Nif'al Future: ייכנס, תיכנסי, ניכנס | Hebrew Grammar

This is where nif'al stops looking like itself. The נ that identifies the binyan in the past and the present is gone from the future — and in its place the first root letter has doubled and the prefix has taken a chirik. Learn to read that trade and the whole tense opens up.

The paradigm

Subject	Pointed	Ktiv male	Reading
אני	אֶכָּנֵס	אכנס	ekanés
אתה	תִּכָּנֵס	תיכנס	tikanés
את	תִּכָּנְסִי	תיכנסי	tikansí
הוא	יִכָּנֵס	ייכנס	yikanés
היא	תִּכָּנֵס	תיכנס	tikanés
אנחנו	נִכָּנֵס	ניכנס	nikanés
אתם / אתן	תִּכָּנְסוּ	תיכנסו	tikansú
הם / הן	יִכָּנְסוּ	ייכנסו	yikansú

Four more verbs on the identical frame — once you have one, you have the class:

Verb	הוא	Ktiv male	Verb	הוא	Ktiv male
נשאר stay	יִשָּׁאֵר	יישאר	נגמר end	יִגָּמֵר	ייגמר
נשבר break	יִשָּׁבֵר	יישבר	נפגש meet	יִפָּגֵשׁ	ייפגש

Where the נ went

The נ of nif'al has no vowel of its own. A vowelless consonant standing directly in front of another consonant assimilates into it, and Hebrew records the merger by putting a dagesh chazak — a doubling dot — in the letter that swallowed it. So yin-kanés becomes yikanés, written יִכָּנֵס: the dagesh in the כּ is the נ.

The prefix vowel follows from that. A syllable closed by a doubled consonant takes a short vowel, which is why the prefix has a chirik: יִכָּנֵס, תִּכָּנֵס, נִכָּנֵס. Only the first person is different — אֶכָּנֵס, with a segol, exactly as pa'al has אֶכְתּוֹב beside יִכְתּוֹב. That small fact turns out to matter for the spelling.

אני אכנס אליך בדרך חזרה מהעבודה.

aní ekanés elékha badérekh khazará meha'avodá

I'll drop in on you on the way back from work. (to a man)

השיעור ייגמר בשש, אז נוכל להיפגש אחרי.

hashi'úr yigamér beshésh, az nukhál lehipagésh akharéi

The class ends at six, so we can meet afterwards.

ניכנס רגע לסופר או שנמשיך הביתה?

nikanés réga lasúper o shenamshíkh habáyta?

Shall we pop into the supermarket or carry on home?

The spelling, which is most of the practical difficulty

Unpointed Hebrew writes an i with a yod, and a chirik standing in front of a doubled consonant is exactly such an i — the doubling does not close the syllable for spelling purposes. That is the same rule that gives מילה and אימא their yod (see the ktiv male rules), and here it produces the shapes you will actually meet: ייכנס, תיכנס, ניכנס, ייגמר, יישאר.

The two yods of ייכנס are not a doubled letter. They are two different rules meeting in one spot:

Letter	What it is	Rule
first י	the future prefix — a consonant, y	a consonantal י at the start of a word is written once
second י	the vowel i under it	a chirik before a doubled consonant is written with a yod

And one cell refuses the yod. The first-person singular is אֶכָּנֵס — a segol, not a chirik. The yod in this paradigm is marking an i, so where there is no i there is nothing to mark, and the ktiv male is אכנס, plain. It is the only cell in the table without a yod, and Pealim spells it that way too.

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Do not fix this by analogy. The Academy's spelling rules give a yod for i, and for the e that is standing in for an i after א ה ח ע ר — but not for an ordinary e. אֶכָּנֵס has an ordinary segol, the same one pa'al has in אֶכְתּוֹב (written אכתוב, never *איכתוב). In the tsere sub-class below the situation reverses, and there the first person does take the yod.

When the first root letter cannot be doubled

א, ה, ח, ע and ר never take a dagesh. With one of them as the first root letter there is nothing to absorb the נ, so the prefix vowel lengthens to a tsere instead — the compensation called תשלום דגש. The Academy holds this to be the regular behaviour of the binyan with a guttural first radical: no dagesh, and a tsere where the chirik would have stood.

Verb	אני	הוא	Ktiv male (הוא)	Reading
נראה look, seem	אֵרָאֶה · איראה	יֵרָאֶה	ייראה	yera'é
נעלם disappear	אֵעָלֵם · איעלם	יֵעָלֵם	ייעלם	ye'além
נאמר be said	אֵאָמֵר · איאמר	יֵאָמֵר	ייאמר	ye'amér
נחשב be considered	אֵחָשֵׁב · איחשב	יֵחָשֵׁב	ייחשב	yekhashév
נרדם fall asleep	אֵרָדֵם · אירדם	יֵרָדֵם	יירדם	yeradém

This tsere is a demoted chirik — it is only there because the guttural refused the dagesh — and the spelling rules treat it as one, so it keeps its yod, in every cell including the first person: אירדם, איעלם, איראה. The upshot for a reader is convenient: whichever sub-class a verb belongs to, its future opens with two yods.

כל מה שייאמר כאן יישאר בחדר הזה.

kol ma sheye'amér kan yisha'ér bakhéder hazé

Everything said here stays in this room.

זה ייראה מוזר אם לא נבוא בכלל.

ze yera'é muzár im lo navó bikhlál

It'll look strange if we don't come at all.

Two look-alikes worth pausing on

תיכנס is two cells — you (masculine) and she — with nothing in the form to separate them, exactly as pa'al's תכתוב is. The pronoun or the context does the work.

היא תיכנס אחרי הפגישה ואתה תיכנס אחריה.

hi tikanés akharéi hapgishá ve'atá tikanés akharéha

She'll go in after the meeting and you'll go in after her. (to a man)

הדלת תיסגר לבד, אל תחזיק אותה.

hadélet tisagér levád, al takhzík otá

The door will close on its own — don't hold it. (to a man — and תיסגר here is the 'she' reading, agreeing with הדלת)

ניכנס and נכנס are different words and different spellings. נִכָּנֵס "we will go in" has a chirik before a doubled letter, so it takes a yod — ניכנס. נִכְנַס "he went in" has a chirik before a shva nach, and the rules give no yod there — נכנס. The orthography keeps them apart perfectly; it is a fast reader's eye that fails, because the words differ by a single letter and by two tenses.

אתמול הוא נכנס לבד, היום ניכנס איתו.

etmól hu nikhnás levád, hayóm nikanés itó

Yesterday he went in on his own; today we'll go in with him.

The feminine plural, and what Israelis say

Classical Hebrew has separate second- and third-person feminine plural forms: תִּכָּנַסְנָה (with תִּכָּנֵסְנָה as a published variant), unpointed תיכנסנה. In today's Hebrew the masculine plural covers both genders — תיכנסו to a group of women, ייכנסו for them — and that is not a tolerated slip. The Academy's position is that both the classical feminine forms and the masculine-for-feminine usage are normative, the classical ones simply being rare in speech.

So: use תיכנסו and ייכנסו for everyone, recognise תיכנסנה when you meet it in a formal or older text, and do not carry it into conversation. What you must produce correctly is תיכנסי, the feminine singular — that one is fully alive and its absence is heard immediately.

תיכנסי רגע, אני רוצה להראות לך משהו.

tikansí réga, aní rotsé lehar'ót lakh máshehu

Come in for a second, I want to show you something. (to a woman)

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You will constantly hear אני ייכנס, אני יישאר — first-person subject, third-person verb. This is ordinary spoken Israeli Hebrew (informal), not a mistake being made by people who do not know better, and it is worth recognising rather than correcting. In writing, and in any careful register, the first person is אכנס, אשאר, איראה.

אני ייכנס אחריך, אין לי לחץ.

aní yikanés akharékha, ein li lákhats

I'll go in after you, I'm in no rush. (informal — the everyday spoken first person, to a man)

Common Mistakes

1. Keeping the נ in the future. It is already there, inside the dagesh.

❌ אני אנכנס לישיבה בעשר

Incorrect — the נ of the binyan has assimilated into the כ, which is why that letter is doubled. It is never written twice. The first person is אכנס.

✅ אני אכנס לישיבה בעשר ואצא ברבע לאחת.

aní ekanés lishivá be'éser ve'etsé beréva le'akhát

I'm going into a meeting at ten and I'll be out at quarter to one.

2. Writing one yod where the form needs two. In ktiv male this is not a near miss — it is a different word.

❌ הוא יכנס לפגישה בעשר

Incorrect as a spelling of yikanés: with one yod, יכנס is the pi'el יְכַנֵּס, 'he will convene'. The nif'al future takes two — ייכנס.

✅ הוא ייכנס לפגישה בעשר ויצא בעשר וחצי.

hu yikanés lapgishá be'éser veyetsé be'éser vakhétsi

He'll go into the meeting at ten and come out at half past.

3. Writing the 1st person plural future without its yod. ניכנס and נכנס are two tenses.

❌ אנחנו נכנס מחר בבוקר לבנק

Incorrect as ktiv male — נכנס is the past and present 'went in / goes in'. The future 'we will go in' has a chirik before a doubled letter, so it takes a yod: ניכנס.

✅ אנחנו ניכנס מחר בבוקר לבנק ונסגור את זה.

anákhnu nikanés makhár babóker labánk venisgór et ze

We'll go into the bank tomorrow morning and get it sorted.

Key Takeaways

The נ of nif'al assimilates into the first root letter, which is why that letter carries a dagesh and the prefix carries a chirik: יִכָּנֵס, תִּכָּנֵס, נִכָּנֵס.
Unpointed, that chirik is written with a yod, giving the binyan's signature spellings: ייכנס, תיכנס, תיכנסי, ניכנס, ייגמר, יישאר.
The two yods of ייכנס are two rules, not a doubling: the first is the consonantal prefix, the second is the vowel.
The first person singular is אכנס, with no yod — its prefix vowel is a plain segol, exactly like pa'al's אכתוב.
With א, ה, ח, ע or ר as the first root letter there is no dagesh and the prefix takes a tsere (יֵרָאֶה, יֵעָלֵם, יֵאָמֵר). That tsere stands in for a chirik, so it keeps the yod in every cell — including איראה, איעלם, אירדם.
תיכנס is both you (m.) and she. ניכנס (future, we) and נכנס (past/present, he) differ by exactly one yod.
Use תיכנסו / ייכנסו for groups of either gender; תיכנסנה is normative but confined to formal and older writing. תיכנסי is fully alive and must be produced.

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