hebrew on memrise

1. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Congratulations on making it this far. We are entering into a
new tense in this lesson: The past.

2. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 So far, we have learned quite a few aspects of verbs:
 Three binyanim: pa’al, pi’el, and hif’il
 Two tenses: present tense and infinitive tense
 Changes due to gutturals and weak root letters.
 If you don’t remember any of these aspects please review
those lessons. We are going to restrict our discussion of the
past tense in this lesson to be only pa’al hashlamim
‫השלמים‬ ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬ verbs. Other tenses and
binyanim will be discussed in a future lesson.
 As we discussed before, verbs will be introduced in the
infinitive form going forward in the vocabulary lists.

3. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Do you remember the XXX notation from previous lessons?
This notation indicates the three letter root that almost all
verbs have where each X represents one root letter.
 Recall from lesson 5 that ‫השלמים‬ ‫גזרת‬ means all the root
letters of the verb are strong letters.
 Also recall that to form the present tense we use 4 endings
based on if the verb is masculine or feminine and if it is
singular or plural.

4. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Also recall that the present tense form of verbs in ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬ ‫גזרת‬ have the following form XX‫ו‬X and the regular
vowels of XeXoX. For instance: lomed, shomer, roked.
 Just like the present tense, the past tense uses suffixes on a
verb’s root letters. However, unlike the present tense, the
past tense uses 9 different suffixes.
 We will use the now very familiar verb ‫ללמוד‬ to illustrate the
past tense form of ‫.השלמים‬

5. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 The 9 forms of the past tense are as follows:
Singular Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫תי‬XXX
 2nd person ‫ת‬XXX ‫ת‬XXX
 3rd person ‫ה‬XXX ‫למד‬
Plural Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫נו‬XXX
 2nd person ‫תן‬XXX ‫תם‬XXX
 3rd person ‫ו‬XXX
 The 1st person and 3rd person plural use the same form for
masculine and feminine.

6. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Let’s see them as part of a verb:
Singular Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫(למדתי‬lamadti)
 2nd person ‫(למדת‬lamadet) ‫(למדת‬lamadta)
 3rd person ‫(למדה‬lamda) ‫(למד‬lamad)
Plural Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫(למדנו‬lamadnu)
 2nd person ‫(למדתן‬lamadten) ‫(למדתם‬lamadtem)
 3rd person ‫(למדו‬lamdu)

7. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Before we begin looking to much into the analysis
of the past tense, notice the 3rd person singular
form is ‫.למד‬ Τhis form is how the binyan is named.
‫פעל‬ is the 3rd person singular past tense form. All
binyanim are named for the verb with the root ‫פעל‬
in this form.
 As you can see from the previous slide, each of the
9 forms use different endings to form the past
tense. They actually correspond very well to the
pronouns. Let’s take a look at this.

8. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 The 9 forms of the past tense with the pronouns:
Singular Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫למדתי‬ ‫(אני‬lamadeti)
 2nd person ‫למדת‬ ‫את‬ (lamadet) ‫למדת‬ ‫(את‬lamadta)
 3rd person ‫למדה‬ ‫(היא‬lamda) ‫למד‬ ‫הוא‬ (lamad)
Plural Forms
Feminine Masculine
 1st person ‫למדנו‬ ‫(אנחני‬lamadnu)
 2nd person ‫למדתן‬ ‫אתן‬ (lamadten)‫למדתם‬ ‫(אנם‬lamadtem)
 3rd person ‫למדו‬ ‫(הם/הן‬lamdu)

9. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Notice how the sounds of the pronoun match the sound of
the past tense conjugation:
 Ani lamadeti
 Ata lamadeta
 At lamadat
 Anachnu lamadnu
 Aten lamadten
 Atem lamadtem
 Since you can deduce the person and number of the verb
from the suffix, the pronoun is not required in a sentence as
it is in English for the past tense. If I say ‫למדתי‬ ‫אני‬ or simply
‫למדתי‬ you will know the verb is in 1st person singular past
tense form and will mean “I learned”. Note that the pronoun
must accompany a verb in the present tense always.

10. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 Notice that the 3rd person forms don’t have a vowel
between the second and third root letters of the
verb: lamda lamdu.
 These 9 suffixes are new to you so make sure you
spend some time recognizing them. Since the
pronoun does not have to be in the sentence with
these past tense forms, it is critical that you learn
the forms to identify the implied subject of the
sentence.

11. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 The normal vowels for the past tense ‫פעל‬ verbs
are pronounced XaXaX for example: ‫למד‬ lamad,
‫רקד‬ rakad, ‫כתב‬ catav, etc. Remember this lesson
is NOT for verbs with weak root letters: ‫ה‬ ‫א‬‫י‬‫נ‬‫ו‬
 The suffixes will always use the same vowel
combinations as in the charts for hashlamim verbs.

12. Past Tense ‫גזרת‬ ‫פעל‬ ‫בניין‬
‫השלמים‬
 We have learned quite a few forms on a root verb
that are very similar:
 ‫למד‬ 3rd person singular past – he/she learned
 ‫ללמד‬ infinitive pi’el – to teach
 ‫ללמוד‬ infinitive pa’al – to learn
 ‫לומד‬ – singular masculine present tense – I/you/he learn
 ‫מלמד‬ – singular masculine present tense pi’el – I teach
 Make sure you do not confuse these forms. Many of them
have only a single letter difference.