ל־: To, For | Hebrew Grammar

ל־ is one letter written solid against the next word, and everything it does follows from a single idea: something is directed at someone or somewhere. A gift goes to a person, a traveller goes to a city, a favour is done for a friend — Hebrew treats all three as the same relation. This page covers the four everyday senses, the pronoun paradigm, and the verbs that demand ל־ where English hands you a bare object.

The recipient

The core use. Whoever gets the thing — the news, the money, the message — arrives marked with ל־.

נתתי לדנה את הכתובת, היא תגיע לבד.

natáti ledána et haktóvet, hi tagía levád

I gave Dana the address — she'll get there on her own.

אמרתי לו שאני לא יכול, והוא בכל זאת התקשר.

amárti lo she'aní lo yakhól, vehú bekhól zot hitkashér

I told him I couldn't, and he rang anyway. (m. speaker)

תגידי לי מתי את מגיעה ואבוא לאסוף אותך.

tagídi li matáy at magi'á ve'avó le'esóf otákh

Tell me when you're arriving and I'll come and pick you up. (to a woman)

The destination

The same letter points at places. Where ב־ says where something is, ל־ says where it is going — and this static/directional split is the one English speakers most often get backwards, because a learner who has filed ב־ under "in, at" reaches for it the moment a sentence contains a place — and *אני הולך בעבודה is what comes out.

אני נוסע לירושלים בבוקר וחוזר בערב.

aní noséa lirushaláyim babóker vekhozér ba'érev

I'm going to Jerusalem in the morning and coming back in the evening. (m. speaker)

הילדים הלכו לגן לבד בפעם הראשונה.

hayeladím halkhú lagán levád bapá'am harishoná

The kids walked to nursery on their own for the first time.

The full treatment of that contrast, including the places where Hebrew allows both, is on motion versus location. There is also a more directional cousin, אל, which differs from ל־ mainly in register; it has its own page, אל.

The beneficiary

"For someone" — the person the action is done on behalf of — is also ל־.

קניתי לך משהו קטן, זה בתיק.

kaníti lekhá máshehu katán, ze batík

I got you a little something — it's in the bag. (to a man)

When you need to be emphatic about it — for your sake, on your behalf — Hebrew has בשביל and the more formal עבור, on בשביל and עבור. ל־ is the unmarked default.

Possession: יש ל־

Hebrew has no verb "to have". Ownership is built out of יש ("there is") plus ל־ on the owner, so "I have" is literally there-is to-me.

יש לי אח בירושלים, אני ישן אצלו כשאני שם.

yesh li akh birushaláyim, aní yashén etsló kshe'aní sham

I've got a brother in Jerusalem — I stay at his place when I'm there. (m. speaker)

אין לנו חלב בבית, תביא בדרך.

ein lánu khaláv babáyit, taví badérekh

We're out of milk at home — pick some up on the way. (to a man)

That construction is big enough to own a page: יש לי.

The pronoun paradigm

ל־ does not stay a separate word in front of a pronoun. The pronoun is a suffix, and the result is one word.

Person	Form	Reads
to me	לִי	li
to you (m. sg.)	לְךָ	lekhá
to you (f. sg.)	לָךְ	lakh
to him	לוֹ	lo
to her	לָהּ	la
to us	לָנוּ	lánu
to you (m. pl.)	לָכֶם	lakhém
to you (f. pl.)	לָכֶן	lakhén
to them (m.)	לָהֶם	lahém
to them (f.)	לָהֶן	lahén

The two second-person singulars are pointed here for a reason. Unpointed Hebrew writes both of them לך — lekhá to a man and lakh to a woman — and nothing on the page separates them. A reader works out which one is meant from who is being addressed, exactly as with מורה. Drilling the paradigm is the job of לי, לך, לו.

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Two of these cells are heard far more often than the dictionary suggests. לָךְlakh is not a rare feminine variant — it is what you say to half the people you talk to. The feminine plurals לָכֶן and לָהֶן, on the other hand, belong to careful and (formal) Hebrew: casual speech often lets לכם and להם cover an all-female group too.

One spelling, two readings

ל־ is one of the three letters that absorb the definite article. ל + המורה does not give *להמורה; it gives למורה, with the article surviving only as a vowel — and so the definite and the indefinite phrase are written the same way.

Indefinite	Definite	Both written
לְמוֹרֶה lemoré — to a teacher	לַמּוֹרֶה lamoré — to the teacher	למורה

הראיתי את זה למורה והיא צחקה.

her'éti et ze lamorá vehí tsakhaká

I showed it to the teacher and she laughed. (lamorá — definite, and the teacher is a woman)

The mechanics are on article fusion.

One more ל־ you will meet everywhere and should not file here at all: the ל־ of the infinitive (לכתוב, ללכת, לאכול). That ל is part of the verb's shape, not a preposition, and it belongs to infinitive formation.

Verbs that demand ל־

Some verbs take ל־ simply because that is the preposition they come with. The trap is specific and predictable: English gives these verbs a bare direct object, so nothing in the translation warns you that a letter is missing.

Hebrew	English	What English does instead
עזר ל־	help someone	bare object — "help him"
הפריע ל־	bother, disturb someone	bare object — "it bothered me"
קרא ל־	call, summon; name	bare object — "call him"
אמר ל־	say to, tell someone	bare object with tell

עזרתי לאחי לצבוע את הדירה בסוף השבוע.

azárti le'akhí litsbóa et hadirá besóf hashavúa

I helped my brother paint his flat at the weekend.

הרעש מבחוץ הפריע לי לישון.

hará'ash mibakhúts hifría li lishón

The noise outside kept me from sleeping.

המנהלת קראה לו למשרד באמצע השיעור.

hamenahélet kar'á lo lamisrád be'emtsá hashi'úr

The head teacher called him to the office in the middle of the lesson.

The preposition sorts the senses

Here is what makes this more than a list to memorise. Within a single dictionary entry, the preposition is what tells the senses apart — Milog separates them by exactly this.

קרא with ל־ is summon or name; קרא with a direct object is read. Same verb, same spelling in the past tense, two unrelated meanings:

קראנו לו על שם סבא שלי.

karánu lo al shem sába shelí

We named him after my grandfather.

קראתי את החוזה פעמיים ועדיין לא הבנתי מה חתמתי.

karáti et hakhozé pa'amáyim va'adáyin lo hevánti ma khatámti

I read the contract twice and I still didn't understand what I'd signed.

עזר splits along a different line: the person you help takes ל־, but the task you help with takes ב־.

כולם עזרו בהכנות, אז סיימנו מוקדם.

kulám azrú bahakhanót, az siyámnu mukdám

Everyone helped with the preparations, so we finished early.

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That one verb answers the question learners keep asking about Hebrew prepositions — how am I supposed to guess? You are not. עזר governs two prepositions and picks between them by what follows, not by what it means in English. Learn עזר ל־ (someone) / עזר ב־ (something) as one entry, and you have learned the verb. The wider list is on verbs that take ל־.

Common Mistakes

1. Giving עזר a direct object. English "help him" has no preposition, so nothing prompts you to add one.

❌ עזרתי אותו

Incorrect — עזר takes ל־ for the person helped: עזרתי לו. את would mark a direct object, and עזר has none.

✅ אף אחד לא עזר לי, עשיתי הכול לבד.

af ekhád lo azár li, asíti hakól levád

Nobody helped me — I did the whole thing myself.

2. Telling someone something with את. Same shape as the last one, and just as frequent, because English tell takes a person as its object.

❌ הוא אמר אותי שהוא מאחר

Incorrect — אמר takes ל־ for the person spoken to: הוא אמר לי שהוא מאחר.

✅ הוא אמר לי שהוא מאחר, אבל לא אמר בכמה.

hu amár li shehú me'akhér, avál lo amár bekháma

He told me he'd be late, but he didn't say by how much.

3. Reading a book to it. Once קרא ל־ is learned as "call", the ל־ gets carried over into the reading sense, where it changes the meaning completely.

❌ קראתי לספר

Incorrect as 'I read the book' — the reading sense takes a direct object: קראתי את הספר. קראתי לספר says you called out to the book.

✅ קראתי את כל ההוראות ובכל זאת הרכבתי את זה הפוך.

karáti et kol hahora'ót uvekhól zot hirkávti et ze hafúkh

I read all the instructions and still assembled it back to front.

4. Helping a task instead of a person. The mirror image: once עזר ל־ is drilled, it gets applied to the thing being done as well.

❌ עזרתי לניקיון

Incorrect as 'I helped with the cleaning' — the task takes ב־, not ל־: עזרתי בניקיון. ל־ is reserved for the person you are helping.

✅ עזרתי לאימא בניקיון לפני החג.

azárti le'íma banikayón lifnéi hakhág

I helped Mum with the cleaning before the holiday. (both governments in one sentence: ל־ on the person, ב־ on the task)

Key Takeaways

ל־ is one letter, written solid, and it covers recipient (נתתי לדנה), destination (נוסע לירושלים), beneficiary (קניתי לך) and possession (יש לי).
ל־ is directional, ב־ is static. הולך לעבודה "going to work" against בעבודה "at work".
The pronoun is a suffix: לי, לך, לו, לה, לנו, לכם, לכן, להם, להן. *ל אני exists in no register.
לך is one spelling for two words — lekhá to a man, lakh to a woman — and only the context of the conversation separates them.
ל־ absorbs the definite article: למורה is both lemoré "to a teacher" and lamoré "to the teacher".
The infinitive's ל (לכתוב) is verb morphology, not this preposition.
Several everyday verbs govern ל־ where English has a bare object: עזר ל־, אמר ל־, הפריע ל־, קרא ל־. *עזרתי אותו is one of the first errors every English speaker makes.
The preposition sorts a verb's senses: קרא ל־ "summon, name" against קרא את "read"; עזר ל־ (a person) against עזר ב־ (a task).

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