You have said something. Now you want to say something about it — about the whole previous sentence, not about any noun in it. English does this with a bare this or it: He cancelled three times. This is what bothers me. Hebrew can do that too, and in speech it does. But edited Hebrew often reaches for a light noun — a noun whose ordinary meaning is bleached enough to give the previous clause a useful label so the next sentence can be about it.
The ten you need
Each of these can take the whole preceding clause as its referent, and each classifies it while doing so. That classification is the reason there are ten of them rather than one.
| Noun | Anaphoric opening | Frames the previous clause as… |
|---|---|---|
| דָּבָר davár | הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה | nothing in particular — the maximally general one |
| עִנְיָין inyán | הָעִנְיָין הַזֶּה | a matter or issue treated as one unit |
| מַצָּב matsáv | הַמַּצָּב הַזֶּה | a state of affairs, often an ongoing practical situation |
| נוֹשֵׂא nosé | הַנּוֹשֵׂא הַזֶּה | a topic under discussion |
| בְּעָיָה be'ayá | הַבְּעָיָה הִיא שֶׁ־ | a problem, i.e. something that wants solving |
| תּוֹפָעָה tofa'á | הַתּוֹפָעָה הַזֹּאת | an observable phenomenon or recurring pattern (academic) |
| מִקְרֶה mikré | בַּמִּקְרֶה הַזֶּה | one instance, explicitly not the general rule |
| שְׁאֵלָה she'elá | הַשְּׁאֵלָה הִיא שֶׁ־ | an open question rather than a settled fact |
| נְקוּדָּה nekudá | הַנְּקוּדָּה הַזֹּאת | one point inside an argument |
| סִיפּוּר sipúr | כׇּל הַסִּיפּוּר הַזֶּה | a saga, with a hint that it has gone on too long (informal) |
The choice is not decorative, but these are frames rather than rigid entailments. הַמַּצָּב הַזֶּה foregrounds the state of affairs, הָעִנְיָין הַזֶּה packages it as the matter now under consideration, and הַתּוֹפָעָה הַזֹּאת invites the reader to see an observable pattern rather than just one event.
הוא הבטיח וביטל שלוש פעמים. הדבר הזה מטריד אותי יותר מהאיחור עצמו.
hu hivtíakh uvitél shalósh pe'amím. hadavár hazé matríd otí yotér meha'ikhúr atsmó
He promised and cancelled three times. That is what bothers me, more than the lateness itself.
סיכמנו על מחיר ואז הוא שינה אותו. העניין הזה עוד לא נסגר.
sikámnu al mekhír ve'áz hu shiná otó. ha'inyán hazé od lo nisgár
We agreed a price and then he changed it. That matter still isn't closed.
שני עובדים התפטרו והשאר עובדים כפול. המצב הזה לא יחזיק מעמד חודש.
shnei ovdím hitpatrú vehash'ár ovdím kafúl. hamatsáv hazé lo yakhazík ma'amád khódesh
Two people resigned and the rest are working double. This state of affairs won't hold up for a month.
היא העלתה את הקיצוצים בישיבה. הנושא הזה חוזר בכל פעם מחדש.
hi he'eltá et hakitsutsím bayshivá. hanosé hazé khozér bekhól pá'am mekhadásh
She brought the cuts up at the meeting. That topic comes back every single time.
הכול מוכן חוץ מהאישורים. הבעיה היא שאין למי לפנות באוגוסט.
hakól mukhán khuts meha'ishurím. haba'ayá hi she'éin lemí lifnót be'ógust
Everything's ready except the permits. The problem is that there's nobody to turn to in August.
יותר ויותר צעירים עוזבים את העיר. התופעה הזאת מתועדת גם בצפון.
yotér veyotér tse'irím ozvím et ha'ír. hatofa'á hazót metu'édet gam batsafón
More and more young people are leaving the city. The same phenomenon is documented in the north too. (academic)
פעם אחת המשלוח הגיע שבור. במקרה הזה החברה החליפה בלי לשאול שאלות.
pá'am akhát hamishlóakh higí'a shavúr. bamikré hazé hakhevrá hekhlífa bli lish'ól she'elót
One time the delivery arrived broken. In that instance the company replaced it without asking questions.
אמרת שהחוזה נגמר בדצמבר. הנקודה הזאת חשובה, ואף אחד לא בדק אותה.
amárta shehakhozé nigmár bedétsember. hanekudá hazót khashuvá, ve'áf ekhád lo badák otá
You said the contract ends in December. That point matters, and nobody has checked it. (to a man)
קיבלנו שתי הצעות במחיר דומה. השאלה היא איזו מהן תחזיק מעמד לאורך זמן.
kibálnu shtei hatsa'ót bimkhír domé. hashe'elá hi éizo mehén takhazík ma'amád le'órekh zman
We received two similarly priced proposals. The question is which one will hold up over time.
החליפו מנהל, שינו נהלים ופיטרו שני עובדים. כל הסיפור הזה נמשך כבר שלושה חודשים.
hekhlífu menahél, shínu nehalím ufitrú shnei ovdím. kol hasipúr hazé nimshákh kvar shloshá khodashím
They replaced the manager, changed the procedures and fired two employees. This whole saga has been going on for three months. (informal)
One more, at a lower register: הַקֶּטַע הַזֶּה
קֶטַע does the same job in speech, and Hebrew Wiktionary tags the relevant sense סלנג, glossing it עניין או אובססיה שיש למישהו לגבי משהו — a thing somebody has going on. It is not wrong; it is marked, and it will not do in an email to a landlord.
הוא נעלם לשבועיים ואז חזר כאילו כלום. כל הקטע הזה מוזר לי.
hu ne'elám lishvu'áyim ve'áz khazár ke'ílu klum. kol hakéta hazé muzár li
He vanished for a fortnight and then came back as if nothing had happened. This whole business is odd to me. (slang)
The same paragraph, twice
This is the comparison worth reading slowly, because nothing in either version is ungrammatical and the difference is entirely one of texture.
השכן חונה כל ערב מול היציאה שלנו. זה קורה כבר חודשיים, וזה כבר לא מצחיק.
hashakhén khoné kol érev mul hayetsi'á shelánu. ze koré kvar khodsháyim, veze kvar lo matskhík
The neighbour parks in front of our exit every evening. It's been going on for two months and it stopped being funny a while ago. (two bare זה's — ordinary speech, and thin on the page)
השכן חונה כל ערב מול היציאה שלנו. המצב הזה נמשך כבר חודשיים, והדבר היחיד שהשתנה הוא שהוא כבר לא מתנצל.
hashakhén khoné kol érev mul hayetsi'á shelánu. hamatsáv hazé nimshákh kvar khodsháyim, vehadavár hayakhíd shehishtaná hu shehú kvar lo mitnatsél
The neighbour parks in front of our exit every evening. This situation has been going on for two months, and the only thing that has changed is that he no longer apologises. (the same content, with המצב and הדבר carrying the reference)
Look at what the second version bought. הַמַּצָּב הַזֶּה classified the complaint as ongoing before saying anything further about it, and הַדָּבָר הַיָּחִיד שֶׁ־ supplied a lexical noun that can carry an adjective and head a relative clause. Bare זה is not syntactically helpless — על זה and זה שֶׁ־ are ordinary Hebrew — but it does not itself tell the reader whether the referent is a matter, a problem, a situation or a pattern. That explicit classification is the practical payoff.
The pronoun itself — its dummy uses, its agreement, and what it can and cannot stand for — belongs to the dummy זה, and the demonstrative behind הַזֶּה to this and that.
Common Mistakes
1. Writing עניין with one yod. The Academy's ktiv male doubles a consonantal yod in the middle of a word, and Hebrew Wiktionary's own entry gives the ktiv male as עניין on its pointed headword עִנְיָן. Hebrew Wikipedia backs it lopsidedly: insource:/ העניין / returns 4,573 (a floor — large counts drift) against 31 for insource:/ הענין /, both run 21 August 2026.
❌ ענין
Incorrect as a modern spelling — a consonantal yod is doubled in ktiv male: עניין. The single-yod form is the older pointed spelling, עִנְיָן, and belongs with the niqqud.
✅ העניין הזה נגרר כבר חצי שנה ואף אחד לא לוקח אחריות.
ha'inyán hazé nigrár kvar khatsí shaná ve'áf ekhád lo lokéakh akhrayút
This business has been dragging on for six months and nobody is taking responsibility.
2. A masculine demonstrative on a feminine light noun. Four of the ten are feminine — בְּעָיָה, תּוֹפָעָה, שְׁאֵלָה, נְקוּדָּה — and הזה is the form a learner reaches for by default.
❌ התופעה הזה
Incorrect — תופעה is feminine, so the demonstrative is הזאת (or הזו): התופעה הזאת. The same for הבעיה הזאת, השאלה הזאת, הנקודה הזאת.
✅ התופעה הזאת מוכרת מאירופה, אבל אצלנו היא חדשה.
hatofa'á hazót mukéret me'eirópa, avál etslénu hi khadashá
This phenomenon is familiar from Europe, but here it's new. (academic)
3. A masculine pronoun in the הַבְּעָיָה הִיא שֶׁ־ frame. English the problem is that… has nothing to agree with, so the pronoun gets picked at random.
❌ הבעיה הוא שאין מקום
Incorrect — the pronoun agrees with בעיה, which is feminine: הבעיה היא שאין מקום. With a masculine light noun it flips: העניין הוא שאין מקום.
✅ הבעיה היא שאף אחד לא מוכן להגיד את זה בקול.
haba'ayá hi she'áf ekhád lo mukhán lehagíd et ze bekól
The problem is that nobody's willing to say it out loud.
4. Deploying the slang member in writing. Not an error of grammar, and immediately audible as one of register.
כל הקטע הזה של האישורים תקוע אצל מישהו במשרד.
kol hakéta hazé shel ha'ishurím takúa étsel míshehu bamisrád
This whole permits thing is stuck with somebody in the office. (slang — right in a message to a colleague)
עניין האישורים תקוע במשרד ואין לנו לוח זמנים.
inyán ha'ishurím takúa bamisrád ve'éin lánu lúakh zmaním
The matter of the permits is stuck at the office and we have no timetable. (formal — the same content for a written complaint)
Key Takeaways
- Edited Hebrew often refers back to a whole clause by naming it with a light noun, where English uses a bare this: הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה, הָעִנְיָין הַזֶּה, הַמַּצָּב הַזֶּה.
- The noun you pick classifies what you are pointing at — דָּבָר commits to nothing, עִנְיָין makes it a matter under consideration, מַצָּב a state of affairs, נוֹשֵׂא a topic, תּוֹפָעָה a pattern, מִקְרֶה a single instance.
- Two of the set open a frame rather than a phrase: הַבְּעָיָה הִיא שֶׁ־ and הַשְּׁאֵלָה הִיא שֶׁ־, and the pronoun agrees with the noun.
- קֶטַע does the job in speech and carries a סלנג tag in Hebrew Wiktionary; סִיפּוּר is the (informal) member that adds "and it has gone on too long".
- The noun version gives the clause a lexical classification and a full noun phrase to expand — הַדָּבָר הַיָּחִיד שֶׁהִשְׁתַּנָּה. Bare זה can occur in על זה and זה שֶׁ־, but it does not say what kind of thing the previous clause is.
- For an English speaker this is not an error to correct but a habit to acquire. Find the זה's in your own paragraph and ask what kind of thing each one is.
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- The Dummy זה: זה כיף, זה נכון ש…B1 — זה can fill the subject slot of an evaluation without referring to any object: זה כיף, זה מוזר שהיא לא באה. It stays masculine, introduces infinitives and ש־ clauses, and must not be confused with English weather and time ‘it,’ for which Hebrew uses no subject at all.
- זה, זאת, אלה: This and TheseA1 — The near demonstratives agree in gender and number — זה, זאת (or זו), אלה (or אלו) — and on their own they build a complete sentence with no verb: זה ספר, 'this is a book'. Add two articles and the same words make a noun phrase instead: הספר הזה, 'this book'.
- כלומר, זאת אומרת, כאמורB2 — One move — saying the same thing again, better — with a single sentence written out at four heights, from the spoken זאת אומרת to the bookish דהיינו. Plus the correction most textbooks need: Hebrew Wiktionary files כלומר in the Mishnaic layer and tags its second sense עממי, so it is not the formal member of the set. And כאמור is not in the set at all: it points backwards.
- Countable vs Uncountable in HebrewB2 — Hebrew draws the mass/count line in a different place from English, so it cannot be transferred: עצה, רהיט and ידיעה pluralise freely and need no partitive, while מים is plural in form and mass in meaning. The compact unit phrases taught here are construct chains, and the numeral marks the gender of the measure word, not of what is being measured.
- What Makes a Hebrew Noun DefiniteA2 — Five things can make a Hebrew noun definite — the article ה־, a proper name, a possessive suffix, a bare demonstrative, and a definite last noun in a construct chain — and some of them cannot be combined. Definiteness then behaves like agreement rather than like a free shade of meaning: it spreads across the phrase, pulls את in, and cannot be applied to half a chain.