Language Names: עברית, אנגלית, ערבית | Hebrew Grammar

Hebrew does not have a separate word for French the language and French the person, the way English almost does. It builds language names out of the nationality adjective by putting it in the feminine singular — צָרְפָתִי tsarfatí "French (man)" gives צָרְפָתִית tsarfatít "French (the language)" — and once you see why the feminine, you can predict the ending, the agreement and half the mistakes.

The missing noun

The word that has gone missing is שָׂפָה safá, "language", and it is feminine. השפה הצרפתית is "the French language", with the adjective agreeing; drop the noun and the adjective is left holding the meaning on its own. That is the whole derivation, and it is the same move English makes in a daily (a daily paper) or the Spanish (the Spanish people).

So the ending ־ית is not a special "language suffix". It is the ordinary feminine of the ordinary nationality adjective, which is covered in full on the ־י suffix and nationalities.

Language	Reads	In English
עִבְרִית	ivrít	Hebrew
אַנְגְּלִית	anglít	English
עֲרָבִית	aravít	Arabic
רוּסִית	rusít	Russian
צָרְפָתִית	tsarfatít	French
גֶּרְמָנִית	germanít	German
סְפָרַדִּית	sfaradít	Spanish
אִיטַלְקִית	italkít	Italian
יְוָונִית	yevanít	Greek
סִינִית	sinít	Chinese
יַפָּנִית	yapanít	Japanese
אַמְהָרִית	amharít	Amharic

Twelve names, twelve identical endings. אמהרית is not an exception — it is אמהרה plus the same ־ית as everything else, and it belongs on this list because it is one of the languages you will actually hear on an Israeli bus.

Because they are feminine, everything around them is too

This is the payoff, and it is where English speakers lose points: a language name is a feminine singular noun, so the adjective, the verb and the pronoun that refer back to it must all be feminine singular.

הערבית שלו מצוינת, הוא גדל בחיפה.

ha'aravít sheló metsuyénet, hu gadál bekhéifa

His Arabic is excellent — he grew up in Haifa.

סליחה, את מדברת אנגלית? העברית שלי עדיין בסיסית.

slikhá, at medabéret anglít? ha'ivrít shelí adáyin besisít

Excuse me, do you speak English? My Hebrew is still pretty basic. (to a woman)

Note the article on הערבית שלו and העברית שלי. Talking about someone's command of a language, Hebrew makes the language definite — the possessive requires it — while talking about speaking the language at all, it stays bare. Get that split wrong in either direction and the sentence changes meaning rather than becoming ungrammatical, which is why it is easy to miss.

מדבר עברית: no article, no preposition, no marker

The verb דיבר takes the language name as a bare complement. Nothing goes in front of it — no ל, no ב, no את, no ה.

אני מדבר עברית ואנגלית, ובקושי קצת ערבית.

aní medabér ivrít ve'anglít, uvekóshi ktsat aravít

I speak Hebrew and English, and barely a bit of Arabic. (m. speaker)

היא לומדת ערבית באוניברסיטה כבר שנתיים ומתחילה לדבר.

hi lomédet aravít ba'univérsita kvar shnatáyim umatkhilá ledabér

She's been studying Arabic at university for two years now and is starting to speak.

The verb agrees with the speaker, not the language: a man says אני מדבר, a woman אני מדברת. The paradigm is on דיבר.

The temptation to add את here is strong — the learner knows Hebrew is one particular language, puts the article on it, and then את follows automatically from the definiteness rule. The corpus is one-sided: Hebrew Wikipedia has מדבר את העברית 0 times and מדבר את האנגלית 0 times, against 28 hits for the bare frame across מדבר / מדברת / מדברים עברית and מדבר אנגלית (insource:/…/ regex, 20 August 2026). That particular over-correction is worked through as a full error on the generic article, and the wider habit on putting את where it doesn't belong.

ב־ does have a job here, and it is a different one. מדברים בעברית means "the conversation is being conducted in Hebrew" — ב־ marks the medium an activity runs in, not the languages you happen to know. Both sentences below are correct and they are not interchangeable.

במשרד שלנו מדברים רוסית לא פחות מעברית.

bamisrád shelánu medabrím rusít lo pakhót me'ivrít

In our office they speak Russian no less than Hebrew. (which languages get spoken)

בואו נדבר בעברית, ככה כולם יבינו.

bó'u nedabér be'ivrít, kákha kulám yavínu

Let's talk in Hebrew — that way everyone will follow. (the medium of this conversation)

Two more frames earn their place on day one. לתרגם ל־ points at the target language, with ל and never ב. And איך אומרים ב־ is how you ask for a word.

אפשר לתרגם את המסמך לאנגלית עד יום חמישי?

efshár letargém et hamismákh le'anglít ad yom khamishí?

Can the document be translated into English by Thursday?

רגע, איך אומרים את זה בעברית? שכחתי לגמרי.

réga, eikh omrím et ze be'ivrít? shakhákhti legamréi

Hang on, how do you say this in Hebrew? I've completely forgotten.

💡

Sort the three by what they are about. מדבר עברית is a fact about you — a skill you have. מדבר בעברית is a fact about the conversation — the language it is running in. העברית שלי is a fact about your command of it, and the only one of the three that takes the article.

The two that refuse the pattern

יידיש yídish and לדינו ladíno are borrowed names, taken whole, and neither has been rebuilt on ־ית. There is no יידישית and no לדינית. Both also keep the stress of the language they were borrowed from — yídish on the first syllable, ladíno on the second — where every name in the table above is stressed on its last.

סבא שלי דיבר יידיש עם החברים שלו, אבל אף פעם לא איתנו.

sába shelí dibér yídish im hakhaverím sheló, avál af pá'am lo itánu

My grandfather spoke Yiddish with his friends, but never with us.

לדינו עדיין שומעים בכמה שירים, פחות בשיחה.

ladíno adáyin shom'ím bekháma shirím, pakhót besikhá

You still hear Ladino in a few songs, less in conversation.

Two names for one language

עברית names the language. לְשׁוֹן הַקּוֹדֶשׁ leshón hakódesh, "the holy tongue", names the same language in its liturgical role, and it is what a religious speaker is likely to call the Hebrew of prayer and Torah study rather than the Hebrew of a bus timetable. You need it for recognition, not production. The pronunciation that goes with that role is a separate system — see liturgical pronunciation.

Worth knowing about two of the three names in this page's title: Hebrew is the state's language and Arabic has a "special status" under §4 of Basic Law: Israel – the Nation-State of the Jewish People (2018), which replaced Arabic's earlier standing as an official language. Both are on your bus ticket.

This is very likely your first real conversation in Israel, so here it is whole.

אני לא מדבר עברית בכלל, רק אנגלית וספרדית. נסתדר?

aní lo medabér ivrít bikhlál, rak anglít usfaradít. nistadér?

I don't speak any Hebrew at all — only English and Spanish. Will we manage? (m. speaker)

אז בוא נדבר אנגלית, ואם תיתקע נעבור לעברית.

az bo nedabér anglít, ve'ím titaká na'avór le'ivrít

Then let's speak English, and if you get stuck we'll switch to Hebrew. (to a man)

Common Mistakes

1. Using the masculine nationality form for the language. English spends one word on both jobs — he is French, he speaks French — so there is no cue to switch. Hebrew has two words and the language is always the feminine one. מדבר צרפתי returns 0 on the same corpus, against 9 for מדבר אנגלית.

❌ אני מדבר צרפתי

Incorrect — צרפתי is a Frenchman. The language is the feminine צרפתית: אני מדבר צרפתית.

✅ אני מדבר צרפתית ברמה של תיירות, לא יותר.

aní medabér tsarfatít beramá shel tayarút, lo yotér

I speak tourist-level French, no more than that. (m. speaker)

2. Leaving the adjective masculine. English adjectives do not agree, so nothing warns you that a comment about your Hebrew has to be feminine.

❌ העברית שלי לא טוב

Incorrect — העברית is feminine singular, so the adjective is too: העברית שלי לא טובה. The same goes for רעה, מצוינת, חלשה.

✅ העברית שלי לא רעה, אבל אני מפחדת לדבר בטלפון.

ha'ivrít shelí lo ra'á, avál aní mefakhédet ledabér batélefon

My Hebrew isn't bad, but I'm scared of speaking on the phone. (f. speaker)

3. Dropping the article off שפה while keeping it on the adjective. The full phrase השפה העברית is where the language name came from, and a Hebrew noun and its adjective have to agree in definiteness as well as in gender and number.

❌ שפה העברית

Incorrect — the noun and its adjective must match in definiteness: either השפה העברית, 'the Hebrew language', or the bare שפה עברית, 'a Hebrew language'. One article on each word or none on either.

✅ השפה העברית קשה בהתחלה, אבל אחרי שנה זה משתחרר.

hasafá ha'ivrít kashá bahatkhalá, avál akharéi shaná ze mishtakhrér

Hebrew is hard at first, but after a year it loosens up.

4. Translating into a language with ב. Learners say translate it in English in English too, and ב־ is the letter that means in. תרגם points at a target, and a target takes ל.

❌ תרגמתי את המכתב באנגלית

Incorrect as 'I translated the letter into English' — the target language takes ל: תרגמתי את המכתב לאנגלית. באנגלית would say the translating was done in English, which is a different claim.

✅ תרגמתי את המכתב לאנגלית ושלחתי לה אותו.

tirgámti et hamikhtáv le'anglít veshalákhti la otó

I translated the letter into English and sent it to her.

Key Takeaways

A language name is the feminine singular of the nationality adjective, with שָׂפָה dropped behind it. That is why they all end in ־ית.
Because they are feminine, everything agreeing with them is feminine: העברית שלי טובה, הערבית שלו מצוינת.
מדבר עברית takes nothing in front of the language — no article, no preposition, no את; and השפה העברית, where the noun is back, needs an article on both words.
מדברים בעברית is a different statement: ב־ marks the language a conversation is running in.
לתרגם ל־ for the target language; איך אומרים ב־ to ask for a word.
יידיש and לדינו are the genuine irregulars — undeclined borrowings with no ־ית form. אמהרית is perfectly regular and belongs with the rest.
לשון הקודש names Hebrew in its liturgical role, not as an everyday synonym for עברית.

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