Modern · Israeli Hebrew
Recognise the 'weak' verbs whose root letters (gutturals, נ, י, ו) drop or assimilate — the ones that look irregular when you decode real text.
Lesson 16 — Weak Verbs
Core concepts · 5
- Weak verbs are classified by which root position (פ/ע/ל of the model פעל) holds the weak letter; that letter is often displaced by the standard prefixes/suffixes.
- Pe-Nun (נָתַן 'give') drops or assimilates the נ; לָקַח 'take' behaves the same (יִקַּח).
- Pe-Yod / hollow shifts: יָדַע 'know', יָצָא 'go out', יָשַׁב 'sit', יָשַׁן 'sleep' — with odd infinitives (לָדַעַת, לָצֵאת, לָשֶׁבֶת).
- Lamed-He verbs (רָאָה 'see') take a ־וֹת infinitive (לִרְאוֹת).
- OHT's advice: learn each weak verb as an exception when you meet it in reading, rather than memorising rule-tables you can't recall mid-conversation.
Vocabulary & signs · tap a word to hear, expand for how to say it
to give (Pe-Nun)
say: natan
to take (special)
say: lakach
to know (inf. לָדַעַת)
say: yadaʿ
to go out (inf. לָצֵאת)
say: yatza
to see (inf. לִרְאוֹת)
say: raʾa
Exercises · answer in the app
Exercise 1 / 6
What does this mean?
Bridge to this week
Week 11 extracts roots and binyan from raw, unvoweled media — and these are precisely the verbs that look irregular there; OHT's 'learn them as exceptions' approach matches the sprint's just-in-time decoding.
The Online Hebrew Tutorial v2.0 — Ben Stitz
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