Page 24 - Verbs-past-unit1-Paal 1 311217-HTML5

24 Unit 1, Track 9

UNIT 1 - Binyan Pa'al, Group 1

General Structure of the Past Tense

The past tense in Hebrew is characterized by adding suffixes to a verb
“kernel”.

The past structure is divided into two charts. This is not the traditional

division, but it will help you remember the past structure a lot more

easily.

The first chart, of the pronouns ‫ הם‬,‫ היא‬,‫ הוא‬usually* uses one kind of
verb “kernel”.

Pronoun ‫* ֵהן‬/ ‫ִהיא ֵהם‬ ‫הּוא‬
Suffix 
‫ּו‬.... ‫ה‬.... ....

The second chart, for the pronouns ‫ אתם‬,‫ אנחנו‬,‫ את‬,‫ אתה‬,‫ אני‬uses a
different verb “kernel”. You can easily remember the suffixes of this
chart, as they fit the end of the pronoun.

Pronoun ‫ֲא ִני ַא ָתה ַא ְת ֲא ַנ ְחנּו ַא ֶתם * ַא ֶתן‬

Suffix  ‫ ֶתן‬.... ‫ ֶתם‬.... ‫נּו‬.... ‫ ְת‬.... ‫ ָת‬.... ‫ ִתי‬....

As we will see, the **verb "kernel" in the past tense is easily derived
from the infinitive form.
* Feminine pronouns ‫ הן‬and ‫ אתן‬are rarely used in Modern Hebrew and therefore

will not be addressed throughout this book.

** The verb "kernel" in Binyan ‫ ָפ ַעל‬is an exception, and acts a bit

differently, as will be explained in the following pages.

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