# Tenses in Hebrew



## English Speaker

Hello, I've got a big problem, I don't understand the tenses in Hebrew, there's not Present Simple, Past and future, could anyone tell me where can I study this? any page or something?

And I also would like to know what method does a school use to teach Hebrew, I'm lerning Hebrew in my own.


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## hadronic

Who told you there are no past, present and future tenses in Hebrew ?


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## English Speaker

For what I've read I understand that, could you explain me this?


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## hadronic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Hebrew_verb_conjugation


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## origumi

English Speaker said:


> For what I've read I understand that, could you explain me this?


Have you read about Biblical or Modern Hebrew? If Biblical, have you read material by a native Hebrew speaker or by a Western scholar? If Biblical+Western, you may have met the terminology of perfect/imperfect moods instead of past/present/future tenses. You can ask us here to elaborate (if this is the case).


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## hadronic

Perfect / imperfect _aspects._


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## English Speaker

origumi said:


> Have you read about Biblical or Modern Hebrew? If Biblical, have you read material by a native Hebrew speaker or by a Western scholar? If Biblical+Western, you may have met the terminology of perfect/imperfect moods instead of past/present/future tenses. You can ask us here to elaborate (if this is the case).



I'm reading some Biblical, but what I want first is to learn this tenses in Modern Hebrew, for now.


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## origumi

English Speaker said:


> I'm reading some Biblical, but what I  want first is to learn this tenses in Modern Hebrew, for now.


Modern Hebrew has the 3 tenses past/present/future + imperative. When  modern Hebrew speakers read Biblical Hebrew, they interpret it  accordingly (quite successfully) but also take into consideration  Biblical Hebrew peculiarities. Therefore for a beginner this is good enough.

No subjunctive, no perfect vs. progressive, so the tense system is simple.


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## English Speaker

I want to know the differences between Modern & Biblical Hebrew.... sorry... but this is very confused for me, I'm learning by myself


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## origumi

It's practically the same conjugations, with different interpretation.

Modern "past" -> Biblical "perfect"
Modern "present" -> Biblical "participle"
Modern "future" -> Biblical "imperfect"

In Biblical Hebrew there's the "waw consecutive" that swaps the following verb between perfect <-> imperfect. This must be a major headache for learners.


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## berndf

origumi said:


> In Biblical Hebrew there's the "waw consecutive" that swaps the following verb between perfect <-> imperfect. *This must be a major headache for learners*.


Not really. I have learnt that as an eventive past as distinct from stative past. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was empty and void and darkness was upon the depth and the spirit of God hovered over the waters... sets the scene and is therefore stative and that events unfold and the narrations carries on in eventive. I found that quite intuitive.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> Not really. I have learnt that as an eventive past as distinct from stative past. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and the earth was empty and void and darkness was upon the depth and the spirit of God hovered over the waters... sets the scene and is therefore stative and that events unfold and the narrations carries on in eventive. I found that quite intuitive.



There are a lot of bogus theories out there. In my experience, most of the time it's simply that "_and_ + verb" is expressed as a vav-consecutive. For example:

ובני ישראל *פרו וישרצו וירבו ויעצמו* במאד מאד ותמלא הארץ אתם (Exodus 1:7)

There is absolutely no difference in the tense/aspect/whatever between *פרו* and the three verbs following it.


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## English Speaker

origumi said:


> It's practically the same conjugations, with different interpretation.
> 
> Modern "past" -> Biblical "perfect"
> Modern "present" -> Biblical "participle"
> Modern "future" -> Biblical "imperfect"
> 
> In Biblical Hebrew there's the "waw consecutive" that swaps the following verb between perfect <-> imperfect. This must be a major headache for learners.




This is a bit more clearer but I've got another question, I don't know what Qa'al Pu'al Hi'fil ........ are I don't understand that

And one more, any workbook?  For instance... the book I used when I was learning English was Interchange...


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## hadronic

Did you read the Wikipedia articles to start with (both Biblical and Modern) ?


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## origumi

English Speaker said:


> I don't know what Qa'al Pu'al Hi'fil ........ are I don't understand that


You must find a good textbook. Yet a possible short answer is:

Verbs in Hebrew are conjugated in 7 different "binyanim" = patterns, structures (binyanim is plural of "binyan"). Each binyan changes slightly the verb's meaning in predefined way, and yet millennia of language development made is somewhat fuzzy so the description below contains merely rules of thumb: one needs to learn in details the verbs and their appearance in binyanim.

The 7 binyanim are:

Qal (= pa`al) - simple active action
Nif`al - the passive counterpart of qal
Pi`el - emphasized, stronger, repetitive active action
P`ual - the passive counterpart of pi`el
Hitpa`el - the reflexive counterpart of pi`el
Hif`il - causative active action
Huf`al - the passive counterpart of hif`il

(*`* stands for the letter ayin).

BTW, the concept (but not all details) is similar to Arabic and other Semitic languages, if you happen to study any of them.


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