הגיע is one of the first fifty verbs anybody learns in Hebrew, and its root is נ־ג־ע — a נ that appears in not one cell of the entire hif'il paradigm. That is the whole of this class: roots beginning with נ lose it completely in hif'il, where pa'al at least keeps it in the past and present. The forms are easy; finding the dictionary entry is the hard part, and that is where most of this page goes.
Why the נ has nowhere to stand
In pa'al's past tense the נ carries a vowel of its own — נָפַל, נָגַע — so nothing threatens it. Hif'il gives it no vowel anywhere. The prefix הִ־ or מַ־ or יַ־ takes the vowel, and the נ is left pressed straight against the second radical. A consonant with no vowel of its own, sitting against another consonant, assimilates into it completely, and the second radical takes a dagesh chazak to record the merger.
| Root | Expected | Actual | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| נ־ג־ע | *הִנְגִּיעַ | הִגִּיעַhigía | arrived, reached |
| נ־כ־ר | *הִנְכִּיר | הִכִּירhikír | knew (a person), got to know |
| נ־פ־ל | *הִנְפִּיל | הִפִּילhipíl | dropped, brought down |
| נ־ג־שׁ | *הִנְגִּישׁ | הִגִּישׁhigísh | served, submitted |
| נ־ס־ע | *הִנְסִיעַ | הִסִּיעַhisía | drove (someone somewhere) |
| נ־צ־ל | *הִנְצִיל | הִצִּילhitsíl | rescued, saved |
| נ־ג־ד | *הִנְגִּיד | הִגִּידhigíd | told, said |
The middle column is a reconstruction, not a Hebrew word — it is there so you can see what was lost. In practice you are handed הגיע and asked to work backwards to נ־ג־ע, which is the reverse of the direction the table runs.
הגעתי לתחנה חמש דקות אחרי שהרכבת יצאה.
higáti latakhaná khamésh dakót akharéi sheharakévet yats'á
I got to the station five minutes after the train had left.
הפילו את הממשלה בהצבעה אחת.
hipílu et hamemshalá behatsba'á akhát
They brought the government down in a single vote.
אני מסיע את הילדים לגן כל בוקר.
aní masía et hayeladím lagán kol bóker
I drive the kids to nursery every morning. (m. speaker)
הגיע in full
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| Present sg. | מַגִּיעַ magía | מַגִּיעָה magi'á |
| Present pl. | מַגִּיעִים magi'ím | מַגִּיעוֹת magi'ót |
| Past 1 sg. / pl. | הִגַּעְתִּי higáti · הִגַּעְנוּ higánu | |
| Past 2 sg. | הִגַּעְתָּ higáta | הִגַּעְתְּ higát |
| Past 3 | הִגִּיעַ higía | הִגִּיעָה higí'a |
| Past 3 pl. | הִגִּיעוּ higí'u | |
| Future 1 | אַגִּיעַ agía · נַגִּיעַ nagía | |
| Future 2 sg. | תַּגִּיעַ tagía | תַּגִּיעִי tagí'i |
| Future 3 | יַגִּיעַ yagía | תַּגִּיעַ tagía |
| Infinitive | לְהַגִּיעַ lehagía | |
| Imperative | הַגֵּעַ hagéa (formal) | הַגִּיעִי hagí'i (formal) |
Two things in that table are worth stopping on. First, the ־ַע endings: הִגִּיעַ is higía, not higéa. The final ע cannot take the stress and cannot follow a i directly, so a patach slips in under it — the patach ganuv, the "stolen patach" — and is pronounced after the vowel it is written under. The beat stays where the long i is. The same thing gives magía, lehagía, yagía.
Second, the ־י and ־וּ endings do not pull the stress: tagí'i, yagí'u, higí'u. That is the standing hif'il exception to the stress rule — everywhere else in the verb, adding ־י or ־וּ moves the beat onto the ending (tikhteví, yikhtevú), and hif'il's long stem vowel refuses to give it up.
תגידו לנו כשאתם יוצאים, ונדע מתי אתם מגיעים.
tagídu lánu kshe'atém yots'ím, venedá matáy atém magi'ím
Let us know when you set off, and then we'll know when you're getting in. (to a group)
אני מגיע עוד רבע שעה, תזמין כבר משהו.
aní magía od réva sha'á, tazmín kvar máshehu
I'll be there in fifteen minutes — go ahead and order something. (m. speaker, to a man)
Where the verb takes you: ל־, not את
הגיע takes ל־: הגעתי לתל אביב, הגענו לבית. This is a place English speakers slip, because English "reach" is transitive — reach the station, not reach to the station. There is one systematic exception, and it is not really an exception: הגיע הביתה takes no preposition, because הַבַּיְתָה is already a directional form with its own ־ָה ending, and so are שָׁמָּה, הָעִירָה, אַרְצָה.
הגענו הביתה רק אחרי חצות.
higánu habáyta rak akharéi khatsót
We only got home after midnight.
הכיר runs two frames that mean different things, and both are common:
- הכיר את — know a person, be acquainted with a place, recognise a face.
- הכיר ב־ — acknowledge formally, grant official recognition. This is the newspaper sense: הכיר בזכות, הכיר במדינה, הכיר בתעודה.
הכרתי אותו בבסיס, ומאז לא דיברנו.
hikárti otó babasís, ume'áz lo dibárnu
I got to know him on the base, and we haven't spoken since.
הבנק עדיין לא הכיר בתעודה שלה.
habánk adáyin lo hikír bat'udá shelá
The bank still hasn't recognised her certificate. (formal / journalistic)
המלצר הגיש לנו לחם חם עוד לפני שהזמנו.
hameltsár higísh lánu lékhem kham od lifnéi shehizmánu
The waiter brought us warm bread before we'd even ordered.
A dagesh does not name the letter it swallowed
Here is the reasoning error this page exists to prevent. הִצִּיל "rescued" and הִצִּיעַ "suggested" are the same shape — hif'il, doubled צ, no visible first radical. Their roots are not parallel:
| Verb | Root | Class | Proof |
|---|---|---|---|
| הִצִּיל hitsíl rescued | נ־צ־ל | פ״נ | nif'al נִצַּל, hitpa'el הִתְנַצֵּל — the נ is written out |
| הִצִּיעַ hitsía suggested | י־צ־ע | גזרת חפי״צ | the yod returns in the heavy binyanim: לְיַיצֵּג, לְהִתְיַיצֵּב |
גזרת חפי״צ — khaseréi pe hapó'al yod, áyin hapó'al tsádi — is a closed set of eight roots whose first letter is י and whose second is צ (or, in two cases, ז): י־צ־ב, י־צ־ג, י־צ־ע, י־צ־ק, י־צ־ר, י־צ־ת, י־ז־ם, י־ז־ע. A yod with no vowel assimilates exactly as a נ does, so the surface result is identical and the dagesh tells you nothing about which letter it was. What settles it is the heavy binyanim: pi'el, pu'al and hitpa'el squeeze nothing, so a yod that was there comes back — לְיַיצֵּג "represent", לְהִתְיַיצֵּב "report, present oneself". A genuine נ never reappears that way, because it never left.
When the נ survives
The class is not uniform, and two groups keep the נ visible. First, roots whose second radical is a guttural — א, ה, ח, ע, ר cannot take a dagesh, so there is nothing for the נ to merge into and it simply stays: הִנְהִיג (נ־ה־ג) "led", הִנְחִית (נ־ח־ת) "landed a plane", הִנְעִים (נ־ע־ם) "made pleasant".
Second — and more interesting — later formations keep it even where a dagesh was available: הִנְפִּיק (נ־פ־ק) "issue", הִנְצִיחַ (נ־צ־ח) "commemorate", הִנְשִׁים (נ־שׁ־ם) "resuscitate", הִנְמִיךְ (נ־מ־ך) "turn down". The clearest case is a minimal pair on one root: נ־ג־שׁ gives both הִגִּישׁ "serve, submit", the biblical verb with the נ absorbed, and הִנְגִּישׁ "make accessible", built in Modern Hebrew on the adjective נָגִישׁ. ויקימילון marks the second עברית חדשה and says outright that the root is functioning there as a secondary root, conjugated like a sound root. The old rule applies to old words.
הנגישו את התחנה המרכזית לכיסאות גלגלים.
hingíshu et hatakhaná hamerkazít lekhis'ót galgalím
They made the central bus station wheelchair-accessible. (formal)
Common Mistakes
1. Building the past from the 3rd-person stem. You know הִגִּיעַ, so you add ־תי to it. Every suffixed past form shortens the stem instead.
❌ הגיעתי לעבודה מאוחר
Incorrect — the long i belongs to the third person only. With a personal ending the stem shortens: הגעתי לעבודה מאוחר, higáti. Same for הגענו, הגעת, and for הכרתי, הפלתי, הגשתי.
✅ הגעתי לעבודה מאוחר כי היה פקק ענק.
higáti la'avodá me'ukhár ki hayá pkak anák
I got to work late because there was a huge traffic jam.
2. Putting the נ back in. The root really is נ־ג־ע, and writing what you know is the natural move.
❌ אני מנגיע לתל אביב בשמונה
Incorrect — there is no such form. In hif'il the נ is gone at every step: אני מגיע לתל אביב בשמונה, magía. The reconstructed *הנגיע does not exist in any binyan.
3. Treating הגיע like English "reach". English takes a direct object; Hebrew takes ל־.
❌ הגענו את המלון בשתיים בלילה
Incorrect — הגיע never takes an object. It is הגענו למלון. The only preposition-less case is a directional form: הגענו הביתה.
✅ הגענו למלון בשתיים בלילה, והקבלה כבר הייתה סגורה.
higánu lamalón bishtáyim baláyla, vehakabalá kvar haytá sgurá
We got to the hotel at two in the morning and reception was already closed.
4. Reading the dagesh backwards. Having learned that a doubled letter means an absorbed נ, you apply it to every such verb.
❌ הציל ← השורש י־צ־ל
Incorrect, and it is the mirror of the הציע error. הציל is נ־צ־ל: nif'al נִצַּל and hitpa'el הִתְנַצֵּל write the נ out. A צ in second position is not enough on its own — חפי״צ is a closed list of eight roots and י־צ־ל is not on it, and no pi'el or hitpa'el of this root ever shows a yod.
Key Takeaways
- In hif'il a first-radical נ disappears entirely — there is no cell of the paradigm where it is written or heard: הִגִּיעַ, הִכִּיר, הִפִּיל, הִגִּישׁ, הִסִּיעַ, הִצִּיל, הִגִּיד.
- This is stronger than pa'al's behaviour, where the נ survives in the past and present and only assimilates in the future.
- הִגִּיעַ is higía — the final patach under the ע is a patach ganuv, read after the stressed i, and the same applies to מַגִּיעַ, יַגִּיעַ, לְהַגִּיעַ.
- ־י and ־וּ do not move the stress in hif'il: tagí'i, yagí'u, tagídu, higí'u.
- הגיע takes ל־, never את — with הגיע הביתה the exception that proves it, since הַבַּיְתָה carries its own directional ending.
- הכיר את = know, be acquainted with; הכיר ב־ = recognise officially (formal / journalistic).
- A dagesh proves that something assimilated, not that it was a נ. הִצִּיל is נ־צ־ל; הִצִּיעַ and הִצִּיג are י־צ־ע and י־צ־ג, of גזרת חפי״צ, and the yod comes back in לְיַיצֵּג and לְהִתְיַיצֵּב.
- The נ stays before a guttural (הִנְהִיג, הִנְחִית, הִנְעִים) and in later formations (הִנְפִּיק, הִנְצִיחַ, הִנְגִּישׁ) — נ־ג־שׁ has both הִגִּישׁ and הִנְגִּישׁ, with different meanings.
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- Pa'al פ״נ: The Disappearing נ (נפל, נסע, נגע)B1 — The initial נ of נפל, נסע and נתן is fully present in the past and the present, and in the future it is swallowed by the next letter, leaving only a dagesh — which is why יִפֹּל is yipól with a hard p. The infinitives, though, have to be learned one by one.
- 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.
- Hif'il פ״י: הוריד, הושיב, הודיעB1 — A root that begins with י turns that letter into a long o in hif'il, written with a vav: י־ר־ד gives הוֹרִיד, י־שׁ־ב gives הוֹשִׁיב, י־ד־ע gives הוֹדִיעַ. This is the class where the causative relation to pa'al really does hold — and where מוריד can be mistaken for a huf'al.
- 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.