When the third root letter is ה, hitpa'el keeps its prefix and its doubled middle radical and rewrites everything after them. The result is a small, extremely useful family — השתנה change, התגלה turn out, התפנה free up, התנסה try out, התכסה cover up, התלווה tag along — and one honorary member, התרפא, that belongs to a different class and is the clearest thing on this page.
השתנה, in full
This verb is the family's showpiece because it also happens to be metathesised, so it demonstrates two rules at once. Set the second one aside for a moment and look only at the endings.
| Past | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | הִשְׁתַּנֵּיתִי hishtanéti | הִשְׁתַּנֵּינוּ hishtanénu |
| 2nd m. | הִשְׁתַּנֵּיתָ hishtanéta | הִשְׁתַּנֵּיתֶם hishtanétem |
| 2nd f. | הִשְׁתַּנֵּית hishtanét | הִשְׁתַּנֵּיתֶן hishtanéten |
| 3rd m. | הִשְׁתַּנָּה hishtaná | הִשְׁתַּנּוּ hishtanú |
| 3rd f. | הִשְׁתַּנְּתָה hishtantá |
| Present | m. | f. |
|---|---|---|
| singular | מִשְׁתַּנֶּה mishtané | מִשְׁתַּנָּה mishtaná |
| plural | מִשְׁתַּנִּים mishtaním | מִשְׁתַּנּוֹת mishtanót |
| Future | Form | Infinitive | Form |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | אֶשְׁתַּנֶּה eshtané | לְהִשְׁתַּנּוֹת lehishtanót | — note the ־ות, not ־ה |
| you f. sg. | תִּשְׁתַּנִּי tishtaní | ||
| he | יִשְׁתַּנֶּה yishtané |
Three cells this class always costs you
The 3fs past is ־ְתָה, not ־ָה. Strong hitpa'el gives התלבשה; ל״ה gives הִשְׁתַּנְּתָה, הִתְגַּלְּתָה, הִתְפַּנְּתָה — an extra ת before the ending. This is the cell learners rebuild wrongly for years.
The two singular present forms are one spelling. מִשְׁתַּנֶּה and מִשְׁתַּנָּה are both written משתנה. Nothing on the page tells you which is meant; only the subject does, and only the pronunciation separates them — mishtané against mishtaná.
The infinitive ends in ־ות. לְהִשְׁתַּנּוֹת, לְהִתְגַּלּוֹת, לְהִתְפַּנּוֹת, לְהִתְנַסּוֹת. There is no *להשתנה, and this is the single most frequent production error in the class.
הכול השתנה מאז שנולד לנו ילד, גם דברים שלא ציפינו להם.
hakól hishtaná me'áz shenolád lánu yéled, gam dvarím sheló tsipínu lahém
Everything changed once we had a child — including things we weren't expecting.
השכונה השתנתה עד שכמעט אי אפשר לזהות אותה.
hashkhuná hishtantá ad shekim'át i efshár lezahót otá
The neighbourhood has changed so much you can barely recognise it.
מזג האוויר פה משתנה כל חצי שעה, קח מעיל.
mézeg ha'avír po mishtané kol khatsí sha'á, kakh me'íl
The weather here changes every half hour — take a coat. (to a man)
זה לא הולך להשתנות בקרוב, אל תבני על זה.
ze lo holékh lehishtanót bekaróv, al tivní al ze
That's not going to change any time soon — don't count on it. (to a woman)
Two rules, stacked
השתנה is doing two independent things at once, and it is worth separating them so that neither gets learned as part of the other.
| Rule 1: the sibilant | Rule 2: the weak ל״ה | |
|---|---|---|
| what it changes | the front of the word | the back of the word |
| on its own | הִשְׁתַּמֵּשׁ (שׁ־מ־שׁ, strong) | הִתְגַּלָּה (ג־ל־ה, no sibilant) |
| both together | הִשְׁתַּנָּה — שׁ־נ־ה is a sibilant root and a ל״ה root | |
The front-end rule is worked out in full on when the ת moves; nothing on this page depends on it. התגלה, התפנה, התנסה, התכסה and התלווה are ל״ה verbs with no sibilant at all, and their endings are identical to השתנה's.
הטעות התגלתה רק אחרי שהדפסנו אלף עותקים.
hata'út hitgaltá rak akharéi shehidpásnu élef otakím
The mistake only came to light after we'd printed a thousand copies.
אם יתפנה לי זמן בערב אני אקפוץ אליכם.
im yitpané li zman ba'érev aní ekpóts aleikhém
If I get some time free this evening I'll pop over to yours.
התנסיתי בעבודה מהבית שנה שלמה, וזה פשוט לא בשבילי.
hitnaséti ba'avodá mehabáyit shaná shlemá, veze pashút lo bishvilí
I tried working from home for a whole year, and it's simply not for me.
התרפא is not in this class
It ends in an א, not a ה — root ר־פ־א — and that one letter puts it in the ל״א class, which behaves like a strong verb. Pealim gives הִתְרַפֵּא and לְהִתְרַפֵּא: the tsere of the strong pattern is intact and the infinitive has the ordinary ending, not ־ות.
| ל״ה — השתנה | ל״א — התרפא | |
|---|---|---|
| past, he | הִשְׁתַּנָּה hishtaná | הִתְרַפֵּא hitrapé |
| infinitive | לְהִשְׁתַּנּוֹת lehishtanót | לְהִתְרַפֵּא lehitrapé |
לקח לו חודשיים להתרפא מהדלקת בגרון.
lakákh lo khodsháyim lehitrapé mehadaléket bagarón
It took him two months to get over the throat infection.
What these verbs mean: things that happen to you
Look down the list and a semantic pattern comes out: השתנה change, התגלה be revealed, התפנה become free, התכסה get covered. Almost none of them has an agent doing the thing on purpose. This is hitpa'el in its inchoative role — entering a state rather than performing an action — and it is the reason the binyan keeps taking new intransitive verbs while pi'el takes the agentive ones. The family is followed up on hitpa'el as a process.
הוא התכסה בשמיכה ולא ענה לאף אחד כל הערב.
hu hitkasá bismikhá veló aná le'áf ekhád kol ha'érev
He wrapped himself in a blanket and didn't answer anyone all evening.
Common Mistakes
1. Using השתנה to change something. English change is both transitive and intransitive; Hebrew splits them into two binyanim, and the split is total.
❌ השתניתי את התוכנית ברגע האחרון
Incorrect — השתנה is intransitive and can never take an object. Changing something is the pi'el שינה: שיניתי את התוכנית.
✅ שיניתי את התוכנית ברגע האחרון וכולם כעסו עליי.
shiníti et hatokhnít baréga ha'akharón vekulám ka'asú alái
I changed the plan at the last minute and everyone was annoyed with me.
2. Building the infinitive with ־ה. Every other hitpa'el infinitive ends in the stem itself, so the ־ות looks like an intruder.
❌ שום דבר לא הולך להשתנה פה
Incorrect as an infinitive — ל״ה infinitives end in ־ות: להשתנות. The same goes for להתגלות, להתפנות, להתנסות. (The string להשתנה does exist, but only as ל + הַשְׁתָּנָה 'urination', which is not what you meant.)
✅ שום דבר לא הולך להשתנות פה עד שיחליפו הנהלה.
shum davár lo holékh lehishtanót po ad sheyakhlífu hanhalá
Nothing here is going to change until they replace the management.
3. Flattening the 3fs past. The extra ת has no counterpart in the strong verb, so it gets left out and the feminine comes out looking masculine.
❌ הדירה התפנה רק בסוף החודש
Incorrect — a ל״ה 3fs past inserts a ת before the ending: הדירה התפנתה. התפנה on its own is the masculine, 'he/it became free'.
✅ הדירה התפנתה רק בסוף החודש, אז נכנסנו באיחור.
hadirá hitpantá rak besóf hakhódesh, az nikhnásnu be'ikhúr
The flat only came free at the end of the month, so we moved in late.
4. Dropping the yod from the past. The doubled letters and the yod are all written in ktiv male, and leaving the yod out lands you in a different verb entirely.
❌ השתנתי מאוד בשנים האחרונות
Incorrect as ktiv male for 'I've changed a lot' — השתנתי is הִשְׁתַּנְתִּי, the past of the hif'il להשתין 'to urinate'. The hitpa'el is spelled with a yod: השתניתי.
✅ השתניתי מאוד בשנים האחרונות, וזה בעיקר לטובה.
hishtanéti me'ód bashaním ha'akharonót, veze be'ikár letová
I've changed a lot in recent years, and mostly for the better.
Key Takeaways
- ל״ה hitpa'el verbs keep the ordinary prefix and rewrite the ending: השתנה, התגלה, התפנה, התנסה, התכסה, התלווה.
- The infinitive ends in ־ות: לְהִשְׁתַּנּוֹת, לְהִתְגַּלּוֹת, לְהִתְפַּנּוֹת. Never *להשתנה.
- The 3fs past inserts a ת: הִשְׁתַּנְּתָה, הִתְגַּלְּתָה — not the ־ָה of the strong verb.
- משתנה is two words: מִשְׁתַּנֶּה mishtané (m.) and מִשְׁתַּנָּה mishtaná (f.), spelled identically.
- השתנה stacks two rules — sibilant metathesis at the front, ל״ה endings at the back. The other members of the class have only the second.
- התרפא is ל״א, not ל״ה: הִתְרַפֵּא, לְהִתְרַפֵּא, with the strong-verb shape intact. The א is silent, so it sounds like a member and is not.
- The family is largely inchoative — becoming, not doing.
- השתנה never takes an object. "I changed X" is the pi'el שיניתי / לשנות.
- Ktiv male writes the doubled letters and the yod: השתניתי, השתנתה, להשתנות. השתנתי without the yod is a different verb.
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- 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.
- Pi'el ל״ה: ניסה, חיכה, קיווה, ניקהB1 — The third root letter never surfaces as a ה. It shows up as a yod in most of the past, as ־ה or ־ות elsewhere, and disappears entirely before ־וּ — and the two present-tense singulars end up spelled identically, separated only by a vowel nobody writes.
- Gradual Process Hitpa'el: התבגר, התקרר, התפתחB1 — The family where English says 'get' or 'become' and Hebrew says one word — a change of state with nobody performing it. Almost every one of these verbs has a causative twin in pi'el, exactly one has its twin in hif'il, and two have none at all; the asymmetry is the thing to learn, not a rule to apply.
- When the ת Moves: הסתכל, השתמש, הצטלם, הזדקןB1 — If the first root letter is a sibilant, the ת of the hitpa'el prefix changes places with it — and next to צ it hardens to ט, next to ז it voices to ד. Three outcomes across five letters, one phonetic reason, and a separate mechanism that is routinely confused with it.
- Hitpa'el Infinitive (להתלבש) and ImperativeA2 — The infinitive is לְ + הִתְ + stem and the imperative is that same word with the לְ knocked off — plus the one shape-trap of the binyan: להתלבש and להתחיל look identical and belong to different binyanim, and only the present tense tells you which is which.