Hebrew Pronouns

The agenda of the previous three lessons was to introduce you to the Hebrew
language. You only repeated phrases from the list. Now to actually start using
those phrases we need pronouns, so we can build phrases like "you need" or "we
want".

It might sound a bit trivial for some of you who already know this material
and consider it trivial. Nevertheless, some more practice never hurts.

The most remarcable thing about Hebrew is that unlike European languages,
here we have masculine and feminine form of pronouns for "you" and "they".
Another thing which might be confusing for English-speaking students is that in
Hebrew both the forms "thou" and "you" still exist and are actively used.

The last but not the least source of confusion is the fact that she
in Hebrew is pronounced exactly like English word "he": הִיא

(Hebrew, what a language! Me is who, who
is he, and he is she!)

English

Pronunciation
(whatever notation is more intuitive for you)

Hebrew

I

[ ani
] , [ anee ]

אֲנִי

We

[ anachnu
]

אֲנַחְנוּ

You (rather Thou)
- Masculine, single

[ ata
], [ ataa ],
[ atah ]

אַתָּה

You (rather Thou)
- Feminine, single

[ at ], [
aat ] - NOT like English word at

אַתְּ

You - Masculine, plural

[ atem
]

אַתֶּם

You - Feminine, plural

[ aten
]

אַתֶּן

He

[ hu ] -
pronounced like who

הוּא

She

[ hi ] -
pronounced like he

הִיא

They - masculine

[ hem ]

הֵם

They - feminine

[ hen ]

הֵן

The above table should suffice for everyday spoken language, although I
could give more flavor for nearly each one of the pronouns. Maybe I'll do it it
some other section later.

Now, if you want to build up a phrase saying "we want" or "they need", it
should come in appropriate gender and number.

In Hebrew, there is a difference in the plural and singular ending for famine
and muscular. You already know how to say "I want / I need" in masculine and
feminine form, or such.

Now let's see how the verbs we've learned in the Lesson 3 change their gender
and number (in present tense.)

WANT

Single, Masculine

[ rotzeh
]

רוֹצֶה

Single, Feminine

[ rotzah
]

רוֹצָה

Plural, Masculine

[ rotzim
]

רוֹצִים

Plural, Feminine

[ rotzot
]

רוֹצוֹת

HAVE (to)

Please, note the non-vocalized spelling.

Single, Masculine

[ chayav
]

חַיָּבחייב

Single, Feminine

[ chayevet
]

חַיֶּבֶתחייבת

Plural, Masculine

[ chayavim
]

חַיָּבִיםחייבים

Plural, Feminine

[ chayavot
]

חַיָּבוֹתחייבות

NEED

Single, Masculine

[ tzarikh
]

צָרִיך

Single, Feminine

[ tzrikhah
]

צְרִיכָה

Plural, Masculine

[ tzrikhim
]

צְרִיכִים

Plural, Feminine

[ tzrikhot
]

צְרִיכוֹת

Now try to build phrases similar to those from Lesson 3, using plural
forms for "we" and "you".

This lesson is probably too "grammatical", so I'll try to liven the things up
in the next lesson.