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 14: 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”, and in the plural אינם (einam) and אינן (einan) “they (m/f) are 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.