Lesson 12 Introduction to Verbs

Hebrew is a verbal, action-oriented language. Now that we have concluded our discussion on nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and prepositions, we will now focus on verbs.

Around 70% of Hebrew verbs are in what we call the Qal stem, so we will spend Lessons 13-22 (in other words, Unit III) learning that stem inside and out. Qal verbs represent “simple action”, or active voice with a simple unnuanced type of action.91

Our quest is to translate accurately. To do this, we must identify the root, stem, conjugation, person, gender, and number of verbs. This lesson will provide a detailed introduction to the verb system as a whole and some general conventions.

You might notice there are a lot of sections in this lesson. Most of these tend to be short introductions. “Hebrew verbs, meet student. Student, this are Hebrew verbs.” Frequently, we will take a concept you already learned in Units I and II, then modify it slightly to apply it to verbs.

LESSON ITINERARY

  1. The Verbal Root
  2. Preformatives and Sufformatives
  3. Verbal Vowels
  4. The Seven Hebrew Verb Stems
  5. Person, Gender, Number
  6. The Eight Basic Hebrew Verb Conjugations
  7. Finite and Non-Finite Conjugations
  8. Parsing Conventions
  9. Strong and Weak Verbs

EQUIPMENT CHECK

Before continuing, have you completed all requirements for your Unit II Certificate?

Have you read the Introduction to Unit III?

  1. The derived stems are different combinations of “voice” (active, passive, or reflexive) and “action” (simple or causative)↩︎