This page opens a small group of synthesis pages. They assume you have already met the paradigms one binyan at a time — pa'al, nif'al, pi'el, hif'il and the rest — and they exist for a different job: parsing a form you have never seen. One root, seen in all seven moulds at once, is what turns seven separate tables into one system.
שְׁלֵמִים shlemím, "whole ones", is the class where nothing goes wrong. All three radicals are ordinary consonants; none assimilates, none turns into a vowel, none goes silent. That makes this page the control case. Every deformation on פ״נ, פ״י, ע״ו and ל״ה is measured against these two grids.
The grid, on ל־ב־שׁ
Present forms are pointed throughout, because in several rows the vowels are the only thing separating one binyan from another.
| בניין | past (he) | present m.sg. | infinitive | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pa'al | לָבַשׁ lavásh | לוֹבֵשׁ lovésh | לִלְבּוֹשׁ lilbósh | wore, put on |
| nif'al | נִלְבַּשׁ nilbásh | נִלְבָּשׁ nilbásh | לְהִילָּבֵשׁ lehilavésh | was worn (formal, thin — see below) |
| pi'el | gap — no such verb | |||
| pu'al | gap — a pu'al exists only where a pi'el does | |||
| hif'il | הִלְבִּישׁ hilbísh | מַלְבִּישׁ malbísh | לְהַלְבִּישׁ lehalbísh | dressed someone |
| huf'al | הוּלְבַּשׁ hulbásh | מוּלְבָּשׁ mulbásh | — none exists | was dressed (formal) |
| hitpa'el | הִתְלַבֵּשׁ hitlabésh | מִתְלַבֵּשׁ mitlabésh | לְהִתְלַבֵּשׁ lehitlabésh | got dressed |
Two footnotes belong under this table. The huf'al and pu'al have no infinitive anywhere in the language — they are passives, and a passive has no independent action to name. And the nif'al of this root is real but thin: Pealim heads it לְהִילָּבֵשׁ "to be worn", but that infinitive returns 11 hits in all of Hebrew Wikipedia against 201 for the huf'al form הולבש (insource:/…/, 2026-08-07). You will meet the participle נִלְבָּשׁ in a museum caption long before you meet the verb in speech, and some reference tables print the cell as empty.
מה לובשים לאירוע כזה? אמרו לי שזה לא רשמי.
ma lovshím le'eirúa kazé? amrú li shezé lo rishmí
What do people wear to something like this? I was told it isn't formal.
תלביש אותה משהו חם, יורד גשם בחוץ.
talbísh otá máshehu kham, yoréd géshem bakhúts
Put something warm on her — it's raining out. (to a man)
אני מתלבש ויוצא, תן לי חמש דקות.
aní mitlabésh veyotsé, ten li khamésh dakót
I'm getting dressed and heading out — give me five minutes. (m. speaker, to a man)
The grid, on ס־ד־ר
ל־ב־שׁ is missing exactly the two cells that ס־ד־ר fills, so the second root completes the picture rather than repeating it.
| בניין | past (he) | present m.sg. | infinitive | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pa'al | gap — Pealim lists no pa'al on this root | |||
| nif'al | gap — there is no לְהִיסָּדֵר | |||
| pi'el | סִידֵּר sidér | מְסַדֵּר mesadér | לְסַדֵּר lesadér | tidied, arranged |
| pu'al | סוּדַּר sudár | מְסוּדָּר mesudár | — none exists | was arranged; tidy |
| hif'il | הִסְדִּיר hisdír | מַסְדִּיר masdír | לְהַסְדִּיר lehasdír | regulated, settled |
| huf'al | הוּסְדַּר husdár | מוּסְדָּר musdár | — none exists | was regulated (formal) |
| hitpa'el | הִסְתַּדֵּר histadér | מִסְתַּדֵּר mistadér | לְהִסְתַּדֵּר lehistadér | managed, worked out |
Read the two grids down together and the seven front ends come out cleanly: pa'al puts nothing there, nif'al a נ, pi'el and pu'al a מְ in the present only, hif'il and huf'al a ה that the present swaps for a מ, hitpa'el a הת that the present swaps for a מת. Nothing in either column is bent by the root, because the root is sound. That sentence is the whole point of this page.
סידרתי את כל המסמכים לפי תאריך וזה לקח לי חצי יום.
sidárti et kol hamismakhím lefí ta'aríkh vezé lakákh li khatsí yom
I sorted all the documents by date and it took me half a day.
החוק החדש מסדיר את שעות העבודה בענף.
hakhók hekhadásh masdír et she'ót ha'avodá ba'anáf
The new law regulates working hours in the sector. (formal / journalistic)
העניין הוסדר מול הבנק כבר בשבוע שעבר.
ha'inyán husdár mul habánk kvar bashavúa she'avár
The matter was settled with the bank last week. (formal)
אל תדאגי, זה יסתדר.
al tid'agí, ze yistadér
Don't worry, it'll work out. (to a woman)
התיק שלה תמיד מסודר ואצלי אי אפשר למצוא כלום.
hatík shelá tamíd mesudár ve'etslí i efshár limtsó klum
Her bag is always tidy and in mine you can't find a thing.
A grid is not a generator
Between them the two roots leave four blank cells, and every one of them is a fact about the Hebrew lexicon rather than an invitation. This is the normal case: no root fills all seven binyanim, and most roots fill three or four.
The ל־ב־שׁ pi'el gap is the instructive one, because the language hands you a decoy. Hunt for a missing pi'el of "wear" and you will find לְיַיבֵּשׁ leyabésh "to dry" — five letters in ktiv male, ל at the front, ב and שׁ behind it. It is a different root entirely, י־ב־שׁ, the root of יָבֵשׁ "dry" and יוֹבֶשׁ "dryness"; the ל you can see belongs to the infinitive, not to the stem.
The one thing a sound root still hides
Nothing deforms — but one vowel still has to be learned per verb, and ל־ב־שׁ shows it. The pa'al future takes a patach: יִלְבַּשׁ yilbásh. The infinitive takes a cholam anyway: לִלְבּוֹשׁ lilbósh. The two are independent, and this holds right across pa'al — יִלְמַד but לִלְמוֹד, יִשְׁמַע but לִשְׁמוֹעַ.
There is a short list of genuine exceptions where the infinitive keeps the patach too, and it is a list rather than a second class: לִשְׁכַּב lishkáv "to lie down" and לִרְכַּב lirkáv "to ride". Pealim prints לִשְׁכַּב alone and gives לִרְכַּב beside לִרְכּוֹב, so even the second one is a doublet. The wider picture is on the pa'al future vowel.
הוא ילבש את זה רק אם נכריח אותו.
hu yilbásh et ze rak im nakhríakh otó
He'll only put that on if we make him.
אין לי מה ללבוש מחר לראיון.
ein li ma lilbósh makhár lare'ayón
I've got nothing to wear to the interview tomorrow.
אני מעדיף לרכוב על אופניים מאשר לחכות לאוטובוס.
aní ma'adíf lirkóv al ofanáyim me'ashér lekhakót la'otóbus
I'd rather cycle than wait for the bus. (m. speaker)
Reading the grid backwards
The grid is built left to right and used right to left. Meet מוסדר cold and you can place it in three steps: a מ־ at the front rules out pa'al and nif'al; a u under that מ with an a in the stem is the huf'al vowel pattern, מוּ־ְ־ָ־; three consonants remain, ס־ד־ר. From there the dictionary gives you the whole column. The same procedure on מסתדר lands on hitpa'el, because a ת sitting behind a sibilant first radical is metathesis, not a root letter.
That is the skill these five pages exist to build, and it only works because you know what an undeformed form looks like first.
Common Mistakes
1. Using the pa'al where the row above needs the hif'il. לבש takes the garment as its object, not the person wearing it.
❌ הגננת לובשת את הילדים אחרי המנוחה
Incorrect — you cannot ‘wear’ a person. Dressing someone else is the hif'il: הגננת מלבישה את הילדים אחרי המנוחה.
✅ הגננת מלבישה את הילדים אחרי המנוחה ומורידה אותם לחצר.
haganénet malbishá et hayeladím akharéi hamenukhá umorída otám lekhatsér
The nursery teacher gets the children dressed after nap time and takes them down to the yard.
2. Filling an empty cell by guesswork. Hebrew has no default passive slot; each root's passive lives wherever its active does.
❌ החדר נסדר אתמול
Incorrect as a passive — ס־ד־ר has no nif'al. The passive of the pi'el סידר is the pu'al: החדר סודר אתמול. (These letters do spell נְסַדֵּר ‘we will tidy’, which is not what the sentence means.)
✅ החדר סודר אתמול, אז אל תהפוך שם הכול.
hakhéder sudár etmól, az al tahafókh sham hakól
The room was tidied yesterday, so don't turn it upside down. (to a man)
3. Giving the hitpa'el an object. English sort out covers both columns; Hebrew splits them, and הסתדר never takes one.
❌ הסתדרתי את הניירות לפני הפגישה
Incorrect — הסתדר is intransitive: it means ‘managed, worked out, got settled’. Arranging something is the pi'el: סידרתי את הניירות לפני הפגישה.
✅ סידרתי את הניירות לפני הפגישה, ובסוף אף אחד לא ביקש אותם.
sidárti et hanyarót lifnéi hapgishá, uvasóf af ekhád lo bikésh otám
I got the papers in order before the meeting, and in the end nobody asked for them.
4. Dropping the infinitive's vav. The cholam is written, even though the future of the same verb has no vowel letter at all.
❌ ללבש
Incorrect as ktiv male for lilbósh — the pa'al infinitive's cholam takes a vav: ללבוש. The future יִלְבַּשׁ is written ילבש with nothing, because a patach is never written.
Key Takeaways
- שלמים are roots with three ordinary consonants. Nothing assimilates, nothing turns into a vowel — which makes their grid the baseline every weak class is measured against.
- One root does not fill seven binyanim. ל־ב־שׁ fills pa'al, nif'al, hif'il, huf'al and hitpa'el; ס־ד־ר fills pi'el, pu'al, hif'il, huf'al and hitpa'el. The blanks are lexical facts, not gaps to fill.
- The nif'al of ל־ב־שׁ is real but thin — Pealim heads it לְהִילָּבֵשׁ, and that infinitive returns 11 Hebrew Wikipedia hits against 201 for הולבש.
- pu'al and huf'al have no infinitive and no imperative, in any root.
- ל־ב־שׁ's missing pi'el has a decoy: לְיַיבֵּשׁ "to dry" is י־ב־שׁ. Strip the infinitive's ל and check which letter carries the dagesh before you record a root.
- Even a sound root leaves one vowel to memorise: the pa'al future may take a patach (יִלְבַּשׁ, יִלְמַד) while the infinitive keeps its cholam (לִלְבּוֹשׁ, לִלְמוֹד). לִשְׁכַּב and לִרְכַּב are the named exceptions — a short list, not a class.
- Used backwards, the grid parses unfamiliar forms: prefix → vowel pattern → three remaining consonants → dictionary.
Now practice Hebrew
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- The גזרות: Root Classes That Reshape a ParadigmA2 — A גזרה is a class of roots that all deform the paradigm in the same predictable way. Here is how the classes are named, what each one does to a pa'al verb, why pa'al suffers most — and why the first twenty verbs you need are almost all weak ones.
- The Seven Binyanim at a GlanceA1 — One table with all seven verb patterns — past, present and infinitive — plus the recognition shortcuts that actually work, the famous one that does not, and an honest account of which binyanim you will really produce.
- The Root (שורש): Hebrew's Organizing PrincipleA1 — Hebrew files its vocabulary under skeletons of three consonants — everything to do with writing lives under כ־ת־ב — and a pattern pours the vowels and affixes around them. Here is what that buys you (spelling, memory, reading speed) and the one thing it does not buy you.
- Weak Roots (גזרות): Why Some Words Look BrokenA2 — קם has two consonants, יפול has lost its נ, and קנה ends in a letter nobody pronounces. None of these verbs is irregular — each belongs to a גזרה, a root class where one weak letter behaves predictably. Here are the classes, the reason a letter goes missing, and where each one is taught in full.
- פ״נ Across the BinyanimB2 — One deformation — a vowelless נ swallowed by the next radical, leaving a dagesh — accounts for forms right across the verb system. The same page has to say what the dagesh does not prove: it names an assimilation, not a letter.