אתמול (ani dibarti im ha-mora etmol) - a past event needs a past suffix, not the present binoni; מדבר is “I speak / am speaking”, not “I spoke”.
• הזמנתי (spelled הזמינתי, with yod) -> הזמנתי (hizmanti) - once the i is gone the yod goes with it; the 1st/2nd-person hif’il past is written without it.

Tips

• The suffixes are the pa’al past suffixes from lesson 21 — ־תי, ־ת, ∅, ־ה, ־נו, ־תם/־תן, ־ו. Learn them once; from here on only the stem in front of them changes.
• Read the binyan off the 3ms shape: no prefix + i–e = pi’el (diber), ה + i…i = hif’il (hizmin), full התـ = hitpa’el (hitlabesh).
• Burn in the hif’il alternation: 3rd person keeps i + yod (הזמין, הזמינה, הזמינו); every 1st/2nd person opens to a and loses the yod (הזמנתי, הזמנת, הזמנו, הזמנתם). Same story with הסביר → הסברתי.
• In pi’el and hitpa’el the 3ms “e” likewise softens to “a” in front of a suffix: diber → dibARti, hitlabesh → hitlabASHti.
• “She” and “they” keep a reduced stem with a stressed ending across all three: dibrá / dibrú, hizmína / hizmínu, hitlabshá / hitlabshú.
• Because the suffix carries the person, you may drop the subject pronoun in the past — the reverse of the present binoni (lesson 20), where the pronoun is obligatory.
• Metathesis verbs from lesson 20 keep the swap in the past too: השתמש → השתמשתי, הסתדר → הסתדרתי. Never write the letters in root order.
• Everything here assumes a strong root. Guttural and weak roots (and the passive binyanim) shift the vowels further — those are separate lessons.

In short

Alongside the של (shel) construction of lesson 10, Modern Hebrew has a second, tighter way to link two nouns: it simply stands them side by side, with nothing in between. בית ספר (beit sefer) is literally “house-of book” — it means “school”. This is the סמיכות (smichut, “construct state”): two nouns glued into one meaning “X of Y”, written as two words with no של and no ה־ between them.

Smichut is the everyday way Hebrew builds compound names for things — a school, a hospital, orange juice, a birthday. The first noun (the נסמך, nismach) leans on the second (the סומך, somech). Two small things change when the pair forms: a feminine noun swaps its final ־ה for ־ת, and if you want to say “the X of Y”, the article ה־ lands on the second noun only. Everything else you already know.

The rule

• A construct pair is two nouns placed one after the other — no של, no linking word. You name the thing (nismach), then immediately name what it belongs to or is made of (somech): בית ספר (beit sefer, “school”), מיץ תפוזים (mitz tapuzim, “orange juice”). The relation “of” is carried by the word order alone. This is the tighter cousin of the productive של phrase (lesson 10): use של for free, one-off possession (הספר של המורה, “the teacher’s book”), and smichut for fixed compounds and set names.

• First noun = nismach, second = somech; the meaning is “nismach of somech”. The nismach comes first and is the head — בית ספר is a kind of house (a “book-house”), i.e. a school. The stress and the definiteness of the whole phrase are decided at the end, on the somech, as the rest of the rules show.

• A masculine noun usually looks the same — only its vowel shifts. בית on its own is read bayit (“a house”); inside a pair it is read beit (“house-of”). But in ktiv male the spelling is identical: בית either way. You hear the change, you do not write it — so do not go looking for a new spelling of the masculine nismach.

• A feminine noun ending in ־ה changes it to ־ת. This is the one written change you must make. עוגה (uga, “cake”) → עוגת שוקולד (ugat shokolad, “chocolate cake”); ארוחה (arucha, “meal”) → ארוחת בוקר (aruchat boker, “breakfast”); תחנה (tachana, “station”) → תחנת אוטובוס (tachanat otobus, “bus station”). Dropping the ־ת is a mistake.

• Definiteness lives on the somech but colors the whole phrase. To turn “a school” into “the school”, you attach ה־ to the second noun only: בית הספר (beit ha-sefer, “the school”), שם המשפחה (shem ha-mishpacha, “the surname”). One ה־, on the somech, makes the entire pair definite. This builds directly on the article of lesson 2 — it is the same ה־, just placed at the far end.

• Never put ה־ on the nismach. Because English says “the school”, learners reach for ה on the first word: הבית ספר is wrong. The article goes on the somech: בית הספר. The nismach never carries its own article inside a construct pair.

• Never wedge של into a fixed pair. מיץ תפוזים is “orange juice”; מיץ של תפוזים breaks the compound. If the two nouns form a set name, they stand bare and adjacent.

Forms & patterns

Basic construct pairs — masculine nismach, spelling unchanged, only the reading shifts (bayit → beit):

Feminine nismach: final ־ה → ־ת — the one change you actually write:

Making the pair definite — ה־ goes on the somech only, yet the whole phrase becomes “the …”:

Examples

Common mistakes

• הבית ספר -> בית הספר (beit ha-sefer) - the article never sits on the nismach; ה־ attaches to the somech, the second noun.
• בית של ספר -> בית ספר (beit sefer) - no של inside a construct pair; the two nouns simply stand together.
• עוגה שוקולד -> עוגת שוקולד (ugat shokolad) - a feminine nismach ending in ־ה must switch to ־ת; keeping the ה is wrong.
• הארוחת בוקר -> ארוחת הבוקר (aruchat ha-boker) - to definitize, add ה only to the somech, never to the front of the phrase.
• מיץ של תפוזים -> מיץ תפוזים (mitz tapuzim) - “orange juice” is a fixed compound built with smichut, not a של possession.
• תחנה אוטובוס -> תחנת אוטובוס (tachanat otobus) - the feminine תחנה shifts to תחנת in construct; don’t leave it in its standalone form.

Tips

• Read a pair as “X of Y”: בית ספר = “house-of book” = school; מיץ תפוזים = “juice-of oranges”. The “of” is invisible — there is no של and no ה between the two nouns.
• Masculine nouns mostly keep their spelling; only the vowel drops (bayit → beit, both spelled בית). Don’t hunt for a written change that isn’t there.
• Feminine ־ה almost always becomes ־ת in construct: עוגה → עוגת, ארוחה → ארוחת, תחנה → תחנת. Train this switch as a reflex.
• Definiteness rule of thumb: the ה goes on the last word but means “the” for the whole thing — בית הספר = “the school”, not “house the-book”.
• Pick smichut for set compounds and names for things (bus station, orange juice, birthday); pick של (lesson 10) for free, one-off possession (הספר של המורה). If it feels like a single dictionary entry, it’s usually smichut.
• Watch the fused prefixes: ב + בית הספר → בבית הספר (be-veit ha-sefer, “at the school”), exactly the fusion you learned in lesson 2.
• Many everyday words you already use are smichut pairs — say them as one tight unit, stress on the somech.

In short

Modern Hebrew negates with a very small toolkit. The everyday workhorse is לא (lo), “not” — you drop it straight in front of a verb, an adjective, or a noun-predicate, and you are done: אני לא מבין (ani lo mevin) “I don’t understand”, זה לא יקר (ze lo yakar) “it’s not expensive”. There is no “do / does / did” helper to conjugate — לא simply sits before the word it denies.

Two other tools cover the jobs לא cannot do. אין (ein) denies existence and possession (“there isn’t”, “I haven’t”) and heads prohibition signs like אין עישון (ein ishun) “no smoking”. And the negative-scope words אף (af) and שום (shum) build “nobody / never / nothing” — but they come with a catch: in Hebrew they still demand a second לא in the sentence. אף אחד לא ענה (af echad lo ana) is literally “nobody didn’t answer” and means simply “nobody answered”.

The rule

• לא is the general negator — put it right before the predicate. Whatever the predicate is — a verb in any tense, an adjective, or a noun — לא goes immediately in front of it, and nothing else changes. אני מבין (ani mevin) “I understand” → אני לא מבין (ani lo mevin) “I don’t understand”; הוא בא (hu ba) → הוא לא בא (hu lo ba) “he didn’t come”.

• No “do”-auxiliary — ever. English props up its negatives with do/does/did (“I don’t know”). Hebrew has no such helper. You never translate the “do”; לא attaches straight to the real verb: אני לא יודע (ani lo yode’a) “I don’t know”, לא ראיתי (lo ra’iti) “I didn’t see”.

• One לא for all three tenses. The same word negates present, past and future — only the verb form itself moves: present אני לא מבין (ani lo mevin), past הוא לא בא (hu lo ba), future הוא לא יבוא (hu lo yavo) “he won’t come”.

• לא negates the nominal / adjective predicate too — no copula appears. In a verbless sentence (lesson 5), לא sits before the adjective or noun: זה לא יקר (ze lo yakar) “it’s not expensive”, הוא לא מורה (hu lo more) “he’s not a teacher”, אני לא עייף (ani lo ayef) “I’m not tired”.

• אין denies existence and possession — not לא. To say something isn’t there, or that you don’t have it, use אין (ein), the negative of יש (yesh) from lessons 11 and 19: אין קפה (ein kafe) “there’s no coffee”, אין לי זמן (ein li zman) “I have no time”. Never negate these with לא — לא לי כסף is wrong; it must be אין לי כסף (ein li kesef) “I have no money”.

• אין also heads public prohibition signs. The frozen “no ___” of signage is אין + a noun: אין עישון (ein ishun) “no smoking”, אין כניסה (ein knisa) “no entry”. This is the same existence-denying אין, used impersonally.

• The negative-scope words אף / שום need an obligatory second לא. אף אחד (af echad) “nobody”, אף פעם (af pa’am) “never”, and שום דבר (shum davar) “nothing” do not negate a sentence on their own — Hebrew uses negative concord, so a לא must also appear before the verb: אף אחד לא ענה (af echad lo ana) “nobody answered”, אף פעם לא הייתי שם (af pa’am lo hayiti sham) “I’ve never been there”, שום דבר לא קרה (shum davar lo kara) “nothing happened”. Leaving the לא out — אף אחד ענה — is ungrammatical, even though English drops it.

• The concord לא stays before the verb, wherever the scope-word sits. If the negative word is the subject, the order is scope-word + לא + verb (אף אחד לא בא). If it is the object, the לא still hugs the verb: לא ראיתי אף אחד (lo ra’iti af echad) “I didn’t see anybody”, הוא לא אמר שום דבר (hu lo amar shum davar) “he didn’t say anything”.

• Negation does not remove את. A definite object keeps its marker את (lesson 15) under negation: לא ראיתי את הסרט (lo ra’iti et ha-seret) “I didn’t see the movie” — never לא ראיתי הסרט.

• Literary אינו / אינה is just a formal לא. In careful or written Hebrew the nominal predicate may be negated with the inflected copular particle אינו (eino) “he is not”, אינה (eina) “she is not”. In everyday speech nobody says this — you simply use לא: הוא אינו יודע (hu eino yode’a) = colloquial הוא לא יודע (hu lo yode’a). This is one of the clearest colloquial-vs-literary splits (full picture in lesson 60); learn לא as your default and merely recognise אינו/אינה in reading.

Forms & patterns

The three negators and their jobs:

לא before every kind of predicate — nothing else changes:

Negative-scope words — each drags a second לא into the clause:

Colloquial לא vs. literary אינו / אינה (nominal predicates):

Examples

Common mistakes

• אף אחד בא -> אף אחד לא בא (af echad lo ba) - the scope-word אף אחד needs the concord לא; Hebrew keeps the second negative that English drops.
• אף פעם הייתי שם -> אף פעם לא הייתי שם (af pa’am lo hayiti sham) - אף פעם likewise demands a לא before the verb.
• שום דבר קרה -> שום דבר לא קרה (shum davar lo kara) - שום דבר “nothing” cannot stand alone; add the obligatory לא.
• לא לי כסף -> אין לי כסף (ein li kesef) - possession is denied with אין, never with לא.
• זה אין יקר -> זה לא יקר (ze lo yakar) - an adjective predicate is negated by לא; אין only denies existence, not qualities.
• לא ראיתי הסרט -> לא ראיתי את הסרט (lo ra’iti et ha-seret) - negation doesn’t drop את; a definite object keeps its marker.
• אני לא עושה מבין -> אני לא מבין (ani lo mevin) - there is no “do”-auxiliary in Hebrew; לא attaches straight to the verb.
• הוא בא לא אתמול -> הוא לא בא אתמול (hu lo ba etmol) - לא belongs right before the verb it negates, not before the adverb.

Tips

• Make לא your default “not”: drop it directly in front of the verb, adjective, or noun-predicate, and change nothing else.
• Delete “do/does/did” from your mental translation. “I don’t know” is simply אני לא יודע (ani lo yode’a) — one word of negation, no helper.
• Split the labour clearly: לא denies an action, a quality, or an identity; אין denies that something exists or that you have it.
• Treat אף אחד / אף פעם / שום דבר as magnets for a second לא — the concord is grammatically required, not optional emphasis.
• The concord לא always clings to the verb. Subject-scope: אף אחד לא בא. Object-scope: לא ראיתי אף אחד.
• Negation never touches את — a definite object stays marked: לא אכלתי את העוגה (lo achalti et ha-uga).
• Recognise אינו / אינה (eino / eina) as bookish “is not”; in speech and everyday writing just say לא.
• For a “don’t!” command you won’t use לא at all — negative orders take אל + the future form, which is the imperative lesson.

In short

English has a neat little kit of vague words — someone, something, somewhere, everyone, everything, nobody, nothing, never. Modern Hebrew has the same kit, and this lesson hands it to you in three matched sets: the indefinite ones (מישהו mishehu “someone”, משהו mashehu “something”), the universal ones (כולם kulam “everyone”, הכל hakol “everything”), and the negative ones (אף אחד af echad “nobody”, כלום klum “nothing”).

The one thing that will trip you if you skip it: the negative pronouns are not enough on their own. Where English says “nobody knows” with a single negative word, Hebrew keeps אף אחד and still puts לא (lo) on the verb — אף אחד לא יודע (af echad lo yodea). Two negatives, one negation. That double-negation reflex is the heart of this lesson; the vocabulary is the easy part.

The rule

Indefinite: מישהו / משהו for “someone / something”. מישהו (mishehu) is “someone” pointing at a man or an unknown person; its feminine is מישהי (mishehi), “someone” that you know is a woman. משהו (mashehu) is “something”, a thing rather than a person, and it does not inflect for gender. These fill an unknown slot: מישהו התקשר אליך (mishehu hitkasher elecha, “someone called you”), רוצה משהו לשתות? (rotze mashehu lishtot?, “want something to drink?”).

The ־שהו suffix is productive — glue it to a question word. Take a wh-word and add ־שהו (-shehu) and you get its vague partner: איפה (eifo, “where”) → איפשהו (eifoshehu, “somewhere”); איך (eich, “how”) → איכשהו (eichshehu, “somehow”); מתי (matai, “when”) → מתישהו (matayshehu, “sometime”). So גרים איפשהו בצפון (garim eifoshehu ba-tzafon) is “they live somewhere in the north”.

Universal: כולם / הכל / כל אחד for “everyone / everything / each”. כולם (kulam) is “everyone / all of them” for a masculine or mixed group; for a group that is entirely feminine you switch to כולן (kulan). הכל (hakol) is “everything”, the all-encompassing thing. כל אחד (kol echad) is “each one / everyone” taken one at a time — feminine כל אחת (kol achat) — and it is grammatically singular: כל אחד יכול לנסות (kol echad yachol lenasot, “everyone / each one can try”), with a singular verb.

Negative: אף אחד / כלום / אף פעם — and they demand לא. This is the hard rule. אף אחד (af echad, “nobody”; feminine אף אחת af achat), כלום (klum, “nothing”; equally שום דבר shum davar), and אף פעם (af pa’am, “never”) are negative words, but Hebrew does not treat them as carrying the negation by themselves. The verb still needs לא. So “nobody knows” is אף אחד לא יודע (af echad lo yodea) — literally “nobody doesn’t know”, which to a Hebrew ear simply means “nobody knows”. Dropping the לא (אף אחד יודע) is ungrammatical, not just informal.

Word order for the negatives: subject before the verb, object after it — לא sits on the verb either way. When the negative is the subject, it comes first, then לא, then the verb: אף אחד לא בא (af echad lo ba, “nobody came”), אף פעם לא הייתי שם (af pa’am lo hayiti sham, “I’ve never been there”). When it is the object, it follows the verb, and לא still rides in front of the verb: לא ראיתי אף אחד (lo raiti af echad, “I saw nobody”), לא קרה כלום (lo kara klum, “nothing happened”), לא אמרתי כלום (lo amarti klum, “I said nothing”). The pattern is fixed: there is always a לא glued to the verb.

Forms & patterns

Indefinite set:

The productive ־שהו suffix (question word + ־שהו):

Universal set:

Negative set — every one of these requires לא on the verb:

Double negation — where the negative word sits, and where לא sits:

Examples

Common mistakes

• אף אחד יודע -> אף אחד לא יודע (af echad lo yodea) - the negative pronoun still needs לא on the verb; two negatives make one negation in Hebrew.
• ראיתי אף אחד (meaning “I saw nobody”) -> לא ראיתי אף אחד (lo raiti af echad) - as an object too, אף אחד demands a לא on the verb; without it the clause is ungrammatical.
• קרה כלום (meaning “nothing happened”) -> לא קרה כלום (lo kara klum) - כלום is a negative and carries no negation on its own; keep the לא.
• אף פעם הייתי שם -> אף פעם לא הייתי שם (af pa’am lo hayiti sham) - “never” also triggers the double negation; לא stays on the verb.
• משהו התקשר (meaning “someone called”) -> מישהו התקשר (mishehu hitkasher) - “someone” is מישהו with a yod; משהו (no yod) is “something”, a thing not a person.
• כולם הגיעו for an all-female group -> כולן הגיעו (kulan higi’u) - use כולן when the whole group is feminine; כולם is masculine or mixed only.
• כל אחד יכולים -> כל אחד יכול (kol echad yachol) - כל אחד is grammatically singular, so the verb and adjective stay singular.

Tips

• Build the reflex: the moment אף אחד / אף אחת / כלום / שום דבר / אף פעם appears in a clause, put לא on the verb. No exceptions.
• Placement is fixed. Subject negative goes before the verb (אף אחד לא בא); object negative goes after it (לא ראיתי אף אחד) — but לא clings to the verb in both.
• The one-yod difference is meaning-bearing: מישהו (mishehu) “someone” has a yod, משהו (mashehu) “something” does not. Read carefully.
• Match the gender of the group: כולן, אף אחת, כל אחת, מישהי for an all-female reference; the defaults כולם, אף אחד, כל אחד, מישהו cover masculine and mixed.
• ־שהו is a machine: take any wh-word and add it — איפה→איפשהו, איך→איכשהו, מתי→מתישהו — to get “some-” versions on demand.
• כלום and שום דבר are interchangeable for “nothing”; שום דבר feels a touch more emphatic. Both keep the לא.
• Spelling note: “everything” is also written fully as הכול in strict ktiv male, but the quantifier כל before a noun (כל יום, “every day”) always stays כל.

In short

Once you have 1–10 (lesson 12), everything bigger is built from those same digits by stacking three ingredients: a teens block (11–19), an invariable tens block (20, 30 … 90), and the hundreds / thousands words. You read a big number left to right just as in English — thousands, then hundreds, then tens, then units — and glue a single ו (and) in front of the very last piece: אלף תשע מאות ארבעים ושמונה (elef tsha me’ot arba’im u-shmone) ‘1948’.

The good news is that only one digit ever cares about gender: the unit (the 1–10 part). The tens are frozen, the hundreds and thousands have fixed shapes, so the polarity you already learned (masculine ־ה form vs bare feminine form) rides only on the final unit digit. The one fresh trick is a spelling flip inside the teens, described below.

The rule

Teens = unit + the word “ten”, and the ־ה flips sides. 11–19 are a unit digit followed by עשר (asar, m) / עשרה (esre, f): שלושה עשר (shlosha asar) ‘13 m’, שלוש עשרה (shlosh esre) ‘13 f’. Notice the mirror image of lesson 12: there the masculine unit carried the ־ה (שלושה) and the feminine was bare (שלוש). Here the “ten” word reverses it — the masculine ten is bare עשר, the feminine ten ends in ־ה עשרה. So each teen shows exactly one ־ה, but on opposite words: masculine [unit+ה] עשר, feminine [unit] עשרה.

The tens (20–90) never change for gender. עשרים (esrim), שלושים (shloshim), ארבעים (arba’im) … תשעים (tish’im) are single frozen words used with masculine and feminine nouns alike. There is no second set.

Compounds join tens + ו + unit, and only the unit shows polarity. For 21–99 you say the ten, then ו, then the 1–9 unit — and only that unit swaps for gender: עשרים ושלושה בנים (esrim u-shlosha banim) ‘23 sons’ vs עשרים ושלוש בנות (esrim ve-shalosh banot) ‘23 daughters’; חמישים ושבעה (chamishim ve-shiv’a, m) / חמישים ושבע (chamishim ve-sheva, f) ‘57’. The tens word is identical in both; the polarity lives on the last digit exactly as in 1–10.

Hundreds take the short feminine numeral. מאה (me’a, feminine) is ‘100’, and its dual מאתיים (matayim) is ‘200’ — one word, never שתי מאות. From 300 up you put the bare feminine number in front of מאות (me’ot): שלוש מאות (shlosh me’ot) ‘300’, חמש מאות (chamesh me’ot) ‘500’ — because מאה is feminine, so it is always שלוש, never שלושה. Note the vowel shrinks before מאות: shalosh → shlosh, sheva → shva.

Thousands take the counting (construct) form. אלף (elef) is ‘1000’, its dual אלפיים (alpayim) is ‘2000’ — again one word, never שני אלפים. From 3000 up the number takes its bound counting form + the plural אלפים (alafim): שלושת אלפים (shloshet alafim) ‘3000’, ארבעת אלפים (arba’at alafim) ‘4000’, עשרת אלפים (aseret alafim) ‘10,000’. This is the same construct shape (שלושת, ארבעת …) you meet in smichut (lesson 23).

Build big numbers left to right, ו before the last piece only. Read the scales in descending order and coordinate just the final element: מאה עשרים וחמישה (me’a esrim ve-chamisha) ‘125’, אלף תשע מאות ארבעים ושמונה (elef tsha me’ot arba’im u-shmone) ‘1948’. The ו is pronounced u before a shva or a b/v-m-p sound (u-shlosha, u-shmone) and ve otherwise (ve-echad, ve-sheva).

“Two” at every scale. Standing alone it is שניים / שתיים (shnayim / shtayim); before a noun it clips to שני / שתי (shnei / shtei); before עשר it is שנים / שתים (shneim / shteim); and for the round 200 / 2000 it hides inside the frozen duals מאתיים / אלפיים. For a scale with no dual you use the bound form: שני מיליון (shnei milyon) ‘two million’.

Forms & patterns

Teens 11–19 — the “ten” word flips: masculine bare עשר, feminine ־ה עשרה, while the unit keeps its own polarity:

Tens 20–90 — invariable, one form for both genders:

Compounds tens + ו + unit — only the unit digit swaps for gender:

Hundreds — מאה is feminine, so use the short feminine numeral:

Thousands & up — counting (construct) form + אלפים:

Examples

Common mistakes

• שניים עשר (shnayim asar) -> שנים עשר (shneim asar) - before עשר “two” clips to שנים / שתים, never the free-standing שניים / שתיים.
• שלושה עשרה (13 m) -> שלושה עשר (shlosha asar) - the masculine “ten” is bare עשר; keep the ־ה only on the unit digit.
• שלוש עשר (13 f) -> שלוש עשרה (shlosh esre) - the feminine “ten” ends in ־ה עשרה; it is the masculine one that is bare.
• שתי מאות -> מאתיים (matayim) - ‘200’ is a single frozen dual word, not “two hundreds”.
• שני אלפים -> אלפיים (alpayim) - ‘2000’ is likewise one word, never שני + אלפים.
• שלושה מאות -> שלוש מאות (shlosh me’ot) - מאה is feminine, so hundreds always take the short feminine numeral.
• שלוש אלפים -> שלושת אלפים (shloshet alafim) - thousands use the counting form שלושת with the plural אלפים.
• עשרים שלושה -> עשרים ושלושה (esrim u-shlosha) - the tens and the unit must be joined by ו.
• עשרים ושלוש בנים -> עשרים ושלושה בנים (esrim u-shlosha banim) - בנים is masculine, so the unit still shows its ־ה polarity even inside a compound.

Tips

• Read a big number the English way — thousands, hundreds, tens, units — and drop a single ו only in front of the final piece.
• Only the unit digit ever changes for gender. Once 1–10 polarity is automatic, every larger number is free: the tens, hundreds and thousands are fixed shapes.
• The teen flip is the one thing to memorize: masculine ends in bare עשר (asar), feminine in ־ה עשרה (esre) — the mirror image of the 1–10 endings.
• Track “two” through its four disguises: שתיים/שניים alone, שתי/שני before a noun, שתים/שנים before עשר, and the baked-in מאתיים / אלפיים for 200 / 2000.
• Before מאות and before עשרה the vowel of 3 and 7 shrinks: shalosh → shlosh, sheva → shva (shlosh me’ot, shva esre).
• Pronounce ו as u before a shva or a b/v-m-p sound (u-shlosha, u-shmone), and ve otherwise (ve-echad, ve-sheva).
• When you recite a bare number with no noun — a code, a house number, a price said aloud — default to the feminine set, exactly as with 1–10.

In short

This lesson puts your numbers to work on three everyday jobs: saying what time it is, giving the day and date, and telling how old someone is. All three are built the Hebrew way — with no verb. “It’s three o’clock,” “today is the twelfth of May,” and “I’m twenty” are all verbless nominal sentences (lesson 5); there is no “it is”, and — the trap English and Romance speakers fall into — there is no “I have twenty years”.

Two number facts run through the whole lesson. The hour is feminine, because שעה (sha’a) ‘hour’ is feminine, so you say השעה שלוש (ha-sha’a shalosh), never *שלושה. And age counts שנים (shanim) ‘years’, also feminine, so the age numeral is feminine too — even for a man. Only three little words do the heavy lifting: ו־ and ל־ for minutes, and בן / בת (ben / bat) for age.

The rule

Asking and giving the time — the hour is feminine. Ask מה השעה? (ma ha-sha’a?) ‘what’s the time?’. Answer with השעה (ha-sha’a) + a feminine numeral, because שעה is a feminine noun (lesson 12): השעה שלוש (ha-sha’a shalosh) ‘it’s three’, השעה חמש (ha-sha’a chamesh) ‘it’s five’, השעה שתים עשרה (ha-sha’a shteim esre) ‘it’s twelve’. Never use the ־ה masculine-counting form here: השעה שלושה is wrong. In casual speech people often drop השעה and just say שלוש (shalosh) or, for on-the-hour, שלוש בדיוק (shalosh be-diyuk) ‘three exactly’.

Minutes past — join them with ו־. For the first half of the hour, name the hour, then add the minutes with the conjunction ו־ (ve-/va-): שלוש ורבע (shalosh va-reva) ‘quarter past three’, שלוש וחצי (shalosh va-chetzi) ‘half past three’, שבע ועשרים (sheva ve-esrim) ‘seven twenty’. Notice רבע (reva) ‘a quarter’ and חצי (chetzi) ‘a half’ are nouns, not numbers.

Minutes to — count down with ל־. For the second half of the hour, give the minutes remaining, then ל־ (‘to’) + the coming hour: רבע לארבע (reva le-arba) ‘quarter to four’, עשרים לחמש (esrim le-chamesh) ‘twenty to five’, עשרה לשמונה (asara le-shmone) ‘ten to eight’. A quirk worth flagging: the small minute-counts 5 and 10 show up in their masculine shapes here — חמישה (chamisha), עשרה (asara) — even though the hour itself is feminine.

Day-parts pin the 12-hour clock. Israel writes schedules on the 24-hour clock but speaks on the 12-hour one, adding a time-of-day word: בבוקר (ba-boker) ‘in the morning’, בצוהריים (ba-tzohorayim) ‘at noon’, אחר הצוהריים (achar ha-tzohorayim) ‘in the afternoon’, בערב (ba-erev) ‘in the evening’, בלילה (ba-layla) ‘at night’. So שמונה בבוקר (shmone ba-boker) is 8 a.m. and שמונה בערב (shmone ba-erev) is 8 p.m.

The date: weekday, day-of-month, month. Ask מה התאריך היום? (ma ha-taarich ha-yom?) ‘what’s today’s date?’ or איזה יום היום? (eize yom ha-yom?) ‘what day is it?’. Weekdays are frozen phrases — יום (yom) ‘day’ plus a fixed ordinal-looking word, in that order: יום ראשון (yom rishon) ‘Sunday’ … יום שישי (yom shishi) ‘Friday’, with שבת (shabat) ‘Saturday’. Learn them as vocabulary; the ordinal system itself waits for lesson 29. Months are the international names, spelled out: מאי (mai), יולי (yuli), דצמבר (detsember).

Day-of-month is a masculine cardinal + ב־. Colloquially the date is a plain cardinal number attached with ב־ (‘in/on’) to the month: שנים עשר במאי (shneim asar be-mai) ‘the twelfth of May’, ארבעה ביולי (arba’a be-yuli) ‘the fourth of July’. The numeral is masculine here (it agrees with the masculine יום), which contrasts neatly with the clock: 12:00 is feminine שתים עשרה (shteim esre) but “the 12th” is masculine שנים עשר (shneim asar). The formal register uses ordinals (הראשון ב־, ha-rishon be-) — that belongs to lesson 29. The year is just recited: אלפיים עשרים ושש (alpayim esrim ve-shesh) ‘2026’.

Age with בן / בת — verbless, the person’s gender. To state age, say בן (ben) ‘son of’ for a male or בת (bat) ‘daughter of’ for a female, plus the number of years: אני בן עשרים (ani ben esrim) ‘I’m twenty’ (man), אני בת שלושים ושתיים (ani bat shloshim u-shtayim) ‘I’m thirty-two’ (woman). בן/בת reflects the person’s gender; the number stays feminine because it counts שנים — so a three-year-old boy is בן שלוש (ben shalosh), never *בן שלושה. Ask בן כמה אתה? (ben kama ata?) to a male, בת כמה את? (bat kama at?) to a female.

Never “I have X years.” Age carries no verb and no יש (yesh). יש לי עשרים שנים — a direct calque of “I have twenty years” — is simply not Hebrew; the יש … ל־ pattern (lesson 14) is for possessions, not age. Use בן/בת and nothing else.

Forms & patterns

The hour — always the feminine numeral (שעה is feminine):

Minutes — ו־ (‘and’) for past, ל־ (‘to’) for the second half:

Day-parts:

Weekdays — frozen phrases (learn as vocabulary):

Months — international names:

Age — בן/בת by the person’s gender, feminine numeral:

Examples

Common mistakes

• השעה שלושה -> השעה שלוש (ha-sha’a shalosh) - שעה is feminine, so the hour takes the feminine numeral; שלושה is the masculine-counting form.
• יש לי עשרים שנים -> אני בן עשרים (ani ben esrim) - Hebrew has no “I have X years”; age is verbless with בן/בת, never יש + a verb ‘to have’.
• אני בן שלושה (of a 3-year-old boy) -> אני בן שלוש (ani ben shalosh) - the numeral counts שנים (feminine), so it stays feminine; only בן/בת shows the person’s gender.
• הוא בת עשרים -> הוא בן עשרים (hu ben esrim) - בן/בת must match the person: a male is בן, a female is בת.
• בן כמה את? (to a woman) -> בת כמה את? (bat kama at?) - use בת with a feminine addressee, בן with a masculine one.
• ראשון יום -> יום ראשון (yom rishon) - a weekday is the fixed phrase יום + the day-word, in that order.
• שתים עשרה במאי -> שנים עשר במאי (shneim asar be-mai) - the day-of-month is a masculine cardinal (agreeing with יום); the feminine שתים עשרה is only for the clock.
• רבע אחרי שלוש -> שלוש ורבע (shalosh va-reva) - “quarter past” joins with ו־ after the hour, not with a word for “after”.

Tips

• Lock in the two anchors: the hour is feminine (השעה שלוש) and the age numeral is feminine (בן שלוש) — both because their hidden noun, שעה and שנים, is feminine.
• Split the clock at the half: minutes past attach with ו־ (שלוש ורבע), minutes to count down with ל־ + the next hour (רבע לארבע).
• רבע (reva) and חצי (chetzi) are nouns ‘a quarter’ and ‘a half’, so they never change shape — no gender to worry about there.
• Israel writes 24-hour times (20:30) but says them 12-hour with a day-part: add בבוקר / בערב / בלילה to make 8 a.m. vs 8 p.m. clear.
• For the date, keep the order weekday → number → month: יום שני, שנים עשר במאי. The day number is masculine; the ordinal “the first / the second” style is formal and comes in lesson 29.
• Age is one of the most-tested calque traps: drill “אני בן/בת …” until “I have … years” stops feeling natural. To ask, mirror the addressee: בן כמה אתה? / בת כמה את?
• Weekday names and month names are pure vocabulary — memorize them as blocks; you don’t build them from the number rules.