Pa'al (qal) בניין קל
Pa'al, also called qal, is the basic active pattern. Dictionary citations such as כתב, שמר, and הלך are pa'al past tense, and a large share of the first verbs you learn sit in this binyan.
In pa'al, expect past katav, present kotev, future yikhtov, infinitive likhtov; then learn the short and guttural verbs as extra charts, not as broken pa'al.
כתב / כותב / יכתוב / לכתוב is the model. Past uses suffixes, present uses four participle forms, future uses prefixes, the infinitive takes ל־. שמר (guarded), למד (studied), and סגר (closed) follow the same skeleton. Once you can move כתב through all four tenses, you can move a regular pa'al root the same way.
| Slot | Hebrew | Transliteration |
|---|---|---|
| past 3ms | כָּתַב | katav |
| present ms | כּוֹתֵב | kotev |
| future 3ms | יִכְתּוֹב | yikhtov |
| infinitive | לִכְתּוֹב | likhtov |
| imperative ms | כְּתוֹב | ktov |
Some pa'al verbs have a present that looks like an adjective: ישן, גדול is not the verb, but ישן / ישנה / ישנים is he sleeps. יכול / יכולה is can. גר / גרה / גרים is lives. These still belong to pa'al. Their past may match the present in the third person: הוא גר, הוא גר אתמול needs a time word because גר did not change.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| אני ישן | ani yashen | I am sleeping / I sleep (male). | |
| היא גרה בירושלים | hi gara bi-yrushalayim | She lives in Jerusalem. | |
| אני יכול לבוא | ani yakhol lavo | I can come. |
Roots with א, ה, ח, ע, or ר in them often change a vowel: אכל, עמד, שמע, ראה, לקח. The person prefixes and suffixes stay. What changes is the vowel next to the guttural. Copy the citation forms from a dictionary rather than forcing katav’s vowels onto אכל.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| אכלתי לחם | akhalti lekhem | I ate bread. | |
| שמעתי אותך | shama'ti otkha | I heard you. | |
| עמדנו בתור | amadnu ba-tur | We stood in line. |
קם, בא, גר, שם (put), רץ have a weak middle or a very short stem. ראה, עשה, רצה, בנה end in ה and drop or change it: ראיתי, עשינו, הם ראו. מצא ends in א: מצאתי, הם מצאו. These groups have their own mini-paradigms inside pa'al. They are still pa'al, not a new binyan.
| Hebrew | Transliteration | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| קמתי בשבע | kamti be-sheva | I got up at seven. | |
| הם ראו את הסרט | hem ra'u et ha-seret | They saw the movie. | |
| היא רצה הביתה | hi ratza ha-bayta | She ran home. |
Exceptions
נתן and לקח
נתן (gave) has infinitive לתת and future אתן / יתן, which do not look like the past. לקח (took) has future יקח and infinitive לקחת. Both are pa'al and both are daily verbs. Teach them as irregular pa'al, not as a different pattern.
| נתתי לך את הספר | natati lekha et ha-sefer | I gave you the book. |
| אני רוצה לתת לך | ani rotze latet lekha | I want to give (it) to you. |
הלך
Past הלך, present הולך, future ילך, infinitive ללכת, imperative לך. Almost every slot is a different looking stem. It is still the basic go verb and still pa'al. Learners who conjugate it like כתב will miss every form except the past.
| הלכתי הביתה | halakhti ha-bayta | I went home. |
| אנחנו הולכים עכשיו | anakhnu holkhim akhshav | We are going now. |
Common mistakes
אני כתב עכשיו → אני כותב עכשיו
כתב is past he wrote; the present is כותב.
לכתב → לכתוב
The pa'al infinitive of this root is לכתוב, with ו in the last syllable.
אני הלך מחר → אני אלך מחר
Future of הלך is אלך / תלך / ילך, not the past stem הלך.
Go on to
Pi'el
Pi'el is the pattern of דיבר, בישל, שילם, and לימד, and in the present it wears a mem: מדבר, מבשל. Many pi'el verbs are simply the ordinary verb for that meaning, not a louder version of a pa'al cousin.
B1 · 15 minPresent tense
The Hebrew present is a four-form participle: one each for masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural. It covers I am writing and I write, and it does not mark person.
A1 · 12 minRoots and patterns
Almost every Hebrew verb and many nouns are built from a three-letter root poured into a pattern. Once you can see the root, families such as סֵפֶר, סִפּוּר, and מְסַפֵּר stop looking like separate words.
A2 · 12 min