Pa'al Future: Regular Roots (אכתוב, תכתוב, יכתוב…) | Hebrew Grammar

The past hangs the person on the end of the verb; the future bolts it on the front. Four prefix letters do the whole job — א, י, ת, נ — with two suffixes added in three cells, and those affixes are identical in every binyan. What changes from verb to verb is only the vowel sitting between the second and third root letters, and this page is largely about that vowel.

The paradigm

Subject	Pointed	Written	Reading
אֲנִי	אֶכְתּוֹב	אכתוב	ekhtóv
אַתָּה	תִּכְתּוֹב	תכתוב	tikhtóv
אַתְּ	תִּכְתְּבִי	תכתבי	tikhteví
הוּא	יִכְתּוֹב	יכתוב	yikhtóv
הִיא	תִּכְתּוֹב	תכתוב	tikhtóv — identical to אַתָּה
אֲנַחְנוּ	נִכְתּוֹב	נכתוב	nikhtóv
אַתֶּם / אַתֶּן	תִּכְתְּבוּ	תכתבו	tikhtevú
הֵם / הֵן	יִכְתְּבוּ	יכתבו	yikhtevú
classical אַתֶּן / הֵן	תִּכְתּוֹבְנָה	תכתובנה	tikhtóvna — see below

Read the prefix column on its own and the system is four letters: א for I, נ for we, י for he and they, ת for everything second-person plus she. Then two suffixes: ־י marks a single female addressee, ־וּ marks any plural. Israeli schools teach the prefix letters as the mnemonic word אית״ן eitán, and the letters never change from binyan to binyan even though the vowel under them does — the argument is on suffix conjugation vs prefix conjugation.

אשמור לך את המנה בתנור.

eshmór lekhá et hamaná batanúr

I'll keep your food warm in the oven for you. (to a man)

אנחנו נסגור מוקדם בערב חג.

anákhnu nisgór mukdám be'érev khag

We close early on the eve of a holiday.

תכתבי לי כשתגיעי, אני לא הולך לישון עד אז.

tikhteví li kshetagí'i, aní lo holékh lishón ad az

Text me when you get in — I'm not going to sleep until you do. (m. speaker, to a woman)

Two more cholam verbs, and one that is not

Subject	ש־מ־ר	ס־ג־ר	ל־מ־ד (patach class)
אֲנִי	אֶשְׁמוֹר eshmór	אֶסְגּוֹר esgór	אֶלְמַד elmád
אַתָּה / הִיא	תִּשְׁמוֹר tishmór	תִּסְגּוֹר tisgór	תִּלְמַד tilmád
אַתְּ	תִּשְׁמְרִי tishmerí	תִּסְגְּרִי tisgerí	תִּלְמְדִי tilmedí
הוּא	יִשְׁמוֹר yishmór	יִסְגּוֹר yisgór	יִלְמַד yilmád
אֲנַחְנוּ	נִשְׁמוֹר nishmór	נִסְגּוֹר nisgór	נִלְמַד nilmád
אַתֶּם / אַתֶּן	תִּשְׁמְרוּ tishmerú	תִּסְגְּרוּ tisgerú	תִּלְמְדוּ tilmedú
הֵם / הֵן	יִשְׁמְרוּ yishmerú	יִסְגְּרוּ yisgerú	יִלְמְדוּ yilmedú

The cholam is a default, not a rule. A substantial class of perfectly regular pa'al verbs takes a patach instead — לָמַד gives אֶלְמַד and יִלְמַד, with no o anywhere. Among sound roots the split is lexical — a property of the individual verb, not something the consonants or the meaning let you compute. Statives do cluster in the patach class (יִגְדַּל yigdál "will grow"), but that is a tendency, not a test: לָמַד sits there too and is anything but stative. The vowel is learned with the verb, the way you learn a German noun's gender. Which verbs take which, and the partial predictions that do exist, are on the pa'al future vowel.

אם יהיה לי זמן, אלמד ערבית בשנה הבאה.

im yihyé li zman, elmád aravít bashaná haba'á

If I've got the time, I'll take up Arabic next year.

The theme vowel does not survive a suffix

Compare יִכְתּוֹב with יִכְתְּבוּ. The cholam is gone — and so is the patach of יִלְמַד in יִלְמְדוּ. Whenever ־י or ־וּ is attached to a pa'al future, the stress moves onto the ending and the theme vowel reduces to a shva that Israelis do not pronounce at all: yikhteví, yikhtevú, tishmerú, tilmedú.

This is the single most productive error in the whole paradigm, because the endings look like they should just be added on. They are not: the ending arrives and the vowel leaves.

💡

Do not carry that stress rule out of pa'al. In hif'il and in hollow (ע״ו) verbs the ending is added but the beat stays on the stem: תַּגִּידִי tagídi, יַגִּידוּ yagídu, בּוֹאִי bó'i, יָבוֹאוּ yavó'u — never tagidí or yavo'ú. The example above says kshetagí'i for exactly this reason.

הם ישמרו על הבית שלנו בזמן שאנחנו בחוץ לארץ.

hem yishmerú al habáyit shelánu bizmán she'anákhnu bekhúts la'árets

They'll look after our place while we're abroad.

One yod or two: the spelling rule that is usually stated wrongly

Sound-root pa'al futures are written with a single yod: יכתוב, ישמור, יסגור, ילמד. The doubled ייכתב you have seen belongs to nif'al — but "double yod means nif'al" is the wrong generalisation, and it will fail you on the very first weak root you meet.

The actual rule is about sound, not binyan: a chirik standing before a doubled consonant is written with a yod in ktiv male. nif'al happens to satisfy it constantly, because its future doubles the first root letter — יִיכָּתֵב, יִיכָּנֵס. But so do a large group of pa'al verbs, wherever a נ has assimilated into the next letter and left a dagesh behind:

Pointed	Ktiv male	Why
יִכְתּוֹב yikhtóv	יכתוב	pa'al, sound root — nothing is doubled, one yod
יִפּוֹל yipól	ייפול	pa'al נ־פ־ל — the נ assimilated, פּ is doubled
יִתֵּן yitén	ייתן	pa'al נ־ת־ן — same assimilation
יִכָּנֵס yikanés	ייכנס	nif'al — the binyan doubles the first root letter

אם תיקח מונית, תגיע בעשר דקות.

im tikákh monít, tagía be'éser dakót

If you take a taxi you'll be there in ten minutes. (to a man — תיקח, two yods, because the ק is doubled)

תיזהר, הכוס תיפול.

tizahér, hakós tipól

Careful — that glass is going to go over. (to a man)

💡

Test the spelling by asking whether the consonant after the prefix is long, not which binyan you are in. Nothing is doubled in yikhtóv, so one yod; the p of yipól and the k of yikanés both carry a dagesh, so two.

תכתוב is two different people

The prefix ת־ serves you (masculine singular) and she, and no suffix separates them. This collision runs through the future of every verb in the language and never resolves morphologically — the pronoun or the context has to do it.

אתה תסגור את המשרד או שהיא תסגור?

atá tisgór et hamisrád o shehí tisgór?

Are you locking up the office or is she? (one form, two subjects)

That is the main reason Hebrew keeps its subject pronouns in the future far more readily than in the past: dropping אתה or היא here costs information the verb cannot recover.

The ־נָה forms

Classical Hebrew has a separate feminine plural in the future: תִּכְתּוֹבְנָה for both אַתֶּן and הֵן. It is still normative — the Academy of the Hebrew Language treats it and the plural ־וּ forms as two acceptable options, the classical one simply being rare in speech — and you will meet it in the Bible, in liturgy, in poetry and in some formal writing. What you will not meet is an Israeli producing it.

In ordinary Hebrew, of any register you are likely to speak: יכתבו covers a group of women and תכתבו covers female addressees. Do not learn the ־נָה column as a form to produce; learn it as a form to recognise. תכתבי, by contrast, is fully alive and has to be produced correctly — using תכתוב to a woman is a straightforward agreement error, not a stylistic choice.

הבנות ישמרו על התיקים ואנחנו נלך להביא קפה.

habanót yishmerú al hatikím va'anákhnu nelékh lehaví kafé

The girls will watch the bags and we'll go and get coffee. (a group of women takes ישמרו in ordinary Hebrew)

💡

You will also hear Israelis say אני יכתוב, אני יגיד, אני יבוא — the third-person י־ prefix used for I. It is genuinely widespread in colloquial speech, and it is also the most heavily stigmatised feature of Israeli Hebrew: it is corrected in school, edited out of writing, and used in fiction to mark a speaker's register. Recognise it; do not produce it. The first-person prefix is א־.

The future does far more than refer to the future — it supplies everyday commands (תכתוב לי), everything after כדי ש and אולי, and wishes and suggestions. Those uses are on the future as an imperative and what the future tense actually does.

Common Mistakes

1. Adding the plural ending to the unchanged form. The vowel is not a fixed part of the stem.

❌ הם ישמורו לנו מקום

Incorrect — the cholam drops when ־וּ arrives: ישמרו, yishmerú. The patach class reduces the same way: ילמדו is yilmedú, never yilmadú.

✅ הם ישמרו לנו מקום בשורה הראשונה.

hem yishmerú lánu makóm bashurá harishoná

They'll save us seats in the front row.

2. Giving a feminine subject the י־ prefix. English he will and she will are the same two words, so the split has to be added rather than translated.

❌ היא יסגור את הדלת

Incorrect — the third-person feminine takes ת־, exactly like the second-person masculine: היא תסגור.

✅ היא תסגור את הדלת אחריה, אל תדאג.

hi tisgór et hadélet akharéiha, al tid'ág

She'll shut the door behind her, don't worry. (to a man)

3. Writing a sound root with two yods. The double yod is triggered by a doubled consonant, and a sound-root pa'al has none.

❌ הוא ייסגור את החנות בשמונה

Incorrect — nothing is doubled in yisgór, so it is written with one yod: יסגור. Two yods would be right for ייפול or ייכנס, where the following consonant carries a dagesh.

✅ הוא יסגור את החנות בשמונה וייסע הביתה.

hu yisgór et hakhanút bishmóne veyisá habáyta

He'll close the shop at eight and drive home. (both spellings in one sentence)

4. Building the future out of a helper verb. English needs will; Hebrew has already said it with the prefix.

❌ מחר אני אהיה כותב את המכתב

Incorrect — Hebrew has no 'will be writing' at all. Nothing may stand in front of the verb, because the prefix has already said 'will': מחר אכתוב.

✅ מחר אכתוב את המכתב ואשלח לך אותו לפני הישיבה.

makhár ekhtóv et hamikhtáv ve'eshlákh lekhá otó lifnéi hayeshivá

I'll write the letter tomorrow and send it to you before the meeting. (to a man)

Key Takeaways

The future is a prefix conjugation: א I, נ we, י he/they, ת you/she, plus ־י for a female addressee and ־וּ for any plural.
The theme vowel is cholam by default (יִכְתּוֹב, יִשְׁמוֹר, יִסְגּוֹר) but patach for a whole class (יִלְמַד, אֶלְמַד). The class belongs to the individual verb.
The theme vowel disappears before a suffix: יִכְתּוֹב → יִכְתְּבוּ yikhtevú, יִלְמַד → יִלְמְדוּ yilmedú.
Ktiv male writes one yod for a sound-root pa'al (יכתוב) and two wherever a chirik stands before a doubled consonant — that covers nif'al (ייכנס) and equally the pa'al of assimilating roots (ייפול, ייתן, ייקח).
תכתוב is both you (m.) and she, in every verb and every binyan, which is why subject pronouns survive in the future.
The classical ־נָה forms are normative but effectively absent from speech. Recognise תכתובנה; produce יכתבו and תכתבו. תכתבי is alive and must be produced.

Now practice Hebrew

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Hebrew →