Saying 'Let's': בוא / בואי / בואו נלך | Hebrew Grammar

Everyday Hebrew says “let's” with a tiny two-verb construction: בוא / בואי / בואו + first-person-plural future. Literally it begins “come,” but synchronically the whole unit proposes joint action: בוא נלך “let's go,” בואי נדבר “let's talk,” בואו נתחיל “let's begin.”

Two verbs, two different agreement jobs

The first verb agrees with the person or people being addressed. The second verb is always the we-form, because the proposed action includes the speaker.

Addressee	Opening	Joint action	Complete proposal
one man	בּוֹא bo	נֵלֵךְ nelékh	בוא נלך
one woman	בּוֹאִי bo'í	נֵלֵךְ nelékh	בואי נלך
a group	בּוֹאוּ bo'ú	נֵלֵךְ nelékh	בואו נלך

This split is easy to miss because English let's has no gender or number agreement. A man speaking to one woman still says בואי נלך: his own gender is irrelevant to בואי, and the following נלך remains plural because both people are meant to go.

בוא נלך, כבר מאוחר והרכבת האחרונה בעשר.

bo nelékh, kvar me'ukhár veharakévet ha'akharoná be'éser

Let's go; it's already late and the last train is at ten. (to one man; informal)

בואי נדבר על זה מחר כששתינו רגועות יותר.

bo'í nedabér al ze makhár ksheshtéinu regu'ót yotér

Let's talk about it tomorrow when we're both calmer. (female speaker to one woman; informal)

בואו נתחיל, נשארה לנו רק חצי שעה.

bo'ú natkhíl, nish'ará lánu rak khatsí sha'á

Let's start; we've only got half an hour left. (to a group; neutral spoken Hebrew)

💡

Read the seam in the construction: בואי says “I am addressing one woman”; נדבר says “you and I will do the talking.” Neither form copies the other.

The second verb is a finite נ־ form

The verb after בוא is not an infinitive. It is the ordinary first-person-plural future—the form that can independently mean “we will.” The construction therefore works across binyanim without any new “let's” paradigm.

Infinitive	1pl future	“Let's…”
לָלֶכֶת lalékhet	נֵלֵךְ nelékh	בוא נלך
לְדַבֵּר ledabér	נְדַבֵּר nedabér	בואי נדבר
לְהַתְחִיל lehatkhíl	נַתְחִיל natkhíl	בואו נתחיל
לְהַזְמִין lehazmín	נַזְמִין nazmín	בוא נזמין
לְהִישָּׁאֵר lehisha'ér	נִישָּׁאֵר nisha'ér	בואי נישאר

בוא נזמין משהו לאכול במקום לבשל עכשיו.

bo nazmín máshehu le'ekhól bimkóm levashél akhsháv

Let's order something to eat instead of cooking now. (to one man; informal)

בואי נישאר בבית, בחוץ יורד גשם בלי הפסקה.

bo'í nisha'ér babáyit, bakhúts yoréd géshem bli hafsaká

Let's stay home; it's raining nonstop outside. (to one woman; informal)

The full future patterns belong on regular pa'al future forms. For this construction, the practical habit is simple: retrieve the אנחנו future form, even when only one listener is present.

A bare we-question can do the same job

Hebrew can omit בוא entirely and use a first-person-plural future with rising question intonation. נלך?, נתחיל? and נזמין? are compact suggestions: “Shall we go/start/order?” The question form makes the proposal negotiable.

נלך? הסרט מתחיל בעוד עשרים דקות.

nelékh? haséret matkhíl be'ód esrím dakót

Shall we go? The film starts in twenty minutes. (informal)

נתחיל מהמטבח או מהסלון?

natkhíl mehamitbákh o mehasalón?

Shall we start with the kitchen or the living room? (neutral conversation)

נזמין עוד מנה אחת ונחלוק?

nazmín od maná akhát venakhalók?

Shall we order one more dish and share it? (informal restaurant conversation)

Without rising intonation, נלך is simply “we will go” or a firm plan. Context can still make it proposal-like, but the question contour is what most clearly supplies English “shall we?”

בוא נגיד: proposal or hedge

Sometimes בוא נגיד really proposes speaking: “let's tell/say.” Often, however, it introduces an approximation, assumption or deliberately simplified formulation. In that discourse use it means “let's say” in the sense of “suppose” or “roughly speaking,” not “come and perform a joint action.”

בוא נגיד להם את האמת לפני שהם שומעים ממישהו אחר.

bo nagíd lahém et ha'emét lifnéi shehém shom'ím mimíshehu akhér

Let's tell them the truth before they hear it from someone else. (to one man; an actual proposal)

בוא נגיד שהשיפוץ יעלה בערך חמישים אלף שקל.

bo nagíd shehashipúts ya'alé be'érekh khamishím élef shékel

Let's say the renovation will cost about fifty thousand shekels. (informal estimate; בוא נגיד hedges the figure)

The broader family of approximators and hedges belongs with כאילו and related discourse framing. Here the diagnostic is whether anyone is actually being invited to say something aloud.

💡

בוא נגיד is grammatically transparent and pragmatically partly frozen. Its morphology still says “come + we-will-say,” while its conversational job may be only to lower commitment to a claim.

הבה נלך is elevated, not extinct

Dictionaries often offer הבה for “let us.” It is a real modern option in literary prose, speeches, songs and deliberately elevated writing. It is not the ordinary conversational equivalent of English let's.

הבה נבחן את הנתונים לפני שנסיק מסקנות.

háva nivkhán et hanetuním lifnéi shenasík maskanót

Let us examine the data before drawing conclusions. (formal or academic rhetoric)

בואו נבדוק את הנתונים לפני שמחליטים.

bo'ú nivdók et hanetuním lifnéi shemakhlitím

Let's check the data before we decide. (to a group; lively neutral speech or writing)

The contrast is register, not life versus death. הבה remains available when elevation is wanted; בואו נ־ is also perfectly at home in lively written prose, advertising and workplace messages.

Common Mistakes

1. Hunting for an English-style verb “let.” נתן means “give” and can grant permission, but it does not build an inclusive proposal.

❌ תן אנחנו נלך למסעדה

Incorrect as ‘let's go to a restaurant’—an inclusive proposal is בוא נלך. תן would mean granting permission and needs a different syntax.

✅ בוא נלך למסעדה החדשה ליד התחנה.

bo nelékh lamis'adá hakhadashá leyád hatakhaná

Let's go to the new restaurant by the station. (to one man)

2. Putting an infinitive where Hebrew needs a finite we-form. The explicit pronoun exposes the English calque.

❌ בוא אנחנו ללכת עכשיו

Incorrect as ‘let's go now’—after בוא, use the finite first-person-plural future נלך, not the infinitive ללכת.

✅ בוא נלך עכשיו לפני שמתחיל הגשם.

bo nelékh akhsháv lifnéi shematkhíl hagéshem

Let's go now before the rain starts. (to one man)

3. Making בוא agree with the speaker. It agrees with the person addressed.

❌ את בוא נלך

Incorrect—the explicit feminine addressee את requires בואי: את, בואי נלך.

✅ בואי נלך ברגל, מזג האוויר מושלם.

bo'í nelékh barégel, mézeg ha'avír mushlám

Let's walk; the weather is perfect. (to one woman)

4. Mistaking a second-person sequence for “let's.” Both sentences below are grammatical, but only the first includes the speaker in the going.

✅ בואי נלך יחד.

bo'í nelékh yákhad

Let's go together. (to one woman; speaker and addressee go)

✅ בואי, תלכי איתם ואני אחכה פה.

bo'í, telkhí itám va'aní akhaké po

Come on, you go with them and I'll wait here. (to one woman; two commands, not a joint proposal)

Key Takeaways

Everyday “let's” is בוא / בואי / בואו + first-person-plural future.
בוא agrees with the addressee; the נ־ verb includes the speaker.
A bare we-future with rising intonation—נלך? נתחיל?—means “shall we…?”
בוא נגיד may be an actual proposal to speak or a frozen hedge meaning “let's say.”
הבה נ־ is live formal, literary and rhetorical Hebrew; בואו נ־ is the everyday form, including in lively writing.

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