A Hebrew verb's preposition is a lexical property of that verb, the way gender is a lexical property of a noun. It does not track the English translation and cannot be worked out from the meaning. That much is stated at the top of the prepositions map and it is true — it is also not very useful on its own, because "memorise it" is not advice you can act on mid-sentence.
The useful version is narrower. Nearly all of this error comes from two English structures, and both are visible in the English sentence you are translating out of. Name the structure and you can catch the error before you make it.
Direction one: English has no preposition, so you supply את
English hands use, ring, enter, marry and help a bare object. There is nothing in the source sentence to translate, so the learner reaches for the only object machinery Hebrew has taught them — את — and produces a shape the verb does not allow.
| English | What comes out | Hebrew |
|---|---|---|
| use the printer | ❌ השתמשתי את המדפסת | השתמשתי במדפסת |
| ring her | ❌ התקשרתי אותה | התקשרתי אליה |
| enter the classroom | ❌ נכנסתי את הכיתה | נכנסתי לכיתה |
| marry him | ❌ התחתנתי אותו | התחתנתי איתו |
| help her | ❌ עזרתי אותה | עזרתי לה |
The last row is the one every English speaker produces in the first month, and it is worked through on ל־; this page will not repeat it.
השתמשתי במילון כל הזמן בהתחלה, עכשיו פחות.
hishtamáshti bamilón kol hazmán bahatkhalá, akhsháv pakhót
I used a dictionary all the time at the start — less now.
נכנסתי למשרד שלו בלי לדפוק ותפסתי אותו ישן.
nikhnásti lamisrád sheló bli lidfók vetafásti otó yashén
I walked into his office without knocking and caught him asleep.
היא התחתנה איתו אחרי שנתיים, בטקס קטן בגינה.
hi hitkhatná itó akharéi shnatáyim, betékes katán baginá
She married him two years later, at a small ceremony in the garden.
Direction two: English has a preposition, so you supply one
The mirror image. Listen to, look for, wait for all carry a preposition in English, so a Hebrew verb that takes a plain object looks incomplete and the learner fills the gap. Here the wrong version usually still parses — which is why nobody stops you, and why this direction survives for years while direction one is corrected in a week.
- חיפש takes a direct object. Milog glosses it look for and illustrates it with an object, including the idiom חיפש אותו בנרות, "searched high and low for him".
- שמע takes a direct object both for hearing and for listening: Milog's sense 5, "listening regularly", is illustrated with שמעתי מוזיקה קלאסית. The שמעתי למוזיקה a learner produces is not nonsense — it is Milog's sense 4, obey, the sense of הבן שמע לאביו and of the idiom שמע בקולו.
חיפשתי את המשקפיים שלי חצי שעה, והם היו על הראש.
khipásti et hamishkafáyim shelí khatsí sha'á, vehém hayú al harósh
I looked for my glasses for half an hour and they were on my head.
שמעתי את ההרצאה עד הסוף ולא הבנתי מילה.
shamáti et hahartsa'á ad hasóf veló hevánti milá
I listened to the lecture right through and didn't understand a word.
הוא לא שמע לאף אחד, וזה נגמר בדיוק כמו שאמרנו.
hu lo shamá le'áf ekhád, vezé nigmár bediyúk kmo she'amárnu
He didn't listen to anybody, and it ended exactly the way we said it would. (שמע with ל־ is 'heed, obey' — Milog's sense 4)
Learn them in groups, not in pairs
Isolated pairs do not survive; a group with one governor at its head does. Every row below names the English structure that produces the error, because a verb whose transfer cannot be named is a verb this page does not need.
| Governor | Verbs | What English gives you instead |
|---|---|---|
| ל־ | עזר, הפריע, סלח, ענה, הודיע, התאים | a bare object — help him, bother me, forgive her, answer him, it suits me |
| קרא (summon, name) | a bare object — call him | |
| חיכה, הקשיב, הסביר | for, to — these match, and are safe | |
| ב־ | השתמש, טיפל, נגע, בחר, זכה, תמך, הבחין | a bare object — use it, treat him, touch it, choose one, support her, notice it |
| השתתף | in — this one matches | |
| מ־ | נהנה, התעלם, סבל, נמנע | a bare object — enjoy it, ignore me, endure it, avoid it |
| פחד, ביקש | a different preposition — afraid of, ask someone for | |
| על | ויתר, השפיע, חזר, שמר, הגן | a bare object — give it up, influence me, repeat it, guard it |
| חשב, סיפר | about — these match | |
| עם | התחתן, נפגש, הסכים, רב | a bare object for the first two — marry her, meet him |
חשבתי על ההצעה שלהם כל הלילה ובסוף ויתרתי עליה.
khashávti al hahatsa'á shelahém kol haláyla uvasóf vitárti aléha
I thought about their offer all night and in the end I turned it down.
פחדתי מהניתוח יותר מהמחלה עצמה.
pakhádti mehanitúakh yotér mehamakhalá atsmá
I was more frightened of the operation than of the illness itself.
Each group has its own page: verbs with ל־, with ב־, with מ־ and with על.
When the preposition is not a formality but the meaning
For a small group the preposition is what tells two senses apart, and there picking the wrong one does not produce an accent — it produces a different sentence. האמין is the cleanest case, and Milog splits it by government explicitly: sense 1 with ל־ is accept as true, illustrated with האמינה לכל מילה ששמעה; sense 2 with ב־ is have faith in, trust, illustrated with המורה האמין בתלמידיו.
האמנתי לו בהתחלה, אבל אף אחד אחר לא האמין בו.
he'emánti lo bahatkhalá, avál af ekhád akhér lo he'emín bo
I believed him at first, but nobody else had any faith in him.
Two more of the same shape are already worked out on ל־: קרא ל־ "summon, name" against קרא את "read", and עזר ל־ for the person helped against עזר ב־ for the task.
A pair the textbooks give that this build could not support. הסתכל is often taught as על for look at and ב־ for look into. Milog's entry has a single sense and illustrates it with ב־ and with אל — הסתכלה בתמונה, הסתכל אל החלון, אל תסתכל בקנקן — and never with על at all. Hebrew Wikipedia runs the other way: הסתכל עליו 30, הסתכל בו 11, הסתכל אליו 1 (insource:/…/ regex search, 16 August 2026, one probe shape down the whole column). Three live options, dictionary and corpus disagreeing about which is central, and no meaning separating them. Use whichever you meet; do not build a rule on it.
One verb switches preposition according to what follows it
התקשר deserves its own paragraph, because it does something none of the others do: the preposition depends on whether the object is a noun or a pronoun, and each choice is close to categorical in the other's slot. Same corpus, same date, same query form; the two halves of each row are measured as alike as the orthography permits, since ל־ swallows the definite article and אל does not.
| Object | with ל־ | with אל |
|---|---|---|
| a noun — rang the police | התקשר למשטרה 87 | התקשר אל המשטרה 0 |
| a pronoun — rang him | התקשר לו 0 | התקשר אליו 74 |
Two zeros, each with a live control in its own row, pointing in opposite directions. So התקשרתי למרפאה and התקשרתי אליה are both ordinary Hebrew, and the two cells with the columns swapped are not written at all. The wider question of where ל־ against אל is register and where it is lexical is on ל־ or אל.
התקשרתי אליה שלוש פעמים והיא לא ענתה.
hitkashárti eléha shalósh pe'amím vehí lo antá
I rang her three times and she didn't pick up.
Common Mistakes
1. Giving השתמש a direct object. English use has no preposition to translate, so nothing prompts the ב.
❌ השתמשתי את המדפסת של המשרד
Incorrect — השתמש governs ב־: השתמשתי במדפסת של המשרד. Hebrew Wikipedia has השתמש בו upwards of two thousand times — a floor, since the search gives up on strings that common — and השתמש אותו not once.
השתמשתי במדפסת של המשרד כי שלי לא עבדה.
hishtamáshti bamadpéset shel hamisrád ki shelí lo avdá
I used the office printer because mine wasn't working.
2. Entering a room with את. Enter the classroom is transitive in English and intransitive in Hebrew: נכנס is a nif'al verb and has no direct object to give.
❌ נכנסתי את הכיתה באמצע השיעור
Incorrect — נכנס governs ל־: נכנסתי לכיתה באמצע השיעור.
נכנסתי לכיתה באמצע השיעור וכולם הסתובבו.
nikhnásti lakitá be'emtsá hashi'úr vekhulám histovevú
I came into the classroom halfway through the lesson and everyone turned round.
3. Marrying somebody with את. English marry her is the only shape English offers; Hebrew treats getting married as something you do with a person.
❌ הוא התחתן אותה בקיץ שעבר
Incorrect — התחתן governs עם, whose suffixed forms are built on the stem אית־: הוא התחתן איתה בקיץ שעבר. Hebrew Wikipedia has התחתנה אית… 69 times and התחתנה אות… not once.
הוא התחתן איתה בקיץ שעבר, אחרי שבע שנים.
hu hitkhatén itá bakáyits she'avár, akharéi shéva shaním
He married her last summer, after seven years.
4. Translating the for of "look for". Here the wrong version parses, which is exactly why it goes uncorrected.
❌ חיפשתי בשביל הטלפון שלי בכל הבית
Incorrect as 'I looked for my phone all over the house' — חיפש takes a direct object: חיפשתי את הטלפון שלי. As written, בשביל says you did the searching on the phone's behalf.
חיפשתי את הטלפון שלי בכל הבית ובסוף מצאתי אותו בכיס של המעיל.
khipásti et hatélefon shelí bekhól habáyit uvasóf matsáti otó bakís shel hame'íl
I looked for my phone all over the house and in the end I found it in my coat pocket.
5. Translating the to of "listen to". The same shape again, and this one lands you inside another sense of the same verb.
❌ שמעתי להרצאה של המרצה החדש
Incorrect as 'I listened to the new lecturer's talk' — שמע takes a direct object: שמעתי את ההרצאה. With ל־ the verb means 'obey', so this says you did as the lecture instructed you.
הקשבתי להרצאה של המרצה החדש ושמעתי כל מילה.
hikshávti lehartsa'á shel hamartsé hekhadásh veshamáti kol milá
I listened to the new lecturer's talk and heard every word. (הקשיב takes ל־; שמע, right next to it, takes a bare object)
Key Takeaways
- A verb's preposition is lexical, but the error is not random: nearly all of it is two English structures. English gives a bare object where Hebrew wants a preposition (השתמש ב, נכנס ל, התחתן עם, עזר ל), or English gives a preposition where Hebrew wants a bare object (חיפש, שמע).
- Direction two is the dangerous one, because the wrong string usually parses. שמעתי למוזיקה is not nonsense; it is the "obey" sense of שמע.
- Learn by governor, not by pair: ל־ (עזר, הפריע, סלח, ענה), ב־ (השתמש, טיפל, בחר, זכה), מ־ (נהנה, התעלם, פחד), על (ויתר, השפיע, חשב), עם (התחתן, נפגש).
- Some verbs mean different things with different prepositions: Milog splits האמין into ל־ "believe what somebody says" and ב־ "have faith in".
- הסתכל is not one of them. Milog gives it with ב־ and אל and never with על; Wikipedia runs 30 : 11 : 1 the other way. Three live options, no meaning split, no rule to learn.
- התקשר switches on its object: התקשר למשטרה 87 against 0 for אל, and התקשר אליו 74 against 0 for ל־.
- Once the object is a pronoun the preposition must inflect — עזרתי לה, פחדתי ממנו, ויתרתי עליה — which is the next error along.
Now practice Hebrew
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Verbs Governed by ל־: עזר ל, הפריע ל, התקשר לB1 — Learn common Hebrew verbs whose person, recipient, target, or result is introduced by ל־ rather than by a direct object.
- Verbs Governed by ב־: השתמש ב, טיפל ב, נגע בB1 — Learn common Hebrew verbs of contact, engagement, participation, and trust that govern ב־ instead of a direct object.
- Verbs Governed by מ־: פחד מ, נהנה מ, התעלם מB1 — Learn common Hebrew verbs whose source, cause, avoided object, or person asked is introduced by מ־ rather than by a direct object.
- Verbs Governed by על: חשב על, ויתר על, הסתכל עלB2 — Learn common Hebrew verbs whose topic, protected object, repeated item, or target is introduced by על.
- Prepositions in Hebrew: Prefixes and Free WordsA1 — Hebrew prepositions come in two shapes — four that are single letters glued to the next word (ב, ל, כ, מ) and a set of free-standing words (על, עם, של, את…). Most high-frequency ones take their pronoun as a suffix, so 'to me' is one word, לי; a small group does not inflect.
- Saying ל אני Instead of ליA2 — The most visible beginner error there is, and the shortest rule in the guide: a Hebrew preposition swallows its pronoun, so there is nothing left for a free pronoun to stand in front of. The work is in the two families that break the pattern you have just learned, the spellings of the corrected forms, and the one free word that really can follow a preposition — which is not a personal pronoun.