In short

Alongside the active present participle כותב (kotev, “writes / is writing”), pa’al has a second participle that describes the result of the action rather than the action itself: כתוב (katuv, “written / in a written state”). This is the בינוני פעול (binoni pa’ul), built on the pattern CaCuC — three root letters poured into ka-tuv, sa-gur, sha-vur. You already own most of the vocabulary that hides inside it: סגור (sagur, “closed”), פתוח (patuach, “open”), תפוס (tafus, “taken”).

The key idea is that the pa’ul is an adjective, not a verb. It agrees in gender, number and definiteness exactly like any other adjective (lesson 7), it has no tense of its own, and it points at a state that resulted from an action — a door that got closed and now is closed. It is not the way to report a passive event (“was written by someone”); that job belongs to the nif’al and pu’al/huf’al verbs.

The rule

• The pattern is CaCuC and it inflects like an adjective. From the three root letters ס.ג.ר you get סגור (sagur, “closed”), and it then takes the ordinary adjective endings for the four agreement slots: סגור / סגורה / סגורים / סגורות (sagur / sgura / sgurim / sgurot). No person, no tense — just gender and number, like every adjective from lesson 7.

• Watch the vowel reduction in the inflected forms. The masculine singular סגור is sagur, but the moment you hang an ending on it the first vowel drops: סגורה is sgura, not sagura; סגורים is sgurim; סגורות is sgurot. Unvocalized the spelling looks stable, but the pronunciation loses that first “a” — the same reduction runs through כתוב → ktuva, שבור → shvura, תפוס → tfusa.

• High-frequency lexemes to know cold. כתוב (katuv, “written”), פתוח (patuach, “open”), שבור (shavur, “broken”), תפוס (tafus, “occupied / taken”), ידוע (yadua, “known”), רשום (rashum, “registered”), plus סגור (sagur, “closed”). Note that פתוח and ידוע end in a guttural, so the masculine singular carries a furtive “a” (patuach, yadua) that disappears in the feminine (ptucha, yedu’a).

• Attributive and predicative use, both like an adjective. Attributively it follows the noun and agrees with it: דלת סגורה (delet sgura, “a closed door”), and if the noun is definite the participle takes ה־ too — הדלת הסגורה (ha-delet ha-sgura, “the closed door”). Predicatively it is the bare predicate of a verbless sentence (lesson 5): החנות סגורה (ha-chanut sgura, “the shop is closed”).

• The material / “made of” frame. A very common use is describing what something is made of: השולחן עשוי מעץ (ha-shulchan asuy me-etz, “the table is made of wood”), הבית בנוי מאבן (ha-bayit banuy me-even, “the house is built of stone”). Roots ending in ל”ה (final ה) do not give a plain CaCuC; the last root letter surfaces as -uy: עשוי / עשויה (asuy / asuya, “made”), בנוי / בנויה (banuy / bnuya, “built”), and they inflect asuyim / asuyot (see Lamed-he (ל”ה) verbs across the binyanim).

• Stative pa’ul vs active binoni — the core contrast. כותב (kotev) is the active present, “writes / is writing”; כתוב (katuv) is the resultant state, “written”. One reports the doing, the other describes the done. הוא כותב מכתב (hu kotev michtav, “he is writing a letter”) versus המכתב כתוב בעברית (ha-michtav katuv be-ivrit, “the letter is written in Hebrew”).

• It is a state, not a tensed verb, and rarely takes an agent. Because pa’ul is an adjective, a past state needs היה (haya): החנות הייתה סגורה (ha-chanut hayta sgura, “the shop was closed”). And it almost never names who did the action — you do not say כתוב על ידי דן. To express a passive event with an agent (“written by Dan”), switch to the nif’al verb: המכתב נכתב על ידי דן (ha-michtav nichtav al yedei Dan) — see Binyan nif’al (present, past, future).

• Only pa’al forms a CaCuC; the derived binyanim use pu’al/huf’al. There is no CaCuC for a pi’el or hif’il root. Their “passive participle” is simply the present participle of the matching passive binyan — the pu’al present מסודר (mesudar, “arranged / tidy”), מבושל (mevushal, “cooked”) — not a made-up CaCuC. Those belong to Passive binyanim: pu’al & huf’al.

• Keep it apart from the action noun. The שם פעולה (shem pe’ula) כתיבה (ktiva, “writing — the act”) names the activity; the pa’ul כתוב (katuv, “written”) names the state that results from it. Same root, opposite jobs — contrast lesson 53.

Forms & patterns

The CaCuC pattern inflecting as an adjective — root ס.ג.ר, “closed”:

Note the first-vowel reduction: masculine sagur, but sgura / sgurim / sgurot once an ending is added.

High-frequency pa’al passive participles:

ל”ה (final-ה) roots give -uy — the “made of” frame:

Attributive vs predicative:

One root, three participles/nouns to keep straight — root כ.ת.ב:

Examples

Common mistakes

• המכתב כתוב על ידי דן -> המכתב נכתב על ידי דן (ha-michtav nichtav al yedei Dan) - the pa’ul כתוב is a resultant-state adjective and does not name an agent; a passive event with “by” needs the nif’al verb נכתב.
• הדלת סגור -> הדלת סגורה (ha-delet sgura) - the pa’ul agrees like any adjective, and דלת is feminine, so it must be סגורה.
• סגורה (sagura) -> סגורה (sgura) - the spelling is identical unvocalized, but the masculine’s first “a” reduces in every inflected form: sagur, but sgura / sgurim / sgurot.
• הדף כותב (meaning “the page is written”) -> הדף כתוב (ha-daf katuv) - כותב (kotev) is the active “writes / is writing”; the resulting state “written” is the pa’ul כתוב.
• המספר כתיבה על הדלת -> המספר כתוב על הדלת (ha-mispar katuv al ha-delet) - כתיבה (ktiva) is the action noun “writing (the act)”; “written / in writing” as a state is כתוב.
• החדר סדור -> החדר מסודר (ha-cheder mesudar) - only pa’al has a CaCuC passive participle; a pi’el root uses its pu’al present מסודר (“tidy / arranged”), not an invented CaCuC.
• הדלת סגורה (meaning “the closed door”) -> הדלת הסגורה (ha-delet ha-sgura) - an attributive participle on a definite noun must also take ה־; without the second ה, הדלת סגורה is the sentence “the door is closed”.

Tips

• If a word fits the mould CaCuC (ka-tuv, sa-gur, sha-vur, ta-fus) and means “in an X-ed state”, it is a pa’al passive participle — an adjective, not a verb.
• Treat it as a pure adjective: it agrees in gender, number and definiteness (lesson 7), follows the noun attributively (דלת סגורה), and stands as the predicate of a verbless sentence (הדלת סגורה).
• Expect the first vowel to drop the instant you add an ending: sagur → sgura / sgurim / sgurot, katuv → ktuva, shavur → shvura. The masculine “a” does not survive.
• For a past state, reach for היה, because pa’ul has no tense of its own: החנות הייתה סגורה, not a conjugated verb.
• ל”ה roots swap the final ה for -uy: עשוי (asuy, “made”), בנוי (banuy, “built”). עשוי keeps its “a” throughout (the guttural ע blocks reduction): asuya / asuyim / asuyot; בנוי reduces like the regular pattern: bnuya / bnuyim / bnuyot. The “made of” frame עשוי מ־ is everyday MIH.
• Keep the three look-alikes apart: active כותב (kotev, “writes”), stative כתוב (katuv, “written”), and the action noun כתיבה (ktiva, “writing”).
• pa’ul rarely names an agent. To say “written by / built by”, switch to a real passive verb — nif’al נכתב, or pu’al — with על ידי; the CaCuC adjective only describes the resulting state.
• Only pa’al forms a CaCuC. The other binyanim express the resulting state with their pu’al / huf’al present participle (מסודר mesudar, מבושל mevushal) — see lesson 61.