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 אמרתי כלום (lo amarti klum, “I said nothing”). A negative subject can also follow its verb, and the לא still comes first: לא קרה כלום (lo kara klum, “nothing happened”). 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.