Everything else in this group is about how to express an owner. This page is about when Hebrew does not, and it needs a different kind of attention, because there is no form to memorise — the lesson is a gap. When a relation is inherent — a hand is part of a body, a mother is somebody's mother by definition — Hebrew usually leaves the owner unsaid, and putting one in is what marks you out as a learner.
English is unusually strict about this. I washed hands and he broke leg are not English sentences; the possessive is compulsory even when the information is redundant. Spanish (se lavó las manos), French (il s'est cassé la jambe) and Russian (on slomal nogu, word for word he broke leg) all leave it out, and so does Hebrew.
Body parts: nothing where English wants "my"
The subject of the sentence already says whose body it is, so the body part just takes the definite article — or, when it is indefinite, nothing at all.
שטפתי ידיים ובאתי לשולחן.
shatáfti yadáyim uváti lashulkhán
I washed my hands and came to the table. (no 'my', and no את — ידיים here is indefinite)
הוא שבר את הרגל בטיול ועכשיו הוא בגבס.
hu shavár et harégel batiyúl ve'akhsháv hu begéves
He broke his leg on the trip and now he's in a cast.
היא צבעה את השיער וכולם בעבודה שמו לב.
hi tsav'á et hase'ár vekhulám ba'avodá sámu lev
She dyed her hair and everyone at work noticed.
הרמתי יד אבל המורה לא ראתה אותי.
herámti yad avál hamorá lo ra'atá otí
I put my hand up but the teacher didn't see me.
When the owner is not the subject: the dative
So far the owner has been the subject. When it is not — when the body part is doing something to you rather than you doing something with it — Hebrew brings the owner back, and it does so with ל־ plus a person. This is the mechanism the whole page turns on, and it is the one most courses leave unanalysed.
In כּוֹאֵב לִי הָרֹאשׁ the ל־ is not a recipient. Nobody is giving anybody a head. The subject of the sentence is הָרֹאשׁ, and לִי says whose head it is — a possessor, wearing the clothes of an indirect object. Grammarians call this the dative of interest or possessive dative, and once you see it you find it everywhere.
נפל לי הטלפון במדרגות והמסך נסדק.
nafál li hatélefon bamadregót vehamasákh nisdák
I dropped my phone on the stairs and the screen cracked. (word for word: the phone fell to-me)
נשברה לו היד בשיעור התעמלות.
nishberá lo hayád beshi'úr hit'amlút
He broke his arm in a PE lesson. (the arm broke to-him — and the verb agrees with היד, not with him)
כואבות לי הרגליים אחרי כל היום הזה.
ko'avót li haragláyim akharéi kol hayóm hazé
My feet are killing me after today. (feminine plural verb, because רגליים is)
נכנס לי משהו לעין ואני לא מצליחה להוציא אותו.
nikhnás li máshehu la'áyin va'aní lo matslikhá lehotsí otó
Something's got into my eye and I can't get it out. (f. speaker)
The slot takes a full noun as readily as a pronoun, which is the clearest proof that it is a possessor and not a fixed idiom.
הרופא בדק לילד את הגרון ואמר שהכול בסדר.
harofé badák layéled et hagarón ve'amár shehakól beséder
The doctor looked at the boy's throat and said everything was fine.
Where the bound suffix survives on body parts
Modern Hebrew has largely retired the bound possessive suffix, but a cluster of everyday expressions keeps it — and they are all built on body parts, precisely because the possession is inherent. בְּעֵינַיי in my view, בְּיָדַיי in my hands, up to me, לְנֶגֶד עֵינַיי before my eyes. Learn them as vocabulary; the suffix is not productive here.
התאונה קרתה לנגד עיניי ולא הספקתי לעשות כלום.
hate'uná kartá lenéged einái veló hispákti la'asót klum
The accident happened right in front of me and there was nothing I could do.
Family: the owner is said, as lightly as possible
Kinship works differently from body parts. Here the owner is normally expressed — a mother is somebody's mother, and which one matters — but Hebrew uses the lightest available means.
| Register | Form | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| (informal), ordinary speech | אַבָּא שֶׁלִּי · אִימָּא שֶׁלּוֹ | The unmarked choice. Note there is no article on אבא. |
| speech, no owner said at all | אַבָּא · אִימָּא | Taken as my mum and dad when you are talking about yourself, exactly as English Mum rang does. |
| writing, careful speech | אָבִיו · אִימּוֹ · אָחִיהָ | Bound suffix. Standard in print, noticeably formal out loud. |
| ordinary speech, bound anyway | אִשְׁתִּי · בַּעֲלִי · אָחִי · בִּתִּי | The closed set that never left speech — see suffixes and register. |
אבא שלי עוד עובד, הוא לא מוכן לפרוש.
ába shelí od ovéd, hu lo mukhán lifrósh
My dad is still working — he refuses to retire.
אימא מתקשרת כל יום בשש, גם כשאני בישיבה.
íma mitkashéret kol yom beshésh, gam kshe'aní bishivá
Mum rings every day at six, even when I'm in a meeting. (no possessor at all, and everyone understands whose mother)
אביו היה רופא בבית החולים הזה שלושים שנה.
avív hayá rofé bevéit hakholím hazé shloshím shaná
His father was a doctor at this hospital for thirty years. (written register — in speech, אבא שלו)
Common Mistakes
1. Dropping the article along with the possessor. The correction over-applies: having learned to leave my out, the learner leaves everything out. But את needs a definite object, and a body part in this construction is definite.
❌ הוא שבר את רגל
Incorrect — את marks a definite object, so the noun after it needs the article: הוא שבר את הרגל. Only the possessor is dropped, not the ה.
✅ נפלתי מהאופניים ושברתי את היד.
nafálti meha'ofanáyim veshavárti et hayád
I came off my bike and broke my arm.
2. Marking the body part as an object in the dative construction. It looks like an object — it comes late in the sentence, after a verb and a pronoun — but it is the subject.
❌ כואב לי את הראש
Incorrect — הראש is the subject of כואב, so it takes no את: כואב לי הראש. The only object-looking thing in the sentence is לי, and that is the possessor.
✅ כואב לי הראש מאתמול, אני חושב שאני מצטנן.
ko'év li harósh me'etmól, aní khoshév she'aní mitstanén
My head has been hurting since yesterday — I think I'm coming down with something. (m. speaker)
3. Freezing כואב לי as one unit. It is heard so often in the masculine singular that it stops looking like a verb, and then it stops agreeing.
❌ כואב לי העיניים מהמסך
Incorrect — עיניים is feminine plural and the verb agrees with it, not with לי: כואבות לי העיניים מהמסך.
✅ כואבות לי העיניים מהמסך, אני חייבת הפסקה.
ko'avót li ha'eináyim mehamasákh, aní khayévet hafsaká
My eyes hurt from the screen — I need a break. (f. speaker)
4. Adding שלי to a body part. There is nothing to cross out here: both sentences below are correct Hebrew, and only one of them is what an Israeli says. This is the single most persistent English-speaker habit on the page, and because it produces no error nobody will correct it.
שטפתי את הידיים שלי לפני האוכל.
shatáfti et hayadáyim shelí lifnéi ha'ókhel
I washed my hands before the meal. (correct, and audibly translated from English)
שטפתי ידיים לפני האוכל.
shatáfti yadáyim lifnéi ha'ókhel
I washed my hands before the meal. (what a native speaker says)
Key Takeaways
- Where the relation is inherent, Hebrew leaves the owner out: שָׁטַפְתִּי יָדַיִים, הוּא שָׁבַר אֶת הָרֶגֶל, הֵרַמְתִּי יָד. The subject already says whose body it is.
- The absence is the form. Nothing prompts you to omit a word, so this has to be planned rather than remembered.
- When the owner is not the subject, it returns as a dative: כּוֹאֵב לִי הָרֹאשׁ, נָפַל לִי הַטֶּלֶפוֹן, נִשְׁבְּרָה לוֹ הַיָּד. The ל־ marks a possessor, not a recipient, and it takes a full noun too (בָּדַק לַיֶּלֶד אֶת הַגָּרוֹן).
- In that construction the body part is the subject — so no את on it, and the verb agrees with it and not with the person.
- The bound suffix survives on body parts inside fixed phrases: בְּעֵינַיי, בְּיָדַיי, לְנֶגֶד עֵינַיי. Vocabulary, not a pattern.
- Kinship does express the owner, by the lightest means available: אַבָּא שֶׁלִּי in speech, אָבִיו in writing, and a bare אִימָּא when you are talking about your own.
- שָׁטַפְתִּי אֶת הַיָּדַיִים שֶׁלִּי is correct Hebrew. It is also the sentence that tells an Israeli you learned the language rather than grew up in it.
Related Topics
- Paired Body Parts, Cities and Countries Are FeminineB1 — Two classes where gender is genuinely predictable instead of memorised — and the exact limits of each. The core paired body parts (יד, רגל, עין, אוזן, שן, ברך, כתף) are feminine and take a dual; the later anatomical vocabulary does not follow them, so מרפק and קרסול are masculine even though elbows and ankles come in twos. City and country names take feminine agreement whatever the name looks like.
- Kinship Nouns with Suffixes (אבי, אמו, אחותה)B1 — Learn the irregular suffixed stems of Hebrew family nouns and the item-by-item register split that keeps some bound forms alive in everyday speech.
- Idioms Built on יד, לב, עין and ראשB1 — Four small families of fixed phrases, each sourced: שם לב and the ל it must have, במו that never inflects while the noun after it does, מראית עין and the halachic principle quoted from Beitzah 9a, and ראש קטן and ראש גדול — slang in Hebrew Wiktionary, soldiers in Rosenthal's lexicon.
- לי, לך, לו: ל־ InflectedA1 — The first inflected paradigm a learner needs, drilled cell by cell. לי marks possession (יש לי), a recipient (תן לי), the argument of a whole class of verbs (עזר לי) — and the experiencer in several everyday state constructions: קר לי, כואב לי, נמאס לי.