lesson 74: past tense plural (1)

lesson 74

past tense plural (1)

 

the Negev 

and drier than the Negev: more grammar today ;-) I'll use a European language approach to explain how it all works today. The explanation from a Hebrew grammar point of view will be discussed in lesson 76.

let's quickly revise the singular form of the past tense.

the third person singular masculine is the starting point. It is also the one under which you will find verbs in the dictionaries because it gives you the root consonants. (The root consonants are very important and I'll write more about them soon in lesson 76.)

you take this basic form and add the personal endings to it

-ti      for the first person (masculine and feminine are the same)
-ta     for the second person masculine
-t       for the second person feminine
         nothing for the third person masculine since this is our basic form
-ah    for the third person feminine


'ahavti         I loved
'ahavta        you loved (masc.)
'ahavt          you loved (fem.)
'ahav           he loved
'ahavah       she loved


In general the plural forms of the past tense are also very regular
again you just add the personal endings to the basic form

-nou          first person plural (masc. and fem.)
-tem          second person plural (masc.)
-ten           second person plural (fem.)
-ou            third person plural (masc. and fem.)

'ahavnou    we loved
'ahavtem    you loved (masc.)   'you' as in 'you guys' since English doesn't distinguish the plural
'ahavten     you loved (fem.)
'ahavou      they loved


that's how it works for the super regular verbs like 'ahav' and we'll do them all in detail before looking at the ones with little surprises.

That's enough for today

lehitra'ot