ההוא, ההיא, ההם: That and Those | Hebrew Grammar

The page title lists three forms; there are four. Alongside ההוא, ההיא and ההם stands the feminine plural ההן, and it is a live word — Hebrew Wikipedia has בשנים ההן on 99 articles. That fourth form is worth flagging at the outset, because it is where the far set stops behaving like the near set you already know.

The four forms

	Form	Reads	Built from	Example
m. sg	ההוא	hahú	ה + הוא	הילד ההוא
f. sg	ההיא	hahí	ה + היא	הבחורה ההיא
m. pl	ההם	hahém	ה + הם	הימים ההם
f. pl	ההן	hahén	ה + הן	השנים ההן

Two structural facts fall straight out of that fourth column, and between them they are most of the page.

One: the article is already inside the word. ההוא is not a demonstrative that can take the article — it is the article plus the third-person pronoun, fused. So the noun beside it has to be definite as well, and there is no bare, formal-register counterpart of the ספר זה kind. *ילד ההוא is simply not a possible phrase, and the corpus is categorical about it. Searching Hebrew Wikipedia with a leading space, so that each bare form's count excludes its own definite twin (insource:/…/ regex search, retrieved 16 August 2026):

Definite noun — attested	Same phrase, bare noun
האיש ההוא — 21 articles	איש ההוא — 0
היום ההוא — 16 articles	יום ההוא — 0
המקום ההוא — 20 articles	מקום ההוא — 0

Three nouns, three zeros, each one standing beside a definite form that the same corpus uses freely — which is what makes the zeros evidence rather than an accident of how rare the noun is.

Two: the far set marks gender in the plural and the near set does not. אלה serves masculine and feminine alike, but ההם and ההן are built on הם and הן, which have always distinguished gender — so the distinction the near set threw away comes back here. This catches people precisely because they learned the easier system first.

בימים ההם לא היה כאן כלום, רק חול.

bayamím hahém lo hayá kan klum, rak khol

In those days there was nothing here — just sand.

השנים ההן היו הכי קשות למשפחה.

hashaním hahén hayú hakhí kashót lamishpakhá

Those years were the hardest for the family. (שנים is feminine, so the demonstrative is ההן — a distinction the near plural האלה does not make)

בתקופה ההיא אנשים עוד כתבו מכתבים.

batkufá hahí anashím od katvú mikhtavím

In that period people still wrote letters.

Hebrew does not have a working this / that pair

This is the point competing resources get wrong, and getting it wrong is why so much learner Hebrew reads as translated. English contrasts this against that constantly, and for almost any object in the room; a textbook that lines זה up against ההוא implies the same is true in Hebrew. It is not. זה does the work of both. ההוא is not the ordinary far term — it is the marked one, reserved for genuine remoteness, and reaching for it by default produces stiff, faintly literary Hebrew.

The corpus makes the imbalance visible. On Hebrew Wikipedia הבחור הזה returns 78 articles and הבחור ההוא returns 2 — about 39 : 1 for the near form, in a written corpus that has every opportunity to use the far one.

Genuine remoteness comes in two flavours, and both are worth learning as patterns:

Spatial contrast — one thing near, another further off, in the same breath. This is where ההוא is not merely allowed but preferred, because there is something for it to contrast with.
Distance in time — בימים ההם, בתקופה ההיא, בשנים ההן. Hebrew Wikipedia has בימים ההם on 389 articles and בתקופה ההיא on 370, so this is not a fossil; it is the far set's main modern job.

לא הבניין הזה, ההוא בקצה הרחוב.

lo habinyán hazé, hahú biktsé harekhóv

Not this building — that one at the end of the street. (the contrast is what licenses ההוא)

הכיסאות האלה בסדר, אבל ההם מהמחסן שבורים.

hakis'ót ha'éle beséder, avál hahém mehamakhsán shvurím

These chairs are fine, but those ones from the storeroom are broken.

המורה ההוא מבית הספר היסודי עוד זוכר אותי.

hamoré hahú mibéit haséfer hayesodí od zokhér otí

That teacher from primary school still remembers me. (remote in time, and a long way back)

What Israelis reach for instead

If ההוא is not the default that, something has to be. Three things are, and they cover almost everything English does with the word.

English	What Hebrew actually does	Example
that book (in your hand)	plain הזה — a gesture or the intonation does the pointing	הספר הזה
that building over there	הזה + שם, "there"	הבניין הזה שם
that same one, the one I mentioned	אותו before the noun	אותו בניין

The third row is the one that actually competes with ההוא for the temporal job, and the numbers are not close: באותה תקופה returns a five-figure count on Hebrew Wikipedia against 370 for בתקופה ההיא. (An insource: count that large is a floor rather than an exact total, so read that as "roughly fifty to one" and not as a precise figure.) The prenominal אותו has its own page: אותו = the same.

אני מתכוון לבניין הזה שם, עם הדגל.

aní mitkavén labinyán hazé sham, im hadégel

I mean that building over there, the one with the flag. (m. speaker — הזה plus שם, which is what you will actually hear)

באותה תקופה גרנו בדירה של סבתא שלי.

be'otá tkufá gárnu badirá shel sávta shelí

Around that time we were living in my grandmother's flat.

Standing alone, and standing for a person

The far forms are also used without a noun at all, as a way of referring to somebody you are not naming: ההוא מהמשרד, ההיא מהקומה השנייה. This is thoroughly ordinary spoken Hebrew, not slang.

Whether it sounds dismissive depends on how it is said. The word itself contributes distance, not contempt — but distance applied to a person, in the right tone of voice, is easy to hear as that one, whatever his name is. Treat the tone as intonation-dependent rather than as part of the meaning, and notice that you can also use the construction perfectly neutrally when a name genuinely is not available.

ההוא מהמשרד התקשר שוב, לא השארתי לו מספר.

hahú mehamisrád hitkashér shuv, lo hish'árti lo mispár

That bloke from the office rang again — I never gave him a number. (informal)

ההיא מהקומה השנייה שוב תפסה לי את החנייה.

hahí mehakomá hashniyá shuv tafsá li et hakhanayá

That woman on the second floor has taken my parking space again. (informal)

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The near set does the same job on the previous page — היוסי הזה — so this is one construction with two distances, not two separate phenomena. Where the pronominal uses of these words go beyond pointing, see demonstrative pronouns.

Common Mistakes

1. Translating every English that as ההוא. The single error that makes a whole paragraph read as translated, and the sentence you produce is grammatical, so nothing pushes back.

❌ אני רוצה את הכיסא ההוא

that chair, the one right here

Incorrect as 'I want that chair' about a chair in front of you — ההוא means genuinely far off or long ago. Pointing at something in the room, Hebrew says הכיסא הזה.

✅ אני רוצה את הכיסא הזה, לא את זה עם הכריות.

aní rotsá et hakisé hazé, lo et ze im hakariyót

I want this chair, not the one with the cushions. (f. speaker)

2. Leaving the noun bare. ההוא already contains an article, and it looks as if that ought to be enough for the whole phrase.

❌ ילד ההוא

Incorrect — ההוא is ה + הוא, so the noun needs its own ה too: הילד ההוא. There is no article-free version of this pattern the way there is with ספר זה.

✅ הילד ההוא מהגן שלנו גר עכשיו בקנדה.

hayéled hahú mehagán shelánu gar akhsháv bekánada

That boy from our nursery lives in Canada now.

3. Carrying the near plural's genderlessness over to the far plural. האלה covers both genders, so ההם feels as though it should too. It does not.

❌ הבנות ההם

Incorrect — the far plural marks gender: הבנות ההן. ההם is for masculine plurals, הימים ההם.

✅ הבנות ההן מהמחזור שלי כבר סבתות.

habanót hahén mehamakhzór shelí kvar savtót

Those girls from my year are grandmothers already.

4. Reaching for בימים אלה to say "in those days". אלה is the near set, so the phrase means the opposite of what you want — and it is common enough (428 Hebrew Wikipedia articles) that your reader will simply take it at face value.

❌ בימים אלה לא היו טלפונים

in those days there were no telephones

Incorrect as 'in those days' — בימים אלה means 'these days, at present', so this claims there are no telephones now. For the past: בימים ההם לא היו טלפונים.

✅ בימים אלה הוא עובד על ספר חדש.

bayamím éle hu ovéd al séfer khadásh

These days he's working on a new book. (formal register — the bare demonstrative, and the near set)

Key Takeaways

The far set has four members: ההוא, ההיא, ההם, ההן. The feminine plural is easy to miss and is genuinely used — בשנים ההן on 99 Hebrew Wikipedia articles.
Each form already contains the article (ה + הוא), so the noun must be definite too. *איש ההוא, *יום ההוא and *מקום ההוא all return zero on Hebrew Wikipedia while their definite twins are ordinary; there is no bare counterpart of the ספר זה kind.
The far plural marks gender; the near plural does not. האלה covers both, but הימים ההם against השנים ההן.
Hebrew has no working this / that pair. זה covers both, and הבחור הזה outnumbers הבחור ההוא by about 39 : 1 in a written corpus.
ההוא is for real remoteness: a spatial contrast against something nearer, or distance in time — בימים ההם, בתקופה ההיא.
What Israelis use instead: plain הזה with a gesture, הזה … שם for spatial distance, and אותו before the noun for "that same one" — באותה תקופה outruns בתקופה ההיא by roughly fifty to one.
Standing alone, ההוא / ההיא names a person you are not naming. The distancing is real; whether it sounds dismissive is carried by the intonation, not by the word.

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