התמונה יפה, אבל הכיסא ישן.

The picture is beautiful, but the chair is old.

Breakdown of התמונה יפה, אבל הכיסא ישן.

• אבל: but
• כיסא: chair
• תמונה: picture
• יפה: beautiful
• ישן: old

Questions & Answers about התמונה יפה, אבל הכיסא ישן.

Why is there no Hebrew word for is in this sentence?

In present-tense Hebrew, the verb to be is usually left out.

So:

• התמונה יפה = The picture is beautiful
• הכיסא ישן = The chair is old

This is completely normal Hebrew.
If you are talking about the past or future, Hebrew usually does use forms of to be:

• התמונה הייתה יפה = The picture was beautiful
• התמונה תהיה יפה = The picture will be beautiful

Why do התמונה and הכיסא both start with ה־?

The prefix ה־ is the Hebrew definite article, meaning the.

So:

• תמונה = a picture / picture
• התמונה = the picture
• כיסא = a chair / chair
• הכיסא = the chair

In your sentence, both nouns are definite, so both take ה־.

Why does the adjective come after the noun?

In Hebrew, adjectives normally come after the noun they describe.

So Hebrew says:

• תמונה יפה literally picture beautiful
• כיסא ישן literally chair old

This is the normal Hebrew word order.

That is true both when the adjective is part of the noun phrase and when it is the predicate:

• התמונה היפה = the beautiful picture
• התמונה יפה = the picture is beautiful

Same noun-then-adjective order, but the meaning and structure are different.

Why is it יפה with התמונה, but ישן with הכיסא?

Because Hebrew adjectives must agree with the noun in gender and number.

Here:

• תמונה is feminine singular
• כיסא is masculine singular

So the adjective must match:

• התמונה יפה = feminine singular adjective
• הכיסא ישן = masculine singular adjective

A useful thing to know here is that יפה is spelled the same for masculine and feminine in unpointed Hebrew, but the pronunciation changes:

• masculine: יָפֶה = yafé
• feminine: יָפָה = yafá

So in this sentence, with תמונה, it is read as yafá.

How do I know that תמונה is feminine and כיסא is masculine?

Partly from patterns, and partly from vocabulary memorization.

Some clues:

• Nouns ending in ־ה are often feminine, so תמונה being feminine fits a common pattern.
• Nouns without that ending are often masculine, and כיסא is masculine.

But these are only tendencies, not perfect rules. Hebrew noun gender often has to be learned with each word.

A good habit is to learn new nouns together with an adjective:

• תמונה יפה
• כיסא ישן

That helps you remember the noun’s gender naturally.

Why don’t the adjectives also have ה־ in this sentence?

Because here the adjectives are predicates, not part of the noun phrase.

Compare:

• התמונה יפה = The picture is beautiful
• התמונה היפה = The beautiful picture

And:

• הכיסא ישן = The chair is old
• הכיסא הישן = The old chair

When the adjective is directly attached to a definite noun inside a noun phrase, it usually also takes ה־:

• התמונה היפה
• הכיסא הישן

But in your sentence, the meaning is is beautiful / is old, so the adjectives are not marked with ה־.

Does ישן here mean old or asleep?

In unpointed Hebrew, ישן can represent two different words:

• יָשָׁן = old
• יָשֵׁן = sleeping / asleep

The spelling is the same without vowel marks, so context tells you which meaning is intended.

In הכיסא ישן, it clearly means old, because a chair is something that can be old.

If you saw:

• הילד ישן

that would usually mean The boy is asleep.

How is the whole sentence pronounced?

A common pronunciation is:

ha-tmu-NA ya-FA, a-VAL ha-ki-SE ya-SHAN

With Hebrew script plus vowels, it would be:

הַתְּמוּנָה יָפָה, אֲבָל הַכִּסֵּא יָשָׁן.

A few pronunciation notes:

• התמונה = hatmuná
• יפה here = yafá
• אבל = aval
• הכיסא = hakisé
• ישן here = yashán

Could I say התמונה היא יפה instead?

Usually, in a simple present-tense sentence like this, Hebrew does not use הוא / היא before an adjective.

So the natural sentence is:

• התמונה יפה
• הכיסא ישן

Adding היא in התמונה היא יפה may sound unnatural, overly emphatic, or marked in ordinary speech.

So for a basic sentence of the form X is adjective, the usual pattern is simply:

• noun + adjective

What would happen if the nouns were plural?

The adjectives would also change to plural, because Hebrew keeps noun-adjective agreement.

For example:

• התמונות יפות = The pictures are beautiful
• הכיסאות ישנים = The chairs are old

So the pattern is:

• feminine singular: יפה
• feminine plural: יפות
• masculine singular: ישן
• masculine plural: ישנים

This is one of the most important habits in Hebrew: always make the adjective match the noun.