נולד nolád, “be born,” is nif'al, root י־ל־ד. It is פ״י: the initial yod surfaces as ו. In past and present that ו is the silent vowel letter of נוֹלַד; in future and infinitive it is consonantal v and doubles in ktiv male: ייוולד, להיוולד. Most real uses are past biographical statements, so over-learn נולדתי before worrying about its uncommon imperative.
Complete paradigm
| Person | Past | Future |
|---|---|---|
| אני | נוֹלַדְתִּי noládti | אֶוָּולֵד evaléd |
| אתה | נוֹלַדְתָּ noládta | תִּיוָּולֵד tivaléd |
| את | נוֹלַדְתְּ noládt | תִּיוָּולְדִי tivaldí |
| הוא | נוֹלַד nolád | יִיוָּולֵד yivaléd |
| היא | נוֹלְדָה noldá | תִּיוָּולֵד tivaléd |
| אנחנו | נוֹלַדְנוּ noládnu | נִיוָּולֵד nivaléd |
| אתם / אתן | נוֹלַדְתֶּם / נוֹלַדְתֶּן noládtem / noládten | תִּיוָּולְדוּ tivaldú |
| הם / הן | נוֹלְדוּ noldú | יִיוָּולְדוּ yivaldú |
| Form | Paradigm | Use |
|---|---|---|
| present | נוֹלָד nolád · נוֹלֶדֶת nolédet · נוֹלָדִים noladím · נוֹלָדוֹת noladót | newborns, recurring births, or figurative creation |
| imperative | הִיוָּולֵד hivaléd · הִיוָּולְדִי hivaldí · הִיוָּולְדוּ hivaldú | grammatical but effectively unused |
| infinitive | לְהִיוָּולֵד lehivaléd | neutral; common for due dates |
| ordinary noun | לֵידָה leidá | birth, childbirth |
| derived noun | הִיוָּולְדוּת hivaldút | coming into being (formal) |
The specifically feminine plural future תִּיוָּולֵדְנָה tivalédna is (formal or literary); ordinary Hebrew uses תיוולדו. The imperative appears in complete dictionaries because the morphology permits it, not because speakers normally command someone to be born.
נולדתי בחיפה, אבל גדלתי בבאר שבע.
noládti bekhéifa, avál gadálti biv'ér shéva.
I was born in Haifa, but I grew up in Be'er Sheva.
איפה נולדת?
éifo noládta?
Where were you born? (to a man)
Why one ו becomes two
In נולד / נולדת, ו writes the vowel o, so it appears once. Future and infinitive restore the weak root consonant as v. A consonantal ו in the middle of a word is doubled in ktiv male, producing אוולד, תיוולד, ייוולד, ניוולד, להיוולד. Future third person has an additional doubled yod: the first י carries the prefix and the second writes its i vowel. See weak nif'al roots and double ו and י.
התינוקת אמורה להיוולד בתחילת אפריל.
hatinóket amurá lehivaléd bitkhilát apríl.
The baby girl is due at the beginning of April.
הבת שלהם תיוולד בעוד חודשיים.
habát shelahém tivaléd be'ód khodsháyim.
Their daughter will be born in two months.
The biographical sentence
Birthplace takes ב־. A year may follow bare ב־ plus the number, but the standard full frame is בשנת “in the year of.” Hebrew dates use feminine number forms because שנה is feminine, even when the noun is not repeated.
נולדתי בשנת אלף תשע מאות תשעים ושתיים.
noládti bishnát élef tésha me'ót tish'ím ushtáyim.
I was born in 1992.
נולדתי בלונדון ועברתי לארץ בגיל שש.
noládti belóndon ve'avárti la'árets begíl shesh.
I was born in London and moved to Israel at age six.
Natural follow-ups usually ask age or birthday, not for more verbal morphology.
בת כמה את, ומתי יום ההולדת שלך?
bat káma at, umatái yom hahulédet shelákh?
How old are you, and when is your birthday? (to a woman)
Present, future, and figurative birth
For a person, being born is bounded, so past dominates. Present belongs naturally to generalizations and reports about births happening now; future belongs to expected births. The same verb extends to ideas, movements, and institutions coming into being. נולד מחדש means “was reborn / born anew,” often figuratively.
ילדים נולדים כאן כל יום.
yeladím noladím kan kol yom.
Children are born here every day.
הרעיון נולד בשיחה מקרית במטבח.
hara'ayón nolád besikhá mikrít bamitbákh.
The idea was born in a chance conversation in the kitchen.
נולד לו בן is a dative construction: literally “a son was born to him.” It presents the child as subject and the parent with ל־.
נולד להם בן ביום ראשון.
nolád lahém ben beyóm rishón.
They had a son on Sunday.
The birth vocabulary around the verb
יום הולדת is “birthday,” literally the day of birth; תאריך לידה is date of birth on forms; חדר לידה is a delivery room. יליד הארץ / ילידת הארץ means a man or woman native-born in the country (neutral to formal). These are nouns and adjectives, so they do not inherit the doubled-vav spelling of the nif'al infinitive.
Figurative נולד מחדש means “was reborn” and can describe a person, organization, work, or idea after a decisive renewal. Formal היוולדות instead names the moment or process of coming into existence, as in historical or philosophical prose; it is not the ordinary word on a birth certificate.
Reading overlaps
Unpointed נולד is past masculine singular נוֹלַד and present masculine singular נוֹלָד. They sound the same in Israeli Hebrew. נולדת can be past second-person masculine noládta, past second-person feminine noládt, or present feminine nolédet. Time expressions and the subject resolve the reading.
Key Takeaways
- Root י־ל־ד surfaces with ו: נולד in past/present, but doubled להיוולד / ייוולד elsewhere.
- Past נולדתי is the high-value form; present describes newborns, recurring births, or figurative creation.
- Birthplace takes ב־; a full year commonly follows בשנת.
- Ordinary noun לידה means birth; היוולדות is formal.
- נולד לו/לה presents the child as subject and the parent with ל־.
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- Nif'al of Weak Roots: נולד, נבנה, נמצא, נהנהB1 — To be born, to be built, to be located, to be enjoyed and to be considered are all nif'al verbs with a weak root letter — so the four classes on this page are not an appendix to the binyan, they are most of the vocabulary you will actually use.
- פ״י Across the BinyanimB2 — The first radical of ישב, ירד and ידע is a י that was once a ו, and it surfaces as a different letter in almost every binyan: nothing in pa'al's future, a cholam in hif'il, a full consonant in pi'el and hitpa'el. Name the class and the opaque infinitives stop being arbitrary.
- Dates in the Gregorian and Hebrew CalendarsA2 — How Israeli Hebrew writes and reads Gregorian and Hebrew dates, including masculine cardinal days, local digit order, month names, letter numerals, and live reading variants.
- Double ו and Double י in Unpointed TextB1 — Unpointed Hebrew writes a consonantal v as וו and a consonantal y as יי in the middle of a word — תקווה, בניין — purely so the reader does not mistake them for the vowels o, u and i. Here is when the doubling applies, and the four places it stops.