הכיסא לא זז.

A common pronunciation is ha-ki-SE lo zaz.

• הכיסא = ha-kisé
• לא = lo
• זז = zaz

The stress in כיסא is on the last syllable: ki-SE.

It is the Hebrew definite article, meaning the.

So:

• כיסא = chair
• הכיסא = the chair

Unlike English, Hebrew usually attaches the directly to the beginning of the noun.

Hebrew normally does not use a present-tense word for am / is / are.

So where English says the chair is not moving, Hebrew can simply say the chair not moving in structure:

• הכיסא לא זז

This is completely normal Hebrew.

לא means not.

In Hebrew, לא usually comes before the verb when you want to negate it:

• זז = moves / is moving / moved
• לא זז = does not move / is not moving / did not move

So the placement is standard Hebrew word order.

It comes from the verb לזוז, which means to move, to budge, or to shift.

זז is the masculine singular form. In the present tense, Hebrew verbs often change for gender and number, so you will also see forms like:

• זזה = feminine singular
• זזים = masculine plural
• זזות = feminine plural

This is a very good question, because זז can be ambiguous without context.

It can be:

• present masculine singular: moves / is moving
• past 3rd person masculine singular: moved

So הכיסא לא זז can mean:

• The chair isn’t moving
• The chair doesn’t move
• The chair didn’t move

Context tells you which meaning is intended.

Also, in the present, Hebrew usually does not distinguish clearly between doesn’t move and isn’t moving the way English does.

Because it agrees with הכיסא, and כיסא is a masculine singular noun.

In Hebrew, forms like זז match the subject in gender and number.

So with a masculine singular subject:

• הכיסא לא זז

If the subject were feminine singular, you would use:

• הדלת לא זזה = The door isn’t moving / didn’t move

Yes, כיסא is masculine.

Sometimes Hebrew noun gender is predictable from the ending, but often it just has to be learned with the word. כיסא is one of those nouns you generally memorize as masculine.

A good habit is to learn new nouns together with:

• their meaning
• their gender
• maybe one simple sentence

For example: כיסא גדול = a big chair, which helps reinforce that כיסא is masculine.

The final א is part of the standard spelling of כיסא, but in modern pronunciation it usually does not sound like a strong separate consonant.

So although it is written כיסא, it is pronounced roughly ki-SE.

This is fairly common in Hebrew: some letters remain in the spelling even when they are not strongly pronounced in everyday speech.

Because הכיסא is the subject of the sentence, not a direct object.

את is used before a definite direct object, for example:

• הזזתי את הכיסא = I moved the chair

But in:

• הכיסא לא זז

the chair is the thing being talked about as the subject, so את is not used.