huf'al is the passive of hif'il, and everything else on this page follows from that one sentence. It is not a meaning you reach for — it is what a hif'il verb turns into when the thing acted on becomes the subject: הזמין "invited" gives הוזמן "was invited", הדפיס "printed" gives הודפס, הגיש "served, submitted" gives הוגש, הכין "prepared" gives הוכן, הבין "understood" gives הובן.
Three tenses, and that is the entire inventory
Pealim's entry for להזמין prints the hif'il side with five sections — present, past, future, imperative, infinitive — and then prints the huf'al side with three. There is no infinitive row and no imperative row. They are not marked rare or literary; the cells are simply not there.
That is not a hole in the table. A passive has nobody to command. An imperative addresses whoever will do the thing, and the subject of a huf'al verb is precisely the participant who does not act. The infinitive goes the same way: the huf'al stem exists only carrying a prefix (מ־, ה־, י־, ת־, א־, נ־), and Hebrew never grew a bare ל־ form for it.
| Tense | ז־מ־ן, pointed | Written (bare) | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present, m. sg. | מוּזְמָן | מוזמן | muzmán |
| Past, 3ms | הוּזְמַן | הוזמן | huzmán |
| Past, 3fs | הוּזְמְנָה | הוזמנה | huzmená |
| Future, 3ms | יוּזְמַן | יוזמן | yuzmán |
| Infinitive | — does not exist — | ||
| Imperative | — does not exist — | ||
המזכירות הזמינה את כל המשפחות לטקס הסיום.
hamazkirút hizmína et kol hamishpakhót letékes hasiyúm
The school office invited all the families to the graduation ceremony. (hif'il — active)
כל המשפחות הוזמנו, אבל באולם יש מקום למאה וחמישים איש בלבד.
kol hamishpakhót huzmenú, avál ba'ulám yesh makóm leme'á vakhamishím ish bilvád
All the families were invited, but the hall only seats a hundred and fifty. (huf'al — formal, written)
The signature: a u immediately after the prefix
Every huf'al form carries a u in the syllable right after its prefix, and in real written Hebrew that u is a vav. So מוזמן, הוזמן, יוזמן, תוזמן, אוזמן and נוזמן all show it in the same slot, one letter in from the front.
Reference grammars print the classical ktiv-haser pointing, a kubuts with no vav, so you will meet מֻזְמָן and הֻזְמַן on the page. Modern spelling writes the vav and points it as a shuruk — מוּזְמָן, הוּזְמַן. Same word, same sound; only the convention differs.
| Reference pointing (ktiv haser) | Modern pointing (ktiv male) | What you read | |
|---|---|---|---|
| present | מֻזְמָן | מוּזְמָן | מוזמן |
| past | הֻזְמַן | הוּזְמַן | הוזמן |
| future | יֻזְמַן | יוּזְמַן | יוזמן |
One system, not two isolated facts
That u is not a quirk of huf'al. Both of Hebrew's derived passives make the same swap: they replace the active's first stem vowel with /u/. pi'el's i (סִידֵּר) becomes pu'al's u (סוּדַּר); hif'il's i (הִזְמִין) becomes huf'al's u (הוּזְמַן). Learn the pair as one rule and both binyanim become predictable.
| Active | Its passive | Present of the passive |
|---|---|---|
| pi'el סִידֵּר sidér arranged | pu'al סוּדַּר sudár | מְסוּדָּר mesudár |
| pi'el פִּירְסֵם pirsém published | pu'al פּוּרְסַם pursám | מְפוּרְסָם mefursám |
| hif'il הִזְמִין hizmín invited | huf'al הוּזְמַן huzmán | מוּזְמָן muzmán |
| hif'il הִדְפִּיס hidpís printed | huf'al הוּדְפַּס hudpás | מוּדְפָּס mudpás |
nif'al does not play along, and it is worth saying so explicitly because the rule looks like it should be general. כתב gives נכתב, with a נ־ prefix and no u anywhere. So "the passive has a u" is true of pu'al and huf'al and false of nif'al.
הכול מוכן, רק צריך לחמם את זה שתי דקות.
hakól mukhán, rak tsaríkh lekhamém et ze shtei dakót
It's all ready — it just needs two minutes to warm up.
מה שאמרת בפגישה לא הובן נכון, כדאי שתסביר שוב.
ma she'amárta bapgishá lo huván nakhón, kedái shetasbír shuv
What you said in the meeting didn't come across the way you meant it — you should explain it again. (to a man)
Those two are worth a second look for their roots, because they look like twins and are not: מוכן belongs to כ־ו־ן (הכין), and מובן belongs to ב־י־ן (הבין). Both are hollow verbs whose middle radical vanishes in the huf'al, which is why both end up as a bare hu-CaC shape.
The pairing is lexical, not a switch you flip
You cannot manufacture a huf'al from any hif'il on demand. Conjugation sites will happily generate a full huf'al table for every hif'il verb they hold, including verbs no Israeli has ever passivised, so a printed paradigm is not evidence that a form is in use. Corpus counts sort it out quickly: on Hebrew Wikipedia הצליח "succeeded" appears 25,835 times and its supposed passive הוצלח *zero times; התחיל appears 12,106 times against 13 for הותחל. Meanwhile הוסכם "it was agreed" appears 1,529 times and הוזמן 4,831, because those are verbs whose result people genuinely talk about afterwards.
The reason is not mysterious: an intransitive hif'il — הצליח, הגיע — has no object to promote, so there is nothing for a passive to do. Treat huf'al like an irregular plural: learn it with the verb, from reading, and do not derive it.
הוסכם בין הצדדים שהתשלום יתבצע בשלושה תשלומים.
huskám bein hatsdadím shehatashlúm yitbatsá bishloshá tashlumím
It was agreed between the parties that payment would be made in three instalments. (legal / contractual)
Where the binyan actually lives
Two places, and neither of them is casual conversation.
The first is participles that have hardened into ordinary adjectives — מוכן "ready", מובן "obvious", מוגבל "limited", מוגזם "over the top", מודאג "worried". Most learners use several of these fluently for a year before anyone mentions that they are huf'al forms, and that drift has its own page.
The second is written institutional Hebrew: news bulletins, municipal notices, minutes, contracts, army paperwork. הוחלט, הועבר, הוגש and הוארך are ordinary vocabulary there and would sound like a press release in a kitchen conversation. That register has its own page too.
הטופס הוגש בזמן, אז אני לא מבין למה הם דוחים אותנו.
hatófes hugásh bazmán, az aní lo mevín láma hem dokhím otánu
The form was submitted on time, so I don't see why they keep putting us off. (m. speaker)
"I was invited" is a register choice, not a rule
English speakers reach for הוזמנתי because English says I was invited. The Hebrew form is perfectly grammatical — it is simply written register. In speech an Israeli almost always uses the agentless third-person plural instead, which is the subject of the impersonal plural.
הוזמנתי להרצות בכנס בפעם הראשונה בחיי.
huzmánti lehartsót bakénes bapá'am harishoná bekhayái
I was invited to speak at a conference for the first time in my life. (written / formal)
הזמינו אותי להרצות בכנס, אני עדיין בהלם.
hizmínu otí lehartsót bakénes, aní adáyin behélem
They've invited me to speak at a conference — I'm still in shock. (the same fact, everyday speech)
Common Mistakes
1. Building a huf'al infinitive. English has to be printed as freely as to print, so learners assemble a ל־ form for a binyan that has none.
❌ הדוח צריך להודפס לפני הפגישה
Incorrect — huf'al has no infinitive; there is no such word as להודפס. Restructure with the active infinitive: צריך להדפיס את הדוח.
✅ צריך להדפיס את הדוח לפני שהם מגיעים, אין לנו זמן לחכות.
tsaríkh lehadpís et hadóakh lifnéi shehém magi'ím, ein lánu zman lekhakót
The report needs printing before they get here — we haven't got time to wait.
2. Ordering someone around in the passive. "Get it submitted by Sunday!" looks like it wants a passive command.
❌ הוגש את הבקשה עד יום ראשון!
Incorrect on two counts — huf'al has no imperative, and a passive cannot take a direct object with את. The command is the hif'il: תגיש את הבקשה עד יום ראשון.
✅ תגישי את הבקשה עד יום ראשון, אחרת מפסידים את המועד.
tagíshi et habakashá ad yom rishón, akhéret mafsidím et hamo'éd
Submit the application by Sunday, or we miss the deadline. (to a woman — the future form doing everyday imperative duty)
3. Dropping the vav in ktiv male. Reference grammars point the kubuts with no vav (הֻזְמַנְתִּי), so a learner copying from a textbook writes הזמנתי — which is a different verb in the opposite voice.
❌ הזמנתי לחתונה של החברה הכי טובה שלי
Incorrect as ktiv male — the huf'al is written with a vav: הוזמנתי. Bare הזמנתי is the hif'il active 'I invited', so the sentence says you did the inviting.
✅ הוזמנתי לחתונה של החברה הכי טובה שלי.
huzmánti lakhatuná shel hakhaverá hakhí tová shelí
I was invited to my best friend's wedding.
4. Reaching for huf'al for every English passive. The passive Hebrew uses is decided by the active verb's own binyan, not by English.
❌ הפגישה הובטלה בלי הודעה מראש
Incorrect — ביטל is pi'el, so its passive is the pu'al בוטלה. הובטלה is not a Hebrew word at all: huf'al is available only to verbs whose active is hif'il.
✅ הפגישה בוטלה, מסתבר שחצי מהמשתתפים חולים.
hapgishá butlá, mistabér shekhatsí mehamishtatfím kholím
The meeting's been cancelled — turns out half the participants are ill.
Key Takeaways
- huf'al is hif'il's passive and nothing else. הזמין → הוזמן, הדפיס → הודפס, הגיש → הוגש, הכין → הוכן, הבין → הובן.
- It has present, past and future only. Pealim's להזמין entry prints five sections for hif'il and three for huf'al: no infinitive, no imperative, because a passive has no agent to command.
- The marker is a u right after the prefix, written with a vav: מוזמן, הוזמן, יוזמן, תוזמן, אוזמן, נוזמן.
- Reference grammars point it as a kubuts with no vav (מֻזְמָן); modern spelling writes the vav and points it as a shuruk (מוּזְמָן). Same word.
- Both derived passives swap /u/ into the active's first stem vowel — pi'el סִידֵּר → pu'al סוּדַּר, hif'il הִזְמִין → huf'al הוּזְמַן. nif'al does not: כתב → נכתב.
- The pairing is lexical. A conjugation table will generate הוצלח; the corpus has zero of them. Learn each huf'al with its verb.
- Watch the roots: מוכן is כ־ו־ן (הכין) and מובן is ב־י־ן (הבין), two hollow verbs that end up looking alike.
- The binyan's real life is in adjectival participles (מוכן, מובן, מוגבל, מוגזם) and in written institutional Hebrew. In speech, הזמינו אותי beats הוזמנתי by a wide margin.
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- בניין הפעיל: Causative and Much MoreA2 — Hif'il is the third of the everyday active binyanim, and the one whose ה prefix keeps vanishing: it is there in הִתְחִיל, gone in מַתְחִיל and יַתְחִיל, back again in לְהַתְחִיל. Its other signature is a long i in the stem — and its reputation as 'the causative' will mislead you within a week.
- בניין פועל: The Passive of Pi'elB2 — pu'al is not a binyan you choose — it is the passive shadow of a pi'el verb, it has only three tenses because a passive has nobody to command, and most learners meet it as an adjective years before they meet it as a verb.
- Huf'al Participles as Adjectives: מוכן, מוגבל, מובןB2 — The everyday half of the binyan — eight participles that dictionaries now list twice, once as a verb form and once as an adjective in its own right, plus the two root traps (מותר, מוכר) that the standard accounts get wrong.
- Huf'al Present: מוזמן, מודפס, מוגשB1 — Four cells, a vav one letter in from the front, and the reason a menu says מוגש while a receptionist says מוזמנת — plus the two other מ־forms this one is genuinely confused with.
- Huf'al Past and Future: הוזמן, יוזמןC1 — The finite half of the binyan — nine past cells, a future built on the same stem, and one written string, הוזמנו, that means both 'we were invited' and 'they were invited' with nothing but niqqud to tell them apart.