The pa'al pattern פָּעוּל gives Hebrew a compact way to describe the state left by an action: סגור "closed," כתוב "written," שבור "broken," שמור "saved/kept." Although it is called a passive participle, in ordinary Modern Hebrew it behaves primarily as a resultative adjective. It tells you how something stands now, not what happened to it.
The four agreeing forms
The pattern's identifying sound is a–u in the masculine singular. Once the adjective endings arrive, the first vowel normally reduces:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| masculine | סָגוּר sagúr | סְגוּרִים sgurím |
| feminine | סְגוּרָה sgurá | סְגוּרוֹת sgurót |
These are adjective forms, not a person-and-tense paradigm. They agree with the thing whose state they describe, and the present has no copula:
החנות פתוחה עד שמונה, אבל המטבח כבר סגור.
hakhanút ptukhá ad shmóne, avál hamitbákh kvar sagúr
The shop is open until eight, but the kitchen is already closed.
כל הקבצים שמורים בענן, אז אפשר למחוק אותם מהמחשב.
kol hakvatsím shmurím be'anán, az efshár limkhók otám mehamakhsév
All the files are saved in the cloud, so you can delete them from the computer.
אני עסוקה עד שלוש, אחזור אליך אחר כך.
aní asuká ad shalósh, ekhzór elékha akhár kakh
I'm busy until three; I'll get back to you afterwards. (f. speaker, to a man)
State versus event
English the door is closed is ambiguous: it can describe a state, or it can be a passive event. Hebrew normally forces the choice. נסגרה places an event in the past; סגורה gives the current state.
הדלת נסגרה בדיוק כשנכנסנו לבניין.
hadélet nisgerá bediyúk kshenikhnásnu labinyán
The door closed just as we entered the building. (event)
הדלת סגורה, נצטרך להיכנס מהצד השני.
hadélet sgurá, nitstarékh lehikanés mehatsád hashení
The door is closed; we'll have to go in from the other side. (state)
The event may be intransitive/middle — הדלת נסגרה "the door closed" — or a true passive with an expressed actor in a formal context. That syntax belongs to nif'al as passive and the broader passive choice. פָּעוּל normally leaves the actor outside the picture because its point is the resulting condition.
החלון נשבר בסערה, ועכשיו הוא שבור לגמרי.
hakhalón nishbár base'ará, ve'akhsháv hu shavúr legámrei
The window broke in the storm, and now it's completely broken. (event, then resulting state)
כתוב ש־: “it says that”
כתוב ש־ is an extremely frequent impersonal frame: literally "written that," naturally "it says that." There is no dummy subject corresponding to English it. The content clause follows ש־.
כתוב שהמרפאה סגורה היום ותיפתח מחר בשמונה.
katúv shehamirpa'á sgurá hayóm vetipatákh makhár bishmóne
It says that the clinic is closed today and will open tomorrow at eight.
זה כתוב באותיות הקטנות בתחתית העמוד.
ze katúv be'otiyót haktanót betakhtít ha'amúd
It's written in the small print at the bottom of the page.
Notice the two complement types: כתוב ש־ introduces what the text says, while כתוב ב־/על־ locates where it is written. Neither complement names an agent.
פָּעוּל belongs to pa'al
Not every passive-looking adjective is פָּעוּל. The pattern belongs specifically to a pa'al root: סגר gives סגור, כתב gives כתוב, and שמר gives שמור. Other binyanim supply their own passive participles:
| Form | Source | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| מְסוּדָּר mesudár | pu'al, paired with pi'el סידר | organised, tidy |
| מוּזְמָן muzmán | huf'al, paired with hif'il הזמין | invited; welcome to |
| סָגוּר sagúr | pa'al פָּעוּל, from סגר | closed |
החדר מסודר, וכל מי שרשום מוזמן להיכנס.
hakhéder mesudár, vekhól mi sherashúm muzmán lehikanés
The room is tidy, and everyone registered is welcome to come in.
The full derivation of פָּעוּל is on pa'al's passive participle; pu'al and huf'al are treated on their own participle pages. Similar spelling in unpointed Hebrew does not erase the binyan distinction.
Common Mistakes
1. Leaving the adjective in masculine singular. English closed never changes; Hebrew פָּעוּל agrees.
❌ הדלת סגור והחלונות פתוח
Incorrect — דלת is feminine singular and חלונות is masculine plural: הדלת סגורה והחלונות פתוחים.
✅ הדלת סגורה והחלונות פתוחים כדי שייכנס אוויר.
hadélet sgurá vehakhalonót ptukhím kdei sheyikanés avír
The door is closed and the windows are open to let air in.
2. Giving every feminine form the active-participle ending ־ת. פָּעוּל normally forms its feminine in ־ָה.
❌ החנות פתוחת עד מאוחר
Incorrect — the feminine of פתוח is פתוחה, not פתוחת.
✅ החנות פתוחה עד מאוחר רק בימי חמישי.
hakhanút ptukhá ad me'ukhár rak biméi khamishí
The shop stays open late only on Thursdays.
3. Adding an English-style present copula. Hebrew needs no is between the subject and the state adjective.
❌ הדלת הוא סגורה
Incorrect — הוא cannot serve as an invariant translation of English ‘is,’ and it also disagrees with feminine הדלת. Neutral Hebrew is simply הדלת סגורה.
✅ הדלת סגורה, אבל אפשר להיכנס דרך החצר.
hadélet sgurá, avál efshár lehikanés dérekh hekhatsér
The door is closed, but you can enter through the courtyard.
4. Treating an unpointed מ־ form as פָּעוּל. מסודר and מוזמן are passive participles, but their מ prefixes identify other binyanim.
❌ מסודר, מוזמן
masudár · ma'uzmán
Incorrect as פָּעוּל-style readings — these are mesudár (pu'al) and muzmán (huf'al). Neither begins with the a vowel of sagúr.
✅ הכול מסודר והאורחים כבר מוזמנים.
hakól mesudár veha'orkhím kvar muzmaním
Everything is arranged and the guests have already been invited.
Key Takeaways
- פָּעוּל describes a resulting state: הדלת סגורה, זה כתוב, הקובץ שמור.
- An event verb reports what happened: הדלת נסגרה. English is closed can hide this distinction; Hebrew normally does not.
- The four forms are סָגוּר, סְגוּרָה, סְגוּרִים, סְגוּרוֹת and agree like adjectives.
- כתוב ש־ means "it says that" without an English-style dummy it.
- פָּעוּל belongs to pa'al. מסודר is pu'al and מוזמן is huf'al, even when all three function as state adjectives.
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- The פָּעוּל Passive Participle (כתוב, סגור, ידוע)B1 — pa'al's own passive form is not a tense but an adjective: כָּתוּב, סָגוּר, שָׁבוּר describe the state a thing is in after something was done to it. Getting it right means separating three sentences English merges — the state, the event that produced it, and the person who did it.
- Nif'al as the Passive of Pa'al (נכתב, נאכל, נמכר)B1 — Nif'al really is the passive that pa'al pairs with — and that is the smallest of its jobs. Here is the pairing, the agent phrase על ידי, and the register fact that matters more than the rule: the finite passive belongs to written and formal Hebrew, not to conversation.
- Participles Used as Adjectives: מעניין, עייף, סגורA2 — A large share of everyday Hebrew adjectives are not adjectives at all — they are verb participles that settled down. Once you can see which binyan a word came out of, you stop memorising pairs like מעניין and מעוניין and start deriving them.
- Choosing a Passive: נפעל, פועל or הופעלB2 — Choose a Hebrew passive from the active verb's binyan: pa'al points to nif'al, pi'el to pu'al, and hif'il to huf'al, subject to the attested lexicon.