נמצא nimtsá, “be located, be present; be found,” is nif'al, root מ־צ־א. Its final א is quiescent but remains written, and it reshapes the suffixed forms: where a strong nif'al has patach, this ל״א verb often has tsere, as in נִמְצֵאתִי and נִמְצֵאת.
Complete paradigm
| Person | Past | Future |
|---|---|---|
| אני | נִמְצֵאתִי nimtséti | אֶמָּצֵא ematsé |
| אתה | נִמְצֵאתָ nimtséta | תִּימָּצֵא timatsé |
| את | נִמְצֵאת nimtsét | תִּימָּצְאִי timats'í |
| הוא | נִמְצָא nimtsá | יִימָּצֵא yimatsé |
| היא | נִמְצְאָה nimtse'á | תִּימָּצֵא timatsé |
| אנחנו | נִמְצֵאנוּ nimtsénu | נִימָּצֵא nimatsé |
| אתם · אתן | נִמְצֵאתֶם · נִמְצֵאתֶן nimtsétem · nimtséten | תִּימָּצְאוּ timats'ú |
| הם · הן | נִמְצְאוּ nimtse'ú | יִימָּצְאוּ yimats'ú |
| Form type | Forms | Register and use |
|---|---|---|
| present | נִמְצָא nimtsá · נִמְצֵאת nimtsét · נִמְצָאִים nimtsa'ím · נִמְצָאוֹת nimtsa'ót | neutral to careful; less necessary in casual locative answers |
| imperative | הִימָּצֵא himatsé · הִימָּצְאִי himats'í · הִימָּצְאוּ himats'ú | tabulated; absent from ordinary conversation and at most highly formal |
| infinitive | לְהִימָּצֵא lehimatsé | formal or technical; rare in conversation |
| action noun | הִימָּצְאוּת himats'út | formal or technical: presence, location, being found |
The dedicated feminine-plural future forms belong to formal paradigms; modern Hebrew uses תימצאו / יימצאו for plural groups of every gender. In ordinary speech, second-person plural past normally retracts its stress.
המפתחות נמצאים על השולחן ליד הדלת.
hamaftekhót nimtsa'ím al hashulkhán leyád hadélet
The keys are on the table by the door.
אני נמצא בישיבה ואחזור אליך אחר כך.
aní nimtsá bishivá ve'ekhezór elékha akhár kakh
I'm in a meeting; I'll get back to you later. (m. speaker, to a man)
The ל״א endings
The א is silent in modern pronunciation, but the morphology still treats it as the third root letter. Compare strong נכנסתי nikhnásti with נמצאתי nimtséti: tsere appears before the suffix. The same vowel identifies feminine present and feminine past נמצאת nimtsét. In feminine past נמצאה and plural נמצאו, the hiatus is audible as a syllable boundary: nimtse'á, nimtse'ú.
The future retains the ordinary nif'al doubling of the first radical: יִימָּצֵא. The ktiv-male yod in יימצא writes the prefix vowel; it does not replace the root's final א.
Three ways to talk about a bank
Hebrew separates existence from location, and in the present it can locate something without any verb at all.
הבנק נמצא ברחוב הרצל.
habánk nimtsá birkhóv Hértsel
The bank is located on Herzl Street. (explicit, careful or contrastive location)
הבנק ברחוב הרצל, מול הדואר.
habánk birkhóv Hértsel, mul hadó'ar
The bank's on Herzl Street, opposite the post office. (ordinary conversational location)
יש בנק ברחוב הרצל.
yesh bank birkhóv Hértsel
There is a bank on Herzl Street. (introducing its existence)
The first two locate a definite, already identifiable bank. נמצא makes the location explicit and is useful in directions, descriptions, contrast and formal prose. The bare nominal sentence is normally shorter and more conversational. יש does a different job: it introduces a bank as new information. The full choice is developed on existence and location.
“Be found”: the true passive
מצא is transitive “find,” and its nif'al נמצא can be the corresponding passive “be found.” The form agrees with what was found, which has become the grammatical subject. Time words and discovery contexts distinguish this reading from simple location.
הארנק נמצא אתמול מתחת למושב הנהג.
ha'arnák nimtsá etmól mitákhat lemosháv hanahág
The wallet was found yesterday under the driver's seat. (passive)
האבדה נמצאה ליד הכניסה הראשית.
ha'avedá nimtse'á leyád haknisá harashít
The lost item was found near the main entrance. (passive)
לא נמצאו סימנים לפריצה.
lo nimtse'ú simaním lifritsá
No signs of a break-in were found. (formal report)
The nif'al passive page explains why the object of מצא becomes the agreeing subject of נמצא. Notice that there is no את before the subject: the passive has no direct object in this frame.
Homographs inside the paradigm
Unpointed נמצא is past 3ms or masculine-singular present, and both are pronounced nimtsá. It is also pa'al first-person plural future “we will find,” again nimtsá, as the מצא reference card explains.
| Unpointed | Pointed | Function |
|---|---|---|
| נמצאת | נִמְצֵאתָ nimtséta | you were / were found, masculine singular |
| נִמְצֵאת nimtsét | you were / were found, feminine singular | |
| נִמְצֵאת nimtsét | feminine-singular present |
Frequent formal and neutral combinations
נמצא בשימוש means “be in use”; נמצא במצב טוב, “be in good condition”; נמצא תחת טיפול, “be under treatment”; and נמצא באתר, “be available/on the site.” These are productive combinations, not separate conjugations.
הציוד הזה עדיין נמצא בשימוש יומיומי.
hatsiyúd hazé adayín nimtsá beshimúsh yomyomí
This equipment is still in daily use.
הילד נמצא תחת טיפול רפואי ומצבו יציב.
hayéled nimtsá tákhat tipúl refu'í umatsavó yatsív
The child is under medical care and his condition is stable. (formal update)
כל המידע נמצא באתר העירייה.
kol hameidá nimtsá ba'atár ha'iriyá
All the information is available on the municipal website.
The turn נמצאנו למדים ש־, literally “we found ourselves learning that,” belongs to formal or academic prose and introduces a conclusion. It is not a conversational equivalent of “we learned.”
מן הנתונים נמצאנו למדים שהפער הצטמצם.
min hanetuním nimtsénu lemedím shehapá'ar hitstamtsém
From the data, we conclude that the gap narrowed. (formal or academic)
Key Takeaways
- Final א produces the tsere forms נמצאתי, נמצאת, נמצאנו and stays written throughout.
- Use נמצא for explicit location, a bare place predicate for the ordinary conversational answer, and יש to assert existence.
- נמצא can also be the true passive of מצא: “was found.”
- נמצא / נמצאת are heavily ambiguous in unpointed text; agreement, syntax and context resolve them.
- להימצא, הימצאות and especially נמצאנו למדים belong chiefly to formal or technical registers.
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- Nif'al as the Passive of Pa'al (נכתב, נאכל, נמכר)B1 — Nif'al really is the passive that pa'al pairs with — and that is the smallest of its jobs. Here is the pairing, the agent phrase על ידי, and the register fact that matters more than the rule: the finite passive belongs to written and formal Hebrew, not to conversation.
- יש vs נמצא vs היה: Existence and LocationB1 — Choose יש to introduce an indefinite thing, נמצא to locate a definite one explicitly, a verbless place predicate for everyday ‘where?’ answers, and היה outside the present.
- יש and אין: There Is and There Isn'tA1 — יש and אין assert that something exists or does not. In everyday Modern Hebrew each is a single unchanging word — no person, no gender, no number, no tense — though both keep an inflected set (ישנו, ישנם; אינני, אינו) in formal writing and careful speech. Past and future use היה: standard Hebrew shows agreement, while colloquial speech often defaults to masculine singular.
- מצא — to findA2 — Conjugate מצא, distinguish ‘we will find’ from ‘is located,’ and use its object, judgment and מוצא חן frames.