Talking About Feelings | Hebrew Grammar

English gives feelings one shape: I am plus an adjective. I'm bored, I'm cold, I'm fed up, I'm hungry — one frame, one subject, and the subject is always you. Hebrew has two frames, and choosing between them is not a matter of style. One of them says something is true of you; the other says something is happening to you, and in it you are not the subject of the sentence at all.

Two frames, one feeling

	Adjectival frame	Dative frame
Shape	אני + adjective	predicate + ל־ + person
You are	the subject	an inflected preposition
Agreement follows	you	the thing doing it, if there is one
Says	a property of you	a state you are in
Example	אני משעמם — I'm boring	משעמם לי — I'm bored

That last row is the whole page in one line, and it is not a curiosity: משעמם is a single word, and the two Hebrew sentences it builds are about as far apart in meaning as two sentences get.

משעמם לי, אולי נצא לאיזה מקום.

mesha'amém li, ulái netsé le'éize makóm

I'm bored — maybe we could go out somewhere.

אני משעמם? תגידי לי בכנות.

aní mesha'amém? tagídi li bekhenút

Am I boring? Tell me honestly. (to a woman — the same word, now a property of the speaker)

The same split runs through the physical sensations. חם לי is I'm hot, a sensation happening to me right now. חם predicated of a person is a description of their character.

חם לי פה נורא, אפשר לפתוח את החלון?

kham li po norá, efshár liftóakh et hakhalón?

I'm boiling in here — can we open the window?

הוא בן אדם חם, כולם מרגישים אצלו בבית.

hu ben adám kham, kulám margishím etsló babáyit

He's a warm person — everyone feels at home with him.

💡

A one-question test that sorts almost every case: could this still be true of you while you are asleep? Boring, warm-hearted, generous and stubborn survive the night — those are properties, and they take the adjectival frame. Bored, cold, fed up and in the mood for chips do not — those are states, and they take ל־. English collapses the two because it has only one frame; Hebrew keeps them apart because it has two.

The ל is the person — and the person never controls agreement

This is the single most error-prone thing on the page, and the rule is one sentence long: in the dative frame the predicate agrees with the stimulus, never with the experiencer. You are inside a preposition, and a preposition cannot be a subject.

So when the sentence has an overt subject — a noise, a person, a body part, a thing you are missing — the predicate takes its gender and number, and the ל־ can be any person at all without moving:

מפריעה לי המוזיקה, אפשר להנמיך קצת?

mafri'á li hamúzika, efshár lehanmíkh ktsat?

The music is bothering me — could we turn it down a bit? (feminine, agreeing with מוזיקה)

מפריעים לי השכנים כל ערב עד חצות.

mafri'ím li hashkhením kol érev ad khatsót

The neighbours bother me every evening until midnight. (masculine plural, agreeing with שכנים)

חסרה לי המשפחה, אני חוזרת הביתה בקיץ.

khaserá li hamishpakhá, aní khozéret habáyta bakáyits

I miss my family — I'm going home in the summer. (f. speaker; חסרה agrees with משפחה, not with her)

And when there is no subject at all — nothing but a feeling and a person — the predicate sits in the invariable masculine singular and does not budge for anybody. נמאס לי, נמאס לה, נמאס להם: one form, three people.

נמאס לי מהישיבות האלה, אף פעם לא מחליטים כלום.

nim'ás li mehayeshivót ha'éle, af pá'am lo makhlitím klum

I've had it with these meetings — nothing ever gets decided.

חבל לי על הכרטיסים, כבר שילמנו עליהם.

khavál li al hakartisím, kvar shilámnu aleihém

It's a shame about the tickets — we've already paid for them.

The paradigm you are inflecting — לי, לך, לו, לה — and its other three jobs are drilled cell by cell on לי, לך, לו; the subjectless sentence type itself is on impersonal sentences.

The everyday dative expressions

Hebrew	Reads	English	Takes
בָּא לִי	ba li	I feel like, I fancy	a noun or an infinitive
מִתְחַשֵּׁק לִי	mitkhashék li	same, a shade more careful	a noun or an infinitive
נִמְאַס לִי	nim'ás li	I'm fed up	מ־
אִכְפַּת לִי	ikhpát li	I care	מ־ · a ש־ clause
נָעִים לִי	na'ím li	I'm comfortable	עִם · an infinitive
נִרְאֶה לִי	nir'é li	I reckon	a ש־ clause
חֲבָל לִי	khavál li	it's a shame, for me	על
חָסֵר לִי	khasér li	I miss, I'm short of	a subject — so it agrees

בא לי משהו מתוק, יש עוגייה במטבח?

ba li máshehu matók, yesh ugiyá bamitbákh?

I fancy something sweet — is there a biscuit in the kitchen? (informal)

מתחשק לי לצאת לים, אבל אין לי כוח לנסוע.

mitkhashék li latsét layám, avál ein li kóakh linsóa

I feel like going to the beach, but I haven't the energy for the drive.

אכפת לי ממנה, אחרת לא הייתי מתקשר בכלל.

ikhpát li miména, akhéret lo hayíti mitkashér bikhlál

I do care about her — otherwise I wouldn't be ringing at all. (m. speaker; אכפת takes מ־)

Milog carries מתחשק with the ל־ construction built into the entry, in both the present מתחשק לו and the past נתחשק לו, so it is dictionary Hebrew rather than a spoken shortcut. בא לי is the more colloquial of the two and has its own page at בא לי.

The adjectival half

Everything above coexists with an entirely ordinary set of adjectives and participles, and these do agree with you. They are the ones you need in writing, in a job interview and in any sentence longer than a shrug.

m. sg.	f. sg.	English
שָׂמֵחַ	שְׂמֵחָה	glad
עָצוּב	עֲצוּבָה	sad
כּוֹעֵס	כּוֹעֶסֶת	angry — with someone: כועס על
מוּדְאָג	מוּדְאֶגֶת	worried
מִתְרַגֵּשׁ	מִתְרַגֶּשֶׁת	excited, moved
מְאוּכְזָב	מְאוּכְזֶבֶת	disappointed — by something: מאוכזב מ־
בְּלַחַץ	בְּלַחַץ	stressed — a prepositional phrase, so it never inflects

הם מודאגים, אבל היא דווקא רגועה לגמרי.

hem mud'agím, avál hi dávka regu'á legamréi

They're worried, but she's actually completely calm.

הוא כועס עליי מאתמול ואני לא יודעת למה.

hu ko'és alái me'etmól va'aní lo yodá'at láma

He's been angry with me since yesterday and I don't know why. (f. speaker)

Watch the prepositions in that table: כועס על, מאוכזב מ־, אכפת מ־. They are not guessable from English, and they are part of the word.

Three at the informal end

נשבר לי — "I've had it" — is everyday spoken Hebrew and behaves exactly like נמאס לי, with the thing you have had enough of on מ־. It is worth being straight about its paper trail: Milog's נשבר entry runs through a long list of senses without this one, and Hebrew Wiktionary has no entry for נשבר לו at all. That is a gap in the dictionaries rather than a doubt about the phrase, but it means you should treat it as (informal) and not reach for it in writing.

אין לי כוח is the flat refusal of effort — literally I haven't the strength — and it covers everything from a genuine exhaustion to not fancying the walk to the shop.

התחרפן is the loudest of the three. Hebrew Wiktionary labels it סלנג and glosses it אבדו עשתונותיו, יצא מדעתו, "lost his wits", deriving it from Arabic خرف. Milog carries it as an ordinary headword with the root חרפ״ן in hitpa'el, so the form is solid; the register is the thing to be careful with.

נשבר לי מהעיר הזאת, אני חושבת לעבור.

nishbár li meha'ír hazót, aní khoshévet la'avór

I've had enough of this city — I'm thinking of moving. (f. speaker, informal)

הוא התחרפן כששמע כמה זה יעלה.

hu hitkharfén ksheshamá káma ze ya'alé

He completely lost it when he heard what it was going to cost. (slang)

💡

Once you see that the ל is the person, a dozen expressions stop being separate vocabulary items. קר לי, כואב לי, משעמם לי, נמאס לי, בא לי, מתחשק לי, אכפת לי, נראה לי, חבל לי, נעים לי, מפריע לי, חסר לי — one construction, twelve fillings. Learning the frame is worth more than learning any three of them.

Common Mistakes

1. Conjugating the feeling for yourself. English makes you the subject, so the instinct is to put a first-person ending on the Hebrew word. The dative frame has no subject slot for you to fill.

❌ נמאסתי מהעבודה הזאת

Incorrect as 'I'm fed up with this job' — the frame is נמאס לי מהעבודה הזאת, with the verb frozen and you inside the ל. נמאסתי is a real form of מאס, but it says that other people got sick of you.

✅ נמאס לי מהנסיעה הזאת, אני עוברת לגור קרוב יותר.

nim'ás li mehanesi'á hazót, aní ovéret lagúr karóv yotér

I'm fed up with this commute — I'm moving somewhere closer. (f. speaker)

2. Agreeing with the experiencer instead of the stimulus. Once a subject does turn up in the sentence, it is the subject that the predicate must match — and learners who have just been told "the frame is frozen" freeze it in the wrong place.

❌ חסר לי המשפחה

Incorrect — משפחה is feminine and it is the subject of the sentence, so the predicate agrees with it: חסרה לי המשפחה. The ל־ names the person who feels it and controls nothing.

✅ חסרים לי החברים מהצבא, כמעט כולם בחוץ לארץ.

khaserím li hakhaverím mehatsavá, kim'át kulám bekhúts la'árets

I miss my friends from the army — nearly all of them are abroad.

3. Picking the wrong frame for the word you have. Both sentences below are correct Hebrew, and swapping the frames would swap the meanings. נעים לי is how I feel; נעים said of a person is what they are like.

✅ נעים לי איתם, אני תמיד יוצא משם במצב רוח טוב.

na'ím li itám, aní tamíd yotsé mishám bematsáv rúakh tov

I'm comfortable with them — I always come away in a good mood. (m. speaker)

✅ הוא מנהל נעים, אף פעם לא מרים את הקול.

hu menahél na'ím, af pá'am lo merím et hakól

He's a pleasant manager — he never raises his voice.

4. Taking בא לי into writing. בא לי is not wrong and it is not slang, but it belongs to speech and to messages between friends. In a work email or an application it reads as a shrug, and Hebrew has plenty of neutral ways to say the same thing.

✅ בא לי לוותר על כל התוכנית ולהישאר בבית.

ba li levatér al kol hatokhnít ulehisha'ér babáyit

I feel like dropping the whole plan and staying in. (informal — what you say to a friend)

✅ אשמח לוותר על החלק הזה של הפגישה.

esmákh levatér al hakhélek hazé shel hapgishá

I'd be glad to skip this part of the meeting. (neutral to formal — the register you write in)

Key Takeaways

Hebrew has two frames for feelings. The adjectival one makes you the subject and agrees with you; the dative one puts you inside ל־ and does not.
משעמם לי is "I'm bored" and אני משעמם is "I'm boring" — one word, two frames, opposite meanings. The same split gives חם לי against a person described as חם.
In the dative frame, agreement follows the stimulus: מפריעה לי המוזיקה, מפריעים לי השכנים, חסרה לי המשפחה. The experiencer never controls it.
With no subject at all, the predicate is frozen in the masculine singular: נמאס לי, נמאס לה, נמאס להם.
Learn each expression with its preposition: נמאס מ־, אכפת מ־, חבל על, כועס על, מאוכזב מ־.
מתחשק is dictionary Hebrew with the ל־ built into Milog's entry; בא לי is its colloquial neighbour, fine in speech and out of place in writing.
נשבר לי is ordinary spoken Hebrew that neither Milog's נשבר entry nor Hebrew Wiktionary records — a gap in the dictionaries, and a reason to keep it out of writing.
התחרפן is tagged סלנג by Hebrew Wiktionary, from Arabic kharaf.
The test that sorts the frames: could it still be true of you while you were asleep? If yes, it is a property and takes an adjective. If no, it takes ל־.

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