In short

The real conditional of lesson 57 is about a genuinely open future — אם ירד גשם, נישאר בבית (im yered geshem, nishaer babayit, “if it rains, we’ll stay home”): it might rain, it might not. This lesson is the opposite kind — the contrary-to-fact (counterfactual) conditional, משפט התנאי הבטל (mishpat ha-tnai ha-batel, “the null/void conditional”), where the “if” is known to be false: “if I were rich (but I’m not),” “if I had known (but I didn’t).” Hebrew builds it with לו (lu) or אילו (ilu) + the past in the if-clause, and an agreeing היה + binoni in the result: לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (lu hayiti ashir, hayiti kone bayit, “if I were rich, I’d buy a house”).

Two reflexes carry the whole lesson: past tense after לו / אילו, and the agreeing היה + present participle (binoni) — the same “would” machine you met in lesson 46 — in the result. The negative “if it hadn’t been for…” has its own particle, לולא (lule) / literary אלמלא (elmale). And note that Hebrew does not morphologically separate a present-counterfactual (“if I were”) from a past-one (“if I had been”) — one frame serves both, and context decides.

The rule

• The two markers: לו (lu) and אילו (ilu), each followed by the PAST. Both mean “if” for something contrary to fact, and they are interchangeable (אילו is a touch more formal). Crucially, the protasis verb goes in the past tense even for a present-time hypothesis: לו הייתי עשיר (lu hayiti ashir, “if I were rich [now]”), אילו ידעתי (ilu yadati, “if I had known”). The past here is grammatical, not temporal — it signals “unreal,” exactly as English “if I were” and “if I had known” reach back in tense. The if-clause may equally take the same היה + binoni as the result: אילו הייתי יודע (ilu hayiti yode’a, “if I had known”), אילו היא הייתה שומעת אותך (ilu hi hayta shoma’at otcha, “if she had heard you”).

• The result: an agreeing היה + binoni — “would / would have.” The apodosis is the היה + present-participle construction from lesson 46: conjugate היה in the past and follow it with the plain present-tense verb. לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (hayiti kone bayit, ”…I’d buy a house”); אילו יצאנו מוקדם, היינו מגיעים בזמן (hayinu magi’im ba-zman, “…we’d have arrived on time”). This apodosis is obligatory: you cannot answer a לו-clause with a bare present or a bare past.

• Double agreement — two words, two subjects to match. Both halves of היה + binoni agree with the subject, but by different rules. היה is the finite verb: it agrees in person, gender, and number (הייתי / היית / היה / הייתה / היינו / היו). The binoni agrees only in gender and number (no person), just like any present-tense verb. So “she would buy” is הייתה (3f sg) + קונה (f sg) = היא הייתה קונה (hi hayta kona), and “we would go” is היינו (1 pl) + הולכים (m pl) = היינו הולכים (hayinu holchim). Match both words, by their own rule.

• Negative “if not for…”: לולא (lule) and literary אלמלא (elmale). For “had it not been for / if it weren’t for,” use לולא (everyday-formal) or אלמלא (more literary) — they are synonyms. They attach either to a past verb — לולא עזרת לי, לא הייתי מצליח (lule azarta li, lo hayiti matzliach, “had you not helped me, I wouldn’t have succeeded”) — or directly to a bare noun: אלמלא הגשם, היינו הולכים לים (elmale ha-geshem, hayinu holchim la-yam, “were it not for the rain, we’d have gone to the sea”). To negate the result half you just add לא before היה: לא הייתי מצליח.

• One frame, no present/past split. Hebrew has a single counterfactual pattern; it does not grammatically distinguish “if I were rich” from “if I had been rich,” nor “I would buy” from “I would have bought.” לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית can mean either, and the surrounding context (or a time word like אתמול, “yesterday”, or עכשיו, “now”) tells you which. Don’t hunt for a separate “past-counterfactual” form — there isn’t one.

• Keep it apart from the real אם + future (lesson 57). אם + future is the open conditional about a real possibility: אם אהיה עשיר, אקנה בית (im ehye ashir, ekne bayit, “if I become rich, I’ll buy a house” — maybe I will). לו/אילו + past → היה + binoni is contrary to fact: לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (I’m not rich). In colloquial speech many Israelis blur this by using אם + past for the counterfactual too — אם הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית — and that is acceptable in casual register (see lesson 60), but the clean, normative marker is לו / אילו. What is simply wrong for an unreal wish is אם + future, which flips the sentence back into an open, still-possible one.

• A related wish: the optative הלוואי ש־ (halevai she-). For “if only… / I wish…,” Hebrew uses הלוואי ש־ + a clause, and for an unreal wish it too takes the past: הלוואי שהיה לי זמן (halevai she-haya li zman, “I wish I had time”), הלוואי שהיינו שם (halevai she-hayinu sham, “if only we were there”). It expresses the same contrary-to-fact feeling without the two-clause “if…then” structure.

Forms & patterns

The counterfactual particles vs. the real אם:

The counterfactual frame (protasis + apodosis):

Real vs. counterfactual — same idea, two frames:

Double agreement in the result — היה + binoni of קנה (root ק.נ.ה, “to buy”):

(Note: אני (m) הייתי קונה and אני (f) הייתי קונה are spelled identically — קונה — but read kone vs kona; the unvocalized text leaves the gender to the reader.)

Examples

Common mistakes

• לו הייתי עשיר, אני קונה בית -> לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (lu hayiti ashir, hayiti kone bayit) - the result of a counterfactual must be היה + binoni; a bare present אני קונה drops the obligatory היה and loses the “would.”
• אם אהיה עשיר, אקנה בית (meaning “if I were rich…”) -> לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (lu hayiti ashir, hayiti kone bayit) - אם + future is the REAL conditional (a possible future); a contrary-to-fact wish needs לו/אילו + past → היה + binoni.
• לו אני עשיר, הייתי קונה בית -> לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה בית (lu hayiti ashir…) - after לו/אילו the protasis takes the PAST (הייתי) even for a present-time hypothesis; a present אני עשיר is wrong here.
• לא עזרת לי, לא הייתי מצליח (meaning “had you not helped me”) -> לולא עזרת לי, לא הייתי מצליח (lule azarta li…) - “had it not been for / if not for” is the special particle לולא, not plain negation לא; bare לא only negates, it can’t open a counterfactual condition.
• אילו ידעתי שאתה בא, מכין ארוחה -> אילו ידעתי שאתה בא, הייתי מכין ארוחה (ilu yadati… hayiti mechin) - the apodosis must carry the conjugated היה; the binoni מכין cannot stand on its own.
• אילו היא היה שומעת אותך -> אילו היא הייתה שומעת אותך (ilu hi hayta shoma’at) - היה agrees with its subject in gender+number, so a feminine subject takes הייתה (and the binoni too must be feminine, שומעת).

Tips

• The whole lesson in one line: לו / אילו + PAST → agreeing היה + binoni. Past (or היה + participle) on the “if” side, “would” (היה + participle) on the result side.
• לו and אילו are interchangeable (“if,” contrary to fact); אילו just sounds a little more formal. Reach for either whenever the “if” is already known to be false.
• The result machine is exactly the היה + binoni of lesson 46 — the same “would.” Person shows once, on היה; the participle only agrees in gender and number.
• “If not for / had it not been for” is the dedicated pair לולא (everyday-formal) / אלמלא (literary). They can take a bare noun (לולא הרעש, אלמלא הגשם) or a past verb (לולא עזרת).
• Don’t look for a separate “past-unreal” form: לו הייתי עשיר, הייתי קונה covers both “if I were… I’d buy” and “if I had been… I’d have bought.” Context (or a word like עכשיו / אתמול) disambiguates.
• Colloquially you’ll hear אם הייתי (אם + past) used for the counterfactual too — it’s fine in casual speech, but the clean marker to write is לו / אילו. What’s genuinely wrong is אם + future for an unreal wish, which turns it back into an open possibility.
• You may bridge into the result with אז (“then”): לו היה לי זמן, אז הייתי בא — the אז is optional and can always be dropped.
• For a bare wish without the two-clause structure, use the optative הלוואי ש־ + past: הלוואי שהיה לי זמן (“I wish I had time”).