ל״א is a root whose third letter is א — מ־צ־א find, ק־ר־א read, מ־ל־א fill, ר־פ־א heal, ב־ר־א create, ק־פ־א freeze. Set against the other classes in this group it is the mild one: nothing assimilates the way פ״נ's נ does, nothing turns into a vowel the way ע״ו's middle letter does, and nothing is swapped out the way ל״ה's ה is. The א is written in every cell of every binyan. It just goes quiescent — silent — and stays where it is.
Pa'al ל״א works the class out inside one binyan. This page asks what a silent-but-present radical does to the other six, and the answer is one sentence long.
A letter you do not pronounce cannot close a syllable. A real consonant shuts the syllable in front of it and forces its vowel to stay short; a quiescent א leaves that syllable open, and Hebrew never shortens a vowel in an open syllable. Every deviation on this page is that fact surfacing.
The grid
Niqqud throughout, because the class is a set of vowels. מ־צ־א fills five of the seven — it has no pi'el, and therefore no pu'al either — and מ־ל־א supplies exactly those two missing cells, so the pair covers the whole grid.
| בניין | Root | past (he) | present m.sg. | infinitive | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pa'al | מ־צ־א | מָצָא matsá | מוֹצֵא motsé | לִמְצוֹא limtsó | found |
| nif'al | מ־צ־א | נִמְצָא nimtsá | נִמְצָא nimtsá | לְהִימָּצֵא lehimatsé | is located, is found |
| pi'el | מ־ל־א | מִילֵּא milé | מְמַלֵּא memalé | לְמַלֵּא lemalé | filled, filled in |
| pu'al | מ־ל־א | מוּלָּא mulá | מְמוּלָּא memulá | — none exists | was filled; stuffed |
| hif'il | מ־צ־א | הִמְצִיא himtsí | מַמְצִיא mamtsí | לְהַמְצִיא lehamtsí | invented, made up |
| huf'al | מ־צ־א | הוּמְצָא humtsá | מוּמְצָא mumtsá | — none exists | was invented (formal) |
| hitpa'el | מ־צ־א · מ־ל־א | הִתְמַצֵּא hitmatsé · הִתְמַלֵּא hitmalé | מִתְמַצֵּא · מִתְמַלֵּא | לְהִתְמַצֵּא · לְהִתְמַלֵּא | knows one's way around · filled up |
Read the last-syllable column down and nothing is missing anywhere. That is what separates this class from every other one in this group: there is no cell where you have to remember what disappeared.
מצאתי חנייה ממש מול הבניין, אל תשאלי איך.
matsáti khanayá mamásh mul habinyán, al tish'alí eikh
I found parking right opposite the building — don't ask me how. (to a woman)
התחנה נמצאת ממש מאחורי הבית, שתי דקות ברגל.
hatakhaná nimtsét mamásh me'akharéi habáyit, shtei dakót barégel
The stop is right behind the house, two minutes on foot.
מילאתי את הטופס פעמיים והם אמרו שהוא לא הגיע.
miléti et hatófes pa'amáyim vehém amrú shehú lo higía
I filled the form in twice and they said it never arrived.
הזמנו פלפלים ממולאים ובסוף אכלנו רק לחם.
hizmánu pilpelím memula'ím uvasóf akhálnu rak lékhem
We ordered stuffed peppers and in the end we just ate bread.
מי המציא את הכלל הזה? אף אחד לא יודע.
mi himtsí et haklál hazé? af ekhád lo yodéa
Who invented that rule? Nobody knows.
האולם התמלא תוך חמש דקות ונשארנו לעמוד מאחור.
ha'ulám hitmalé tokh khamésh dakót venish'árnu la'amód me'akhór
The hall filled up within five minutes and we ended up standing at the back.
The one cell that changes, and it changes in every binyan
Put a consonantal ending — ־תִּי, ־תָּ, ־ת, ־נוּ — on a sound root and the stem vowel is squeezed into a closed syllable and comes out short. Put the same ending on a ל״א root and the א refuses to close anything, so the vowel stays long.
| בניין | Sound root, past 1s | ל״א, past 1s |
|---|---|---|
| pa'al | שָׁמַרְתִּי shamárti — patach | מָצָאתִי matsáti — kamatz |
| nif'al | נִסְגַּרְתִּי nisgárti — patach | נִמְצֵאתִי nimtséti — tsere |
| pi'el | דִּיבַּרְתִּי dibárti — patach | מִילֵּאתִי miléti — tsere |
| hif'il | הִסְבַּרְתִּי hisbárti — patach | הִמְצֵאתִי himtséti — tsere |
| huf'al | הוּסְבַּרְתִּי husbárti — patach | הוּמְצֵאתִי humtséti — tsere |
| hitpa'el | הִתְלַבַּשְׁתִּי hitlabáshti — patach | הִתְמַלֵּאתִי hitmaléti — tsere |
So the class has an audible signature, and it is the string -éti · -éta · -ét · -énu. Pa'al is the only binyan that does not use it, because pa'al's own theme vowel there is an a and it lengthens to a kamatz instead: matsáti, karáti, yatsáti. Everywhere else, hearing an e where you expected an a tells you the root's last letter is an א before you have identified the verb.
הקפאתי חצי מהמרק, יש לנו לשבוע.
hikpéti khatsí mehamarák, yesh lánu leshavúa
I froze half the soup — we've got enough for a week.
נמצאתי כשיר לשירות מלא, למרות הברך.
nimtséti kashír lesherút malé, lamrót habérekh
I was passed fit for full service, knee and all. (formal / military)
The feminine present is a ת, in six binyanim out of seven
The same open syllable produces the class's other constant. Where ל״ה ends its feminine participle in a bare ־ָה, ל״א keeps the ordinary ת of a strong verb — and it does so in every binyan except one.
| בניין | m.sg. | f.sg. |
|---|---|---|
| pa'al | מוֹצֵא motsé | מוֹצֵאת motsét |
| nif'al | נִמְצָא nimtsá | נִמְצֵאת nimtsét |
| pi'el | מְמַלֵּא memalé | מְמַלֵּאת memalét |
| pu'al | מְמוּלָּא memulá | מְמוּלֵּאת memulét |
| huf'al | מוּמְצָא mumtsá | מוּמְצֵאת mumtsét |
| hitpa'el | מִתְמַלֵּא mitmalé | מִתְמַלֵּאת mitmalét |
| hif'il | מַמְצִיא mamtsí | מַמְצִיאָהmamtsi'á |
היא ממלאת את המקום שלו עד ספטמבר.
hi memalét et hamakóm sheló ad septémber
She's covering his job until September.
את מתמצאת בשכונה? אני לגמרי אבודה.
at mitmatsét bashkhuná? aní legamréi avudá
Do you know your way around this neighbourhood? I'm completely lost. (f. speaker, to a woman)
קרא and קרה: the confusion is real, and it is not where you were told
The standard warning is that לקרוא and לקרות are dangerously alike. They are not: likró and likrót differ by an audible final t. What is genuinely identical sits elsewhere in the paradigm — three cells in which the spelling is the only thing that separates them.
| ק־ר־א read, call | ק־ר־ה happen | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Past 3ms | קָרָא kará | קָרָה kará | same sound, different letter |
| Present ms | קוֹרֵא koré | קוֹרֶה koré | same sound, different letter |
| Nif'al past 3ms | נִקְרָא nikrá "was called" | נִקְרָה nikrá "chanced upon" (literary) | same sound, different letter |
| Rest of the grid | הִקְרִיא · הִתְקָרֵא | — just a technical pi'el, קֵירָה "to roof" | elsewhere, no overlap |
Outside pa'al the two roots barely meet. ק־ר־א runs the whole grid — nif'al נִקְרָא "is called", hif'il הִקְרִיא "read aloud", hitpa'el הִתְקָרֵא — while ק־ר־ה has only the literary nif'al נִקְרָה "chanced upon, came his way" and the technical pi'el קֵירָה "to roof". That nif'al is the third homophone, and it makes the same point as the other two: nikrá against nikrá, separated by the final letter alone. So a form in any binyan but pa'al is almost always the א root — and the one place it might not be, the nif'al, is again a place where the sound decides nothing and the final letter decides everything.
הרחוב נקרא על שם סופר שאף אחד כבר לא קורא.
harekhóv nikrá al shem sofér she'áf ekhád kvar lo koré
The street is named after a writer nobody reads any more.
מה קרה לאור בסלון? הוא מהבהב כל הערב.
ma kará la'ór basalón? hu mehavhév kol ha'érev
What's happened to the light in the living room? It's been flickering all evening.
The members, and two you should not learn here
מצא · קרא · מילא · ברא · רפא · קפא are ל״א and nothing else. יצא and בא are not: each carries a second weakness, and their paradigms come out somewhere the rules on this page cannot predict — יָצָא is also פ״י, giving the future יֵצֵא and the infinitive לָצֵאת, and בָּא is also hollow, giving לָבוֹא and the hif'il הֵבִיא. Both are on doubly weak roots.
היא התרפאה לגמרי, אבל זה לקח לה שנה שלמה.
hi hitrap'á legamréi, avál ze lakákh la shaná shlemá
She made a complete recovery, but it took her a whole year.
Common Mistakes
1. Dropping the א once you leave pa'al. מצאתי keeps its א because the verb is met early and often; the pi'el and hif'il of the class are met late, and the silent letter goes missing.
❌ מילתי את הטופס וחיכיתי שעה
Incorrect as ktiv male for miléti — the א is a root consonant and is written in every binyan: מילאתי. (מִילָּתִי, the same letters, is the noun ‘my word’.) Likewise הקפאתי, המצאתי, התמלאתי.
✅ מילאתי את הטופס וחיכיתי שעה, ואז אמרו לי לחזור מחר.
miléti et hatófes vekhikíti sha'á, ve'áz amrú li lakhazór makhár
I filled in the form and waited an hour, and then they told me to come back tomorrow.
2. Sounding the א as a consonant. It is written, so the eye insists on giving it a syllable.
❌ מילאתי, ממולא
mil'áti · memul'á
Incorrect — the א is quiescent between the vowel and the ending. Three syllables in mi-lé-ti, four in me-mu-lá. The א is heard only where it opens a syllable after another vowel: מְמוּלָּאִים memula'ím, מַמְצִיאָה mamtsi'á.
3. Shortening the vowel before the ending. This is the transfer error from the sound paradigm, and it is the one that marks the whole class.
❌ הקפאתי, נמצאתי
hikpáti · nimtsáti
Incorrect — a sound-root hif'il has הִסְבַּרְתִּי hisbárti with a short patach because the ר closes the syllable. A quiescent א closes nothing, so the vowel is a tsere: hikpéti, nimtséti, himtséti, miléti, hitmaléti.
4. Giving the feminine present the ל״ה ending. The two classes look alike in the citation form and split here — and the string you produce is a real word in the wrong tense.
❌ המסעדה נמצאה בקומה השנייה
Incorrect as a present tense — נִמְצְאָה nimtse'á is the past, ‘she/it was found’. ‘Is located’ is נמצאת, nimtsét, with the ordinary ת. The bare ־ָה feminine participle belongs to the ל״ה class — רוצה, קונה, נראה — not here.
✅ המסעדה נמצאת בקומה השנייה, מעל הבנק.
hamis'adá nimtsét bakomá hashniyá, me'ál habánk
The restaurant is on the second floor, above the bank.
Key Takeaways
- ל״א loses nothing. The א is a real root consonant, written in every cell of every binyan, and merely quiescent — silent.
- The whole class follows from one fact: a silent א cannot close a syllable, so the vowel in front of it is never shortened.
- מ־צ־א fills pa'al, nif'al, hif'il, huf'al and hitpa'el; מ־ל־א supplies the pi'el and pu'al (מִילֵּא, מוּלָּא). Between them the grid is complete.
- Before a consonantal ending the stem vowel stays long, and outside pa'al it is a tsere: נִמְצֵאתִי, מִילֵּאתִי, הִמְצֵאתִי, הוּמְצֵאתִי, הִתְמַלֵּאתִי — against a sound root's short patach in נִסְגַּרְתִּי, דִּיבַּרְתִּי, הִסְבַּרְתִּי. Pa'al alone lengthens to a kamatz: מָצָאתִי.
- The feminine present keeps its ת in six binyanim — מוֹצֵאת, נִמְצֵאת, מְמַלֵּאת, מְמוּלֵּאת, מוּמְצֵאת, מִתְמַלֵּאת — and only hif'il breaks ranks with מַמְצִיאָה, because its long i already carries the syllable.
- קרא and קרה are homophones exactly where they are spelled differently — קָרָא / קָרָה, קוֹרֵא / קוֹרֶה, and once more in the nif'al, נִקְרָא "was called" against the literary נִקְרָה "chanced upon". Elsewhere they part: הִקְרִיא and הִתְקָרֵא are ק־ר־א alone.
- יצא and בא belong to two classes at once and cannot be conjugated from this page.
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- Pa'al ל״א: מצא, קרא, יצאB1 — Where ל״ה loses its final letter the moment an ending arrives, ל״א keeps its א in every single form and simply stops pronouncing it. That one difference reverses the feminine present — מוֹצֵאת, not a ־ָה form — and produces the קרא/קרה collision, which is not the one most books describe.
- ל״ה Across the BinyanimB2 — Hebrew's largest weak class, and the tidiest: whatever binyan you are in, a ל״ה verb takes the same six endings. Learn them once and קניתי, נראיתי, ניסיתי, הראיתי and השתניתי stop being five separate problems.
- Doubly Weak Roots: היה, בא, ראה, יצאC1 — The most frequent verbs in Hebrew look the most irregular because they carry two weaknesses at once. But the deformations stack rather than collide: each class does exactly what it does elsewhere, in its own half of the word — which means these verbs can be parsed instead of memorised.
- שלמים: The Sound Root in Every BinyanB1 — A root with no weak letter behaves identically in all seven binyanim — which makes it the control case. Here is one grid, two roots, and the honest gaps in both, so that every weak class on the pages that follow can be read as a documented deviation from this.