The nif'al present behaves like every other Hebrew present: four forms, agreeing in gender and number, marking no person at all, so one form covers I, you and he. What is special about this binyan is not the paradigm. It is that the paradigm overlaps with the past tense, in a way that is invisible on the page and inaudible in the room.
The four forms, across four root classes
| Class | m. sg. | f. sg. | m. pl. | f. pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| שלמים · נכנס enter | נִכְנָס nikhnás | נִכְנֶסֶת nikhnéset | נִכְנָסִים nikhnasím | נִכְנָסוֹת nikhnasót |
| ל״א · נמצא be located | נִמְצָא nimtsá | נִמְצֵאת nimtsét | נִמְצָאִים nimtsa'ím | נִמְצָאוֹת nimtsa'ót |
| ל״ה · נראה look, seem | נִרְאֶה nir'é | נִרְאֵית nir'ét | נִרְאִים nir'ím | נִרְאוֹת nir'ót |
| final ע · נשמע sound | נִשְׁמָע nishmá | נִשְׁמַעַת nishmá'at | נִשְׁמָעִים nishma'ím | נִשְׁמָעוֹת nishma'ót |
Read down the feminine singular column and you will see the one piece of shape you have to learn here. The ending has two forms: ־ֶת after a sound third root letter — נִכְנֶסֶת, נִשְׁאֶרֶת, נִגְמֶרֶת, נִסְגֶּרֶת — and ־ֵית where the third letter is a ה or an א — נִרְאֵית, נִבְנֵית, נִמְצֵאת. A final ע takes neither: it pulls a patach in front of itself and gives נִשְׁמַעַת, exactly as the pa'al שׁוֹמַעַת does.
אני נכנס לישיבה, אדבר איתך אחר כך.
aní nikhnás lishivá, adabér itkhá akhár kakh
I'm going into a meeting — I'll talk to you later. (m. speaker, to a man)
איפה את נמצאת עכשיו? אני כבר בחנייה.
éifo at nimtsét akhsháv? aní kvar bakhanayá
Where are you right now? I'm already in the car park. (to a woman)
המסמכים נמצאים אצל עורך הדין, לא אצלי.
hamismakhím nimtsa'ím étsel orékh hadín, lo etslí
The documents are with the lawyer, not with me.
את נראית מצוין, איפה היית?
at nir'ét metsuyán, éifo hayít?
You look great — where have you been? (to a woman)
The collision at the heart of the binyan
Here is the fact that no textbook states plainly enough. In the שלמים class:
| Unpointed | Pointed | Cell | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| נכנס | נִכְנַס patach | past, he | nikhnás — the same |
| נִכְנָס kamatz | present, m. sg. |
The two cells differ by one vowel sign, and Israeli Hebrew pronounces patach and kamatz identically. So the past and the present of these verbs are not merely spelled alike — they are homophones. The same holds for נשאר, נגמר, נסגר and נשבר: each is two cells and one sound.
This is not the ordinary ambiguity of unpointed writing, where niqqud would settle the matter. Here niqqud settles the page and does nothing for the ear. Only the sentence resolves it — an adverb, a tense elsewhere in the clause, or the topic under discussion.
Nif'al is not the only place this happens. Pa'al's hollow verbs collide in the masculine singular too — הוא בא and הוא גר are past and present at once, and only the feminine pulls them apart, by stress (see stress in verbs). What is particular to nif'al is the scale: there it is not a handful of verbs but an entire regular class, so you meet it every day.
הוא נכנס לישיבה ברגע זה, תחזור אליו אחר כך.
hu nikhnás lishivá beréga ze, takhzór eláv akhár kakh
He's going into a meeting right now — get back to him later. (present; to a man)
הוא נכנס לישיבה באיחור ופספס את כל ההתחלה.
hu nikhnás lishivá be'ikhúr ufispés et kol hahatkhalá
He came into the meeting late and missed the whole opening. (past — and it sounds exactly like the sentence above)
נכנסת: one spelling, three cells — but three different sounds
Push the same observation into the feminine and it gets worse on the page and better in the ear:
| Unpointed | Pointed | Cell | Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| נכנסת | נִכְנֶסֶת | present, f. sg. | nikhnéset |
| נִכְנַסְתָּ | past, you (m.) | nikhnásta | |
| נִכְנַסְתְּ | past, you (f.) | nikhnást |
Three cells, one string — but three distinct pronunciations. So this collision, unlike נכנס, is purely graphic: a reader has to work, a listener does not. Read the pair below aloud and the difference is unmissable.
את נכנסת לאתר מהטלפון או מהמחשב?
at nikhnéset la'atár mehatélefon o mehamakhshév?
Do you log in from your phone or from the computer? (present, to a woman)
נכנסת לאתר אתמול? יש שם הודעה בשבילך.
nikhnást la'atár etmól? yesh sham hoda'á bishvilékh
Did you log in yesterday? There's a message there for you. (past, to a woman)
Where the collision does not happen
Generalising the ambiguity to the whole binyan is itself a mistake. In the ל״ה class the present and the past are plainly different words:
| Verb | present m. sg. | past, he |
|---|---|---|
| נראה | נִרְאֶה nir'é — looks, seems | נִרְאָה nir'á — looked, seemed |
| נבנה | נִבְנֶה nivné — is being built | נִבְנָה nivná — was built |
And in the ל״א class it is total: נִמְצָא is the present and the past third-person masculine, identical down to the last niqqud sign. There is no spelling anywhere that separates them.
הכלב נמצא אחרי יומיים, במרחק שני רחובות מהבית.
hakélev nimtsá akharéi yomáyim, bemerkhák shnei rekhovót mehabáyit
The dog was found after two days, two streets from the house. (past — 'was found')
הכלב נמצא בחצר, אל תפתח את הדלת.
hakélev nimtsá bekhatsér, al tiftákh et hadélet
The dog is in the yard — don't open the door. (present — 'is located'; to a man)
The reflex that has to be unlearned
English speakers arrive with a rule of thumb — a נ at the front means it was done to something — and it produces confident mistranslations. הוא נראה טוב is "he looks good", not "he was seen well". זה נשמע נורא is "that sounds terrible", not "that was heard terribly". נמצא in an ordinary sentence is "is located", not "was found", most of the time.
The binyan is a shape. What a particular verb means is a fact about that verb, and for נראה and נשמע the everyday meaning is the perception one — how something looks or sounds to you. Those two have their own page, נראה and נשמע.
זה נשמע כמו רעיון טוב, אבל אין לנו תקציב.
ze nishmá kmo ra'yón tov, avál ein lánu taktsív
That sounds like a good idea, but we don't have the budget.
החדר נראה קטן בתמונות אבל הוא בסדר גמור.
hakhéder nir'é katán batmunót avál hu beséder gamúr
The room looks small in the photos but it's perfectly fine.
Common Mistakes
1. Putting the wrong feminine ending on the verb. The two endings are not interchangeable, and mixing them is the standard error in this paradigm.
❌ היא נראת עייפה בזמן האחרון
Incorrect — a ל״ה verb takes ־ֵית, not ־ֶת. The form is נראית. ־ֶת belongs to sound roots: נכנסת, נשארת, נגמרת.
✅ היא נראית עייפה בזמן האחרון, אולי כדאי שתנוח.
hi nir'ét ayefá bazmán ha'akharón, ulái kdai shetanúakh
She's been looking tired lately — maybe she should get some rest.
2. Using נמצא to mean "find". נמצא is where something is, or that it turned up. The person doing the finding needs the pa'al verb מצא.
❌ אני נמצא את המפתחות כל בוקר מחדש
Incorrect — נמצא is intransitive and cannot take את. Finding something is מוצא: אני מוצא את המפתחות.
✅ אני מוצא את המפתחות כל בוקר במקום אחר.
aní motsé et hamaftekhót kol bóker bemakóm akhér
Every morning I find my keys somewhere else. (m. speaker)
3. A feminine plural subject with a masculine plural verb. The present agrees with its subject in gender and number, and ־ים is the masculine, not a general plural.
❌ החנויות נסגרים בשבע בערב
Incorrect — חנויות is feminine plural, so the verb is נסגרות. ־ים would need a masculine subject.
✅ החנויות נסגרות בשבע, אז תזדרזי.
hakhanuyót nisgarót beshéva, az tizdarzí
The shops close at seven, so get a move on. (to a woman)
Key Takeaways
- Four forms, gender and number only: נִכְנָס · נִכְנֶסֶת · נִכְנָסִים · נִכְנָסוֹת.
- The feminine singular has two endings: ־ֶת after a sound third radical (נכנסת, נשארת) and ־ֵית after ל״ה or א (נראית, נבנית, נמצאת). A final ע takes a patach instead: נשמעת.
- נכנס is both the present masculine and the past "he" — kamatz against patach, which Israeli Hebrew does not distinguish. Same for נשאר, נגמר, נסגר, נשבר. Context alone resolves it.
- נכנסת is three cells in one spelling — נִכְנֶסֶת, נִכְנַסְתָּ, נִכְנַסְתְּ — but three different sounds, so this one is a reading problem, not a listening problem.
- The collision is a שלמים phenomenon. ל״ה keeps them apart (nir'é against nir'á), and ל״א merges them completely (נִמְצָא is both, niqqud and all).
- A נ at the front does not mean "was done to". הוא נראה טוב is he looks good; זה נשמע טוב is that sounds good.
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Start learning Hebrew →Related Topics
- בניין נפעל: Passive and MiddleA2 — nif'al wears a נ in the past and the present and hides it everywhere else — and it is not simply the passive of pa'al, because נכנס, נשאר and נגמר have no active partner anywhere in the language.
- Nif'al Past: נכנסתי, נשארת, נגמרA2 — The endings are the ones pa'al already taught you, so a new binyan in the past tense means learning one stem, not nine forms — plus the frame Israelis actually use these verbs in: נגמר לי הכסף, נשאר לי רק שקל.
- נראה and נשמע: Seeming and SoundingB1 — Two nif'al verbs whose everyday meanings have drifted a long way from 'is seen' and 'is heard'. נראה means looks or seems, נשמע means sounds — and both are homographs with a pa'al future, so the same four letters can be three different verbs.
- How to Read a Hebrew Verb TableB1 — The Hebrew labels on a conjugation table, why the present has only four cells, and the two things that mislead learners most — tables that print forms nobody says, and unpointed forms that collapse two cells into one string.