An English adjective is a fixed word. Big is big whether it describes one house or nine flats, and whether you have mentioned them before or not. A Hebrew adjective is not a word you place next to a noun — it is a word you build to match one, and it copies three separate facts from that noun: gender, number and definiteness. This page is about the three-way copy itself. The endings that do the copying, where the adjective stands, and how the article behaves each have their own page.
Three facts, copied at once
Take גָּדוֹל gadól "big". It has four everyday forms, and which one you write is not your decision — the noun has already made it.
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | בית גדול báyit gadól — a big house | דירה גדולה dirá gdolá — a big flat |
| Plural | בתים גדולים batím gdolím — big houses | דירות גדולות dirót gdolót — big flats |
Two decisions produced those four cells. בַּיִת is masculine and דִּירָה is feminine — a fact about the nouns, not about houses and flats, settled on grammatical gender. And the plural suffixes ־ִים and ־וֹת are the same two the nouns themselves take, from regular plurals. The adjective is not inventing anything; it is reporting.
יש לנו שולחן גדול במטבח, אז אנחנו אוכלים שם כל ערב.
yesh lánu shulkhán gadól bamitbákh, az anákhnu okhlím sham kol érev
We've got a big table in the kitchen, so we eat there every evening.
קנינו מכונית קטנה כי בעיר אין איפה לחנות.
kanínu mekhonít ktaná ki ba'ír ein éifo lakhanót
We got a small car because there's nowhere to park in town.
הספרים החדשים עוד בקרטונים, לא היה לי זמן לסדר.
hasfarím hakhadashím od bakartoním, lo hayá li zman lesadér
The new books are still in boxes — I haven't had time to sort them out.
הדירות הישנות ברחוב הזה גדולות בהרבה מהחדשות.
hadirót hayeshanót barekhóv hazé gdolót beharbé mehakhadashót
The old flats on this street are much bigger than the new ones. (הדירות הישנות is a phrase; גדולות, with no ה, is the predicate — the next section is about exactly that)
Now the third fact, the one English gives you nothing to copy. If the noun carries the definite article, the adjective carries it too — on every adjective, not once at the front of the phrase.
| Indefinite | Definite |
|---|---|
| בית גדול báyit gadól | הבית הגדול habáyit hagadól |
| בתים גדולים batím gdolím | הבתים הגדולים habatím hagdolím |
| דירה גדולה dirá gdolá | הדירה הגדולה hadirá hagdolá |
| דירות גדולות dirót gdolót | הדירות הגדולות hadirót hagdolót |
Notice what the definite column is not: it is not the indefinite phrase with a the bolted on the front. Both words changed. Hebrew treats definiteness as an agreement feature in the same class as gender and number, which is why it spreads across the phrase instead of sitting at its edge. The mechanics — a second adjective, a demonstrative, what happens after a construct chain — belong to repeating the article.
The one letter between a phrase and a sentence
This is the highest-value pair in beginner Hebrew, and it exists because Hebrew has no present-tense is. A definite noun followed by a bare adjective is already a finished statement; add the second ה and the adjective is pulled back inside the noun phrase, which then has nothing to say yet.
| Written | Reads | Means | Is |
|---|---|---|---|
| הבית הגדול | habáyit hagadól | the big house | a noun phrase — a label, waiting for a predicate |
| הבית גדול | habáyit gadól | the house is big | a complete sentence |
המכונית ישנה אבל היא עוד נוסעת מצוין.
hamekhonít yeshaná avál hi od nosá'at metsuyán
The car's old, but it still drives beautifully. (one ה — a claim about the car)
המכונית הישנה שלנו סוף סוף נמכרה.
hamekhonít hayeshaná shelánu sof sof nimkerá
We finally sold our old car. (two ה's — now it is just the name of a thing, and a real verb does the asserting)
Two words, one letter apart, and the difference is not a shade of emphasis: one of them is a sentence and the other is not. This is the single most consequential thing an English speaker has to internalise about Hebrew adjectives, and the two positions get a full page each — the article on the adjective and predicative against attributive.
The adjective follows the gender, never the ending
Here is where a rule that felt mechanical starts requiring you to actually know the noun. The adjective agrees with the noun's grammatical gender. It does not agree with what the noun's plural looks like — and a minority of very common nouns take the "wrong-looking" suffix.
| Noun | Its plural | Gender | Adjective |
|---|---|---|---|
| שולחן table | שולחנות — a ־וֹת plural | masculine | שולחנות גדולים |
| שנה year | שנים — a ־ִים plural | feminine | שנים קשות |
| ספר book | ספרים | masculine | ספרים גדולים |
| דירה flat | דירות | feminine | דירות גדולות |
The bottom two rows behave as you would guess; the top two do not, and they are ordinary A1 words. Nothing has changed gender in them — שולחן is masculine and שנה is feminine throughout — only the suffix on the noun is unexpected, and it is a fact about that one word rather than a signal to be read.
השולחנות הגדולים כבר תפוסים, נשב בחוץ?
hashulkhanót hagdolím kvar tfusím, neshév bakhúts?
The big tables are already taken — shall we sit outside? (a ־וֹת noun with masculine agreement twice over)
עברו עליו שנים קשות, אבל עכשיו הוא נראה מאושר.
avrú aláv shaním kashót, avál akhsháv hu nir'é me'ushár
He's been through some hard years, but he looks happy now. (a ־ִים noun with a feminine adjective)
Agreement does not stop at the adjective either. The demonstrative and the present-tense verb are in the same chain, which is why הדירות הישנות above pulled a feminine plural adjective and a feminine plural predicate out of one noun. That whole chain is assembled on noun to adjective to verb.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting the adjective first. English order, transplanted whole. It is the most visible learner error there is, because it is wrong before the listener has heard the rest of the sentence.
❌ קטנה מכונית
Incorrect — a Hebrew adjective follows its noun: מכונית קטנה. There is no version of the phrase with the adjective in front.
✅ מצאנו סוף סוף מכונית קטנה שנכנסת לחנייה שלנו.
matsánu sof sof mekhonít ktaná shenikhnéset lakhanayá shelánu
We finally found a small car that fits in our parking space.
2. Dropping the second ה. The reason this one survives for years is that nobody corrects it: what comes out is perfectly good Hebrew, just not what you meant.
❌ הדירה חדשה
Incorrect as 'the new flat' — with one ה this is a complete sentence, 'the flat is new'. The phrase takes the article twice: הדירה החדשה.
✅ העיר הישנה יפה בחורף, כשאין תיירים.
ha'ír hayeshaná yafá bakhóref, kshe'ein tayarím
The old city is lovely in winter, when there are no tourists. (both patterns in one sentence: העיר הישנה is the phrase, and bare יפה is the predicate)
3. Agreeing with the plural ending instead of the gender. The noun's suffix is right there on the page and the gender is not, so the eye wins.
❌ השולחנות הגדולות
Incorrect — שולחן is masculine however its plural is spelled: השולחנות הגדולים. A ־וֹת ending on a noun is a fact about that noun, not a gender.
✅ היו לנו כמה שנים טובות בעיר הזאת.
hayú lánu káma shaním tovót ba'ír hazót
We had some good years in this city. (שנים ends in ־ִים and still takes טובות, because שנה is feminine)
4. Using the dictionary form as a neutral form. You look up "new", get חדש, and attach it unchanged — exactly as you would in English.
❌ קניתי שתי מיטות חדש
Incorrect — חדש is the masculine singular, which is merely the form dictionaries cite. It is not a default: קניתי שתי מיטות חדשות.
✅ קניתי שתי מיטות חדשות ועדיין לא הרכבתי אף אחת.
kaníti shtei mitót khadashót va'adáyin lo hirkávti af akhát
I bought two new beds and I still haven't assembled either of them.
Key Takeaways
- A Hebrew adjective copies three features from its noun: gender, number and definiteness. There is no neutral form, so all three are compulsory on every adjective you ever write.
- The four everyday cells: בית גדול, דירה גדולה, בתים גדולים, דירות גדולות — and the definite versions change both words: הבית הגדול, הדירה הגדולה, הבתים הגדולים, הדירות הגדולות.
- הבית הגדול is a phrase; הבית גדול is a sentence. One ה is the whole difference, because Hebrew has no present-tense is.
- The adjective agrees with the noun's gender, never with the shape of the noun's plural: שולחנות גדולים (masculine, ־וֹת ending) against שנים קשות (feminine, ־ִים ending).
- The two errors English speakers bring with them are adjective-first order (*קטנה מכונית) and the dropped second ה — and the second one does not produce a slightly wrong phrase, it produces a different sentence.
- Learn every noun inside a two-word phrase. A bare noun with a gloss is a half-learned word, because you cannot use it until you know what agrees with it.
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Adjective Endings: ־ָה, ־ִים, ־וֹתA1 — Every Hebrew adjective has four forms — masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, feminine plural — built with the same endings the nouns use. The catch is that the adjective agrees with the noun's grammatical gender, never with the plural ending you can see, which is why שולחנות takes גדולים and שנים takes רבות.
- Adjectives Come After the NounA1 — Hebrew says בית גדול, not *גדול בית — the adjective follows the noun it describes, and after a construct chain it waits for the whole chain and agrees with the first word. That last point is also a reading tool: when a noun sits beside a noun, agreement is what tells you whether the second word is describing the first or being possessed by it.
- הבית הגדול: Repeating the ArticleA2 — Definiteness is an agreement feature in Hebrew, so it is copied onto every adjective in the phrase: three modifiers means three extra ה's. Two things make the rule look broken when it is not — ב, ל and כ swallow the noun's article so only the adjective's is visible, and Hebrew and English simply do not put articles in the same places.
- Predicative vs Attributive PositionB1 — The same adjective in the same place after the same noun does two completely different jobs, and one letter decides which: הבית הגדול names a house, הבית גדול claims something about it. Definiteness is the only thing that changes between the two — gender and number agree either way, in every tense.
- Grammatical Gender: Every Hebrew Noun Has OneA1 — Every Hebrew noun is masculine or feminine — tables and questions included — and there is no neuter. Gender is not a label on the noun; it is a signal the noun sends to the adjective, the demonstrative and the verb, which is why it cannot be postponed.