This page is a map. Each entry is one error, the corrected form beside it, one sentence naming the English habit that produced it, and a link to the page that fixes it properly. The mechanism matters more than the correction: a rule you have been told stays told, while a habit you can catch yourself running is one you can stop.
The list is nine items long and stays nine items long, ordered by when a beginner meets them. Every one is something English speakers actually produce; where no real error could be named for a category, the category is not here. A guide that lists twenty is padding, and padding is worse than useless in a triage list, because it buries the four items that matter.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting a word in the "is" slot. English needs a verb in every clause, so the empty space in אני עייף feels wrong, and the first Hebrew word offered for the job is the הוא of דוד הוא מורה — which is a linker for identity, not a copula.
❌ אני הוא עייף
Incorrect — Hebrew has no present-tense 'am', and there is nothing to fill: אני עייף is a complete sentence. The הוא of דוד הוא מורה links two nouns for identity; an adjective gives it nothing to identify.
✅ אני עייף, אני חושב שאני הולך לישון מוקדם.
aní ayéf, aní khoshév she'aní holékh lishón mukdám
I'm tired — I think I'm going to bed early. (m. speaker)
The whole family of repairs, including the ones with להיות in them, is on inserting 'is' and Hebrew has no 'am', 'is' or 'are'.
2. Conjugating יש. English have is a verb with a subject, so the possessor goes to the front. Hebrew says the thing exists to you, which puts the possessor inside a ל־ phrase and leaves יש itself unchangeable.
❌ אני יש ספר
Incorrect — the possessor never stands in front of יש as its subject, and יש has no forms to conjugate: יש לי ספר.
✅ יש לי ספר בדיוק על זה, אני אביא לך אותו מחר.
yesh li séfer bediyúk al ze, aní aví lekhá otó makhár
I've got a book on exactly that — I'll bring it for you tomorrow. (to a man)
Fixed on trying to conjugate יש and יש לי.
3. Saying אתה to a woman. English you carries no gender, so nothing in the sentence you are translating prompts a choice — and the choice runs through the verb as well as the pronoun.
❌ אמרת שאתה מסיים בשש
Incorrect as said to a woman — the addressee's gender runs through the whole clause, verb included: אמרת שאת מסיימת בשש. Said to a man the sentence is flawless, which is why nothing alerts you.
✅ אמרת שאת מסיימת בשש, נחכה לך למטה.
amárt she'át mesayémet beshésh, nekhaké lakh lemáta
You said you finish at six — we'll wait for you downstairs. (to a woman)
Fixed on saying אתה to a woman and אתה vs את.
4. Leaving out את. English has no object marker at all, so there is nothing in the source sentence to translate — the slot simply never opens.
❌ ראיתי הספר על השולחן
Incorrect — a definite direct object takes את: ראיתי את הספר על השולחן. An indefinite one takes nothing: ראיתי ספר על השולחן.
✅ ראיתי את הספר על השולחן, אבל שכחתי לקחת אותו.
ra'íti et haséfer al hashulkhán, avál shakhákhti lakákhat otó
I saw the book on the table, but I forgot to take it.
What fast speech does to את is not this — see the next section. Fixed on forgetting את and with את or without.
5. Marking the phrase once, at the front. English puts one the on the front of the big house and is done. In Hebrew definiteness is an agreement feature and is copied onto every adjective — and a phrase with only one ה is not a phrase at all, it is a sentence.
❌ הבית גדול
Incorrect as 'the big house' — as written it is a complete sentence, 'the house is big'. The phrase needs the article twice: הבית הגדול.
✅ הבית הגדול בפינה נמכר בשבוע שעבר.
habáyit hagadól bapiná nimkár bashavúa she'avár
The big house on the corner was sold last week.
Fixed on repeating the article.
6. Putting the article in front of a construct chain. Same English habit as the entry above, applied to a different structure — and this is the one entry on the page with no ❌ beside it, because the string it produces is one Israelis say.
The rule is not in doubt. The Academy of the Hebrew Language's page דקדוק הסמיכות (published 21 August 2018, updated 14 September 2022; retrieved from a Wayback snapshot of 21 June 2025) states it and names the source of the error in the same breath: a chain is marked with one article, and "unlike other languages (such as the languages of Europe) the marking does not come at the head of the compound but before the last word in it". Its own list of forms to avoid is a catalogue of everyday Israeli speech — "המכונת כביסה", "היום הולדת", "הבן אדם", "הבת מצווה". Write the standard form; recognise the other, and do not correct anybody's speech with it.
בית הספר החדש נפתח רק בספטמבר.
beit haséfer hekhadásh niftákh rak beseptémber
The new school only opened in September. (the standard form — one article, on the last word of the chain)
היום הולדת שלה בשבת, קנית משהו?
hayóm hulédet shelá beshabát, kaníta máshehu?
Her birthday's on Saturday — have you bought anything? (informal, to a man — the fronted article, one of the forms the Academy lists; in writing, יום ההולדת שלה)
Fixed on the article in the wrong place and definiteness in a chain.
7. Getting the numeral's gender backwards. English numerals agree with nothing, so there is no habit to transfer — and then the learner discovers that ־ָה marks the feminine everywhere else in the language and attaches it to the feminine noun. On numerals 3–19 the marking is inverted: the ־ָה form is the masculine one.
❌ שלושה בנות
Incorrect — בנות is feminine, and on 3–19 the feminine numeral is the bare form: שלוש בנות. The ־ָה ending marks the masculine: שלושה בנים.
✅ יש לה שלוש בנות ובן אחד.
yesh la shalósh banót uvén ekhád
She has three daughters and one son.
Fixed on number gender backwards and gender polarity.
8. Leaving a preposition uninflected. English keeps to and me as two separate words, so the learner assembles ל plus אני. Hebrew prepositions swallow their pronoun instead, and the spaced version exists in no register.
❌ הוא נתן את המפתחות ל אני
Incorrect — the pronoun is a suffix on the preposition: הוא נתן לי את המפתחות. The same applies to עם (איתי, not עם אני) and to על (עליי, not על אני).
✅ הוא נתן לי את המפתחות לפני שנסע.
hu natán li et hamaftekhót lifnéi shenasá
He gave me the keys before he left.
Fixed on saying ל אני and prepositions take pronoun endings.
9. Importing the stress. Hebrew stresses the last syllable as its overwhelming default. The trap is specific: many of the Hebrew words an English speaker already owns arrived through Yiddish and Ashkenazi pronunciation, which stresses the syllable before last — mázel tov, bar MITZ-vah, KO-sher — so the wrong stress comes pre-installed on the words you learned first.
❌ מזל טוב
MA-zel tov
Incorrect — Israeli Hebrew stresses the end: mazál tov. The English 'mazel tov' preserves the Ashkenazi stress, and the same goes for shábbos beside Israeli shabát.
✅ מזל טוב! שמעתי שהתארסתם.
mazál tov! shamáti shehit'arástem
Congratulations! I heard you got engaged. (to a couple)
Fixed on stressing the wrong syllable and מלרע vs מלעיל.
Things you will be corrected on that are not mistakes
Somebody — a textbook, a well-meaning relative, an app — will tell you these three are wrong. They are not, and filing them as errors over-corrects you into a register nobody speaks, which is its own problem: sounding like a textbook.
את reduced in fast speech. This is not entry 4 above coming back. Entry 4 is the marker being absent; what happens in speech is the marker being reduced: את הַ־ collapses to a single syllable ta-, which is a register ladder Glinert sets out in The Grammar of Modern Hebrew (CUP 1989) at §1.4. Israelis write it with a geresh when they text.
ראית את הסרט החדש שכולם מדברים עליו?
ra'íta et haséret hekhadásh shekulám medabrím aláv?
Have you seen the new film everyone's talking about? (to a man — the full form, and what you write)
נו, ראית ת׳סרט או לא?
nu, ra'íta ta-séret o lo?
So, have you seen the film or not? (informal, to a man — the marker is still there, fused onto the noun)
תשב where a textbook wants שב. The future form used as a command is the everyday Israeli imperative, not a lazy substitute for the classical one. Both are current; the classical imperative is the crisper and slightly more formal of the two.
תשב, אני מיד מגיע.
teshév, aní miyád magía
Take a seat, I'll be right with you. (informal, to a man — the future as an imperative)
שב בבקשה, זה ייקח כמה דקות.
shev bevakashá, ze yikákh káma dakót
Please take a seat, this will take a few minutes. (to a man — the classical imperative, a shade more formal)
The split is on the future as an imperative and over-using the classical imperative.
של where a bound suffix would be more literary. דעתי and הדעה שלי are one meaning in two registers, and the two-word version is not a degraded form of the other — it is what people say and what most people write.
הדעה שלי לא השתנתה, פשוט לא רציתי להתווכח.
hade'á shelí lo hishtantá, pashút lo ratsíti lehitvakéakh
My opinion hasn't changed — I just didn't want to argue. (everyday speech and writing alike)
דעתי בעניין זה לא השתנתה.
da'tí be'inyán ze lo hishtantá
My view on this matter has not changed. (formal — the bound suffix, and note the matching בעניין זה rather than בעניין הזה)
More on the trade on של where a construct chain is expected.
Four questions to run over your own writing
Read what you have written four times, once per question. Each pass takes seconds and catches a different item above.
- Does every definite direct object carry את? Check the ones with no ה on them too — a name, אחותי, זה and a definite chain are all definite.
- Does every attributive adjective agree and repeat the article? Gender, number and definiteness, three features, on every adjective in the phrase.
- Is every preposition inflected? No ל אני, no עם אני, no על אני anywhere.
- Is there a stray הוא standing in for is? If it is not linking two nouns for identity, delete it.
Key Takeaways
- Nine errors, not twenty. Each has a named English habit behind it, and the habit is the part worth remembering.
- The first four are A1 and structural: no copula, no conjugated יש, gendered you, and את before a definite object.
- Two of them are one habit — English marks a phrase once, at the front — in two structures: the article on the adjective (הבית הגדול) and the article in a chain (בית הספר).
- Numeral marking on 3–19 is inverted: the ־ָה form is masculine. Stress is final by default, and the words you already knew came in with Ashkenazi stress on them.
- Three things are not errors: את reduced to ta- in fast speech, תשב as an everyday imperative, and של-possessives. Over-correcting these is a register error of its own.
Now practice Hebrew
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Inserting 'Is' Into a Hebrew Present-Tense SentenceA1 — The most predictable English transfer error in Hebrew has a fingerprint you can spot at a glance: a subject pronoun followed immediately by a second pronoun meaning the same thing, as in אני הוא עייף. The word being reached for is a real Hebrew word — but it identifies, it agrees, and it never repeats the subject.
- Forgetting את Before a Definite ObjectA1 — English has no object marker at all, so nothing in your first language ever holds the slot open for את. The rule itself is one line long — the work is in recognising a definite object, and four of the five things that make one definite leave no ה on the page for your eye to catch.
- Saying אתה to a WomanA1 — The error nothing corrects, because the wrong sentence is a perfect sentence addressed to somebody else. Five separate machines carry the addressee's gender, one of them hides the contrast completely, and the one thing every learner is told about that hidden row — that stress separates the two forms — is false.
- A1 Path: First Steps in HebrewA1 — A guided A1 syllabus through this guide, grouped into nine stages in study order, with one line on why each page comes when it does.