בטח, ברור, בטוח: Of Course | Hebrew Grammar

English packs a lot into of course and sure, and Hebrew spreads the same work across three words that behave completely differently. בטח is an invariant particle. ברור is an adjective pressed into service as a one-word reply. בטוח is an adjective that never stopped being one, which means it agrees — and that is where most learner errors on this page come from.

בטח: two senses no dictionary separates

Hebrew Wiktionary points it בֶּטַח, gives the pronunciation bétakh — stress on the first syllable — files it as a תואר הפועל (adverb) on the root ב־ט־ח, and marks the etymology מקראי, Biblical. Its modern sense is glossed ידיעה ודאית. ללא ספק — certain knowledge, without doubt — with no register label. Pealim, by contrast, tags it colloquial and lists only the "of course" reading.

Now the fact worth building this page on. In actual speech בטח does two distinguishable jobs, and no source consulted separates them:

Job	What it does	Where it sits
Agreement	Yes, obviously — a green light for something proposed	Alone, or in front of a ש-clause: בטח שכן
Inference	He must be…, she's probably… — a guess you are confident about	Inside the clause, between subject and predicate

Milog folds both into a single entry glossed כמובן, ללא ספק, ודאי — all three agreement words — and then illustrates it with הגשם בטח יגיע בקרוב, which is the inference sense. Pealim omits the inference sense entirely. That is a gap in the dictionaries rather than in this page, and it matters: looking בטח up will not tell you which one you just heard.

אתה בא איתנו? בטח, רק אקח מפתחות.

atá ba itánu? bétakh, rak ekákh maftekhót

Are you coming with us? — Sure, just let me grab my keys. (agreement)

בטח שאני אעזור לך, על מה את מדברת.

bétakh she'aní e'ezór lakh, al ma at medabéret

Of course I'll help you, what are you on about. (agreement, with a ש-clause; to a woman)

האור כבוי, הוא בטח כבר הלך הביתה.

ha'ór kavúy, hu bétakh kvar halákh habáyta

The light's off — he must have gone home already. (inference)

היא לא עונה, בטח נגמרה לה הסוללה.

hi lo oná, bétakh nigmerá la hasolelá

She's not answering — her battery has probably died. (inference)

💡

Position is the most reliable clue you have. A בטח that stands alone, or heads its own clause with ש, is agreeing with you. A בטח sitting inside a sentence, between the subject and the verb, is a guess. הוא בטח בבית is "he's probably home"; a bare בטח! in reply to "shall we go?" is "definitely".

The unpointed בטח is three different words

Written without niqqud, בטח is ambiguous in a way that will trip you up in a text message. All three are common:

Pointed	Reads	What it is
בֶּטַח	bétakh	the discourse marker on this page
בָּטַח	batákh	pa'al past 3ms of ב־ט־ח, "he trusted"
בְּטַח	btakh	the imperative, "trust!"

בטח בי, עשיתי את זה מאה פעמים.

btakh bi, asíti et ze me'á pe'amím

Trust me, I've done this a hundred times. (to a man — the imperative, not the marker)

ברור

בָּרוּר barúr is the ordinary adjective "clear". Wiktionary's relevant sense reads שהידיעה בו ודאית. שהחוש או השכל מכיר בו לחלוטין — that knowledge of it is certain, that the senses or the mind grasp it completely — and gives ספק and עמום as its antonyms. As a reply it means roughly obviously, understood, that goes without saying, and it works in two quite different situations.

Answering a request or an instruction, ברור means "understood, will do":

תסגור את החלונות לפני שאתה יוצא. ברור.

tisgór et hakhalonót lifnéi she'atá yotsé. barúr

Shut the windows before you leave. — Got it. (to a man)

Affirming a proposition, it means "that is self-evident", and it usually comes with a ש-clause spelling out what is obvious:

ברור שהיא צודקת, אף אחד לא מתווכח על זה.

barúr shehí tsodéket, af ekhád lo mitvakéakh al ze

Obviously she's right — nobody's arguing about that.

Keep ברור ש apart from ברור לי ש. The first says the thing is obvious to anyone; the second says it is clear to me, which is a much weaker claim and leaves room for you to be wrong.

ברור לי שהתכוונת לטוב, אבל זה יצא לא נעים.

barúr li shehitkavánta letóv, avál ze yatsá lo na'ím

I'm quite clear you meant well, but it came out badly. (to a man)

בטוח is an adjective and it agrees

בָּטוּחַ batúakh is the pa'ul participle of the same root, and it stayed an adjective. It never froze into a particle, so it takes all four forms and has to match its subject.

Subject	Form	Reads
m. sg.	אני בָּטוּחַ	aní batúakh
f. sg.	אני בְּטוּחָה	aní btukhá
m. pl.	אנחנו בְּטוּחִים	anákhnu btukhím
f. pl.	אנחנו בְּטוּחוֹת	anákhnu btukhót

את בטוחה שסגרת את הגז? אני יכולה לחזור לבדוק.

at btukhá shesagárt et hagáz? aní yekholá lakhazór livdók

Are you sure you turned the gas off? I can go back and check. (two women)

אנחנו לא בטוחים שנספיק, אבל ננסה.

anákhnu lo btukhím shenaspík, avál nenasé

We're not sure we'll make it in time, but we'll try.

The adjective also modifies a thing rather than a person, where it means "certain" of a fact or "safe" of a place. זה בטוח is the everyday way to say that something is a sure thing.

הם יעלו את המחירים בינואר, זה בטוח.

hem ya'alú et hamekhirím beyánu'ar, ze batúakh

They'll put the prices up in January, that's a certainty.

💡

Three words, two roots, three grammatical behaviours. בטח and בטוח are both built on ב־ט־ח — the first an invariant particle, the second a live adjective that agrees with everything. ברור is a different root, ב־ר־ר, and it is an adjective frozen in the masculine when it is used as a reply. If you remember only one thing from this page, make it that בטוח moves.

The written set: כמובן, בוודאי, ללא ספק, אין ספק

בטח belongs to speech. When you are writing something that will be read by someone who is not a friend, these are the words that do the same work.

Word	Reads	Roughly	Register
בטח	bétakh	sure, of course; must be	speech (Pealim: colloquial)
כמובן	kamuván	of course, naturally	neutral — speech and writing alike
בוודאי	bevadái	certainly, doubtless	formal and written
ללא ספק	leló safék	without a doubt	formal and written
אין ספק ש	ein safék she	there is no doubt that	neutral to formal

אין ספק שהשינוי הזה ישפיע על כל המחלקה.

ein safék shehashinúy hazé yashpía al kol hamakhlaká

There is no doubt that this change will affect the whole department. (formal written)

Two of these are not free substitutes. כמובן covers only the agreement job, so it will not translate הוא בטח בבית; בוודאי reaches both senses but sounds bookish in a text message. The rest of the agreement inventory is on agreeing and disagreeing; how these words behave as sentence-level modifiers is on sentence adverbs.

Common Mistakes

1. Freezing בטוח in the masculine. This is the error the page exists for. בטח and ברור never change; בטוח always does, and learners who meet all three together file them as one kind of word. The string below has no reading in Hebrew at all — the speaker is feminine in one half of her own sentence and masculine in the other.

❌ אני בטוח שאני מאחרת

Incorrect — בטוח is an adjective and agrees with its subject, so a female speaker says בטוחה: אני בטוחה שאני מאחרת.

✅ אני בטוחה שאני מאחרת, תתחילו בלעדיי.

aní btukhá she'aní me'akhéret, tatkhílu bil'adái

I'm sure I'm going to be late — start without me. (f. speaker, to a group)

2. Hearing every בטח as agreement. Somebody says הוא בטח שכח and you take it as "he definitely forgot" when it means "he's probably forgotten" — a guess, not a claim. Check the position: inside the clause, it is an inference.

3. Putting בטח in something you have written down. Not an error and not wrong Hebrew, but Pealim's colloquial tag is telling you something real: בטח is heard far more than it is read. The pair below says the same thing twice.

בטח שנשמח לעזור, תגיד מתי.

bétakh shenismákh la'azór, tagíd matái

Of course we'd be glad to help, just say when. (spoken; to a man)

נשמח כמובן לסייע, נא ליידע אותנו במועד המתאים.

nismákh kamuván lesayéa, na leyadéa otánu bamo'éd hamat'ím

We would of course be glad to assist; please let us know at the appropriate time. (formal written — the same offer in the register of an email)

4. Reaching for כמובן when the sentence needs an inference. הוא כמובן בבית is grammatical, but it says "he is, obviously, at home" — a statement about a fact you both know, not a guess. For a guess you need בטח, or the fuller בטח ש, or כנראה.

5. Treating ברור ש and ברור לי ש as one answer. The first claims the thing is obvious to everybody; the second says only that you personally are convinced. Using the first where you meant the second overstates your case — and in an argument that is the sentence that gets picked apart.

Key Takeaways

בֶּטַח bétakh is stressed on the first syllable and never inflects. Wiktionary files it as an adverb with no register label; Pealim tags it colloquial.
It does two jobs — agreement (בטח! / בטח שכן) and inference (הוא בטח בבית) — and no dictionary consulted separates them. Milog collapses both into one entry and then illustrates it with the inference sense.
Position is the tell: alone or heading a ש-clause = agreement; inside the clause between subject and predicate = inference.
Unpointed בטח is also בָּטַח "he trusted" and בְּטַח "trust!" — three different words on one spelling.
ברור barúr answers a request ("understood") and affirms a proposition (ברור ש, "obviously"). ברור לי ש is the weaker, personal version.
בטוח is an adjective and agrees: בטוח, בטוחה, בטוחים, בטוחות. The frozen masculine is the single most common error here.
For writing: כמובן is the neutral all-rounder, בוודאי and ללא ספק are formal — but כמובן carries only the agreement sense, so it cannot replace an inferential בטח.

Now practice Hebrew

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Hebrew →