In short

So far your verbs have been active — you write, you break, you enter. Binyan נפעל (nif’al) is the first of the passive-leaning binyanim, and it does three closely related jobs: it turns a פעל (pa’al) verb passive (the book was written), it describes a change of state with no agent in view (the glass broke), and, with a plural subject, it says people did something to each other (we met). All three share one shape.

The tell-tale mark is a נ (n) you can see at the front of the present and the past — נכנס (nichnas, “enters”), נשבר (nishbar, “broke”). But nif’al’s signature move is what happens in the future and the infinitive: that נ disappears, the first root letter doubles, and the word starts with הי־ (hi-) — להיכנס (lehikanes, “to enter”), ייכנס (yikanes, “he’ll enter”). We stay on strong roots (שלמים, shlemim) here; weak-root nif’al comes much later.

The rule

• Present (binoni) agrees in gender and number only — no person. Exactly like the pa’al present of lesson 6, the nif’al present has four forms in the pattern niCCaC: masculine singular נכנס (nichnas), feminine singular נכנסת (nichneset), masculine plural נכנסים (nichnasim), feminine plural נכנסות (nichnasot). One form covers “I / you / he enter(s)” for each gender-and-number — the pronoun supplies the person.

• Past hangs the familiar pa’al endings on the נ־ stem. Take the past base נכנס־ (nichnas-) and add the very same suffixes you learned in lesson 21: נכנסתי (nichnasti, “I entered”), נכנסת (nichnasta / nichnast, “you entered”), נכנס (nichnas, “he entered”), נכנסה (nichnesa, “she entered”), נכנסנו (nichnasnu), נכנסו (nichnesu). The vowel between the last two radicals drops before a vowel ending, just as it did in pa’al (נכנסה = nichnesa, not *nichnasa).

• Future is nif’al’s defining move: the נ assimilates and the stem becomes הי־. You never keep the present’s נ into the future. Instead the binyan-נ is swallowed into a doubling of the first root letter, the prefix takes a hirik, and the result is ייכנס (yikanes), תיכנס (tikanes), ניכנס (nikanes), with the 1sg אכנס (ekanes). Because the first radical is now doubled (carries a dagesh), a begadkefat letter goes hard there: present ni-kh-nas vs. future yi-k-anes.

• The infinitive shares that same future stem. The nif’al infinitive is להיכנס (lehikanes) — the לְ + הִי + the doubled-stem “-kanes”. So the infinitive and the whole future are built from one stem (היכנס / ־כנס), while the present and past are built from the other (נכנס). Learn them as two halves of one verb.

• Nif’al is intransitive — no את, ever. A nif’al verb takes no direct object, so it never carries the object marker את (et). Where an active pa’al verb had an object, nif’al either makes that thing the subject (הדלת נסגרה, “the door closed / was closed”) or reaches for a preposition: נכנס ל (enter into), נפגש עם (meet with), נזכר ב (recall). Putting את after a nif’al verb is a grammatical error.

• Sense 1 — passive of pa’al. The object of an active פעל verb becomes the subject of the matching nif’al: כתב → נכתב (katav → nichtav, “wrote → was written”), סגר → נסגר (sagar → nisgar, “closed → was closed”), פתח → נפתח (patach → niftach, “opened → was opened”). The doer is dropped or added with על ידי (al yedei, “by”).

• Sense 2 — middle / inchoative (a change of state, no agent). Here nothing “does” the action; the subject simply undergoes it: הכוס נשברה (ha-kos nishbera, “the glass broke”), החלב נגמר (ha-chalav nigmar, “the milk ran out”), הדלת נפתחה (ha-delet niftecha, “the door opened”). English often uses a plain intransitive here. נשבר (nishbar) and נגמר (nigmar) sit right on the passive–middle line — “was broken” and “broke on its own” are the same nif’al form.

• Sense 3 — reciprocal (“each other”), with a plural subject. With two or more subjects, nif’al can mean the action goes both ways: נפגשנו (nifgashnu, “we met each other”), הם ייפגשו (hem yipagshu, “they’ll meet up”). The partner, if named separately, comes in with עם (im, “with”) — נפגשתי עם דנה (nifgashti im Dana) — never with את.

• Homographs are everywhere — read them by context. Unvocalized נכנס is both the present “enters” and the past 3ms “entered” (both pronounced nichnas). And נכנסת is triple-ambiguous: present feminine נכנסת (nichneset), past 2ms נכנסת (nichnasta), past 2fs נכנסת (nichnast). Time words (אתמול, מחר) and pronouns resolve them.

Forms & patterns

Present (binoni) — agrees in gender + number only, pattern niCCaC (root כ.נ.ס, “enter”):

Past — the lesson-21 endings on the נכנס־ stem (root כ.נ.ס):

Future — the נ is gone; the stem is now הי־ / a doubled first radical (root כ.נ.ס). Infinitive: להיכנס (lehikanes).

Ktiv-male double-yod: the yi- / ti- / ni- prefixes carry a hirik written with a yod, so the prefix-yod and the vowel-yod stack up — ייכנס (yikanes), תיכנס (tikanes), ניכנס (nikanes). Only the 1sg אכנס (ekanes) has an e-prefix and no yod.

The five target verbs, one form per tense (present = past 3ms in spelling for all of them):

The three senses, side by side:

The voice relation: active פעל object → nif’al subject (and the object marker disappears):

Examples

Common mistakes

• לנכנס לבית -> להיכנס לבית (lehikanes la-bayit) - the future and infinitive drop the present’s נ; the stem becomes הי־, never a kept נ.
• אני ייכנס מחר -> אני אכנס מחר (ani ekanes machar) - the 1sg future prefix is א (e-); ייכנס is the 3ms “he’ll enter”.
• נכנסתי את הבית -> נכנסתי לבית (nichnasti la-bayit) - nif’al is intransitive, so no את; direction goes through the preposition ל.
• הכוס שברה -> הכוס נשברה (ha-kos nishbera) - “the glass broke” with no agent is the nif’al middle; the pa’al שברה means “she broke something”.
• נפגשתי את דנה -> נפגשתי עם דנה (nifgashti im Dana) - the reciprocal נפגש governs עם (“with”), never the object marker את.
• נזכרתי את השם שלו -> נזכרתי בשם שלו (nizkarti ba-shem shelo) - נזכר “recall” takes ב, and like every nif’al verb refuses את.

Tips

• Learn each verb as two halves: the נ־ half for present and past (נכנס, nichnas), and the הי־ half for infinitive and future (להיכנס / ייכנס, lehikanes / yikanes). Peg the 3ms of each and re-ending or re-prefix from there.
• Spot nif’al on sight: a word starting נ in a present/past frame (נשבר, נגמר), or a verb starting הי־ with a doubled first letter in an infinitive/future (להישבר, יישבר). The moment you go future, wipe the נ out.
• No את, full stop. Nif’al never takes a direct object. When you feel an “it” coming, either make it the subject or route it through the verb’s preposition — נכנס ל, נפגש עם, נזכר ב.
• Hear the three jobs: passive (הספר נכתב, “was written”), middle change-of-state (הכוס נשברה, “broke”), and reciprocal with a plural subject (נפגשנו, “we met”). נשבר and נגמר straddle passive and middle — the form is identical.
• Mind the ktiv-male double-yod: ייכנס, תיכנס, ניכנס look like they have two yods because the prefix-yod meets the hirik-yod. The 1sg אכנס is the only future form without a yod.
• Watch the begadkefat flip: the first radical is soft in present/past (ni-kh-nas) but hard in future/infinitive (yi-k-anes, lehi-k-anes), because it now carries the doubling. Same letter, two sounds across the tenses.
• Expect homographs: unvocalized נכנס is both “enters” and “entered”, and נכנסת covers three different forms. Lean on time words and pronouns — that is how Israelis read them too.
• Several everyday idioms live in nif’al: נגמר לי (nigmar li, “I ran out of…”), נשבר לי (nishbar li, “I’m fed up”), נזכרתי ב־ (nizkarti be-, “it came back to me”). Memorize them as ready blocks.