הפקידה ביררה בשבילי אם אפשר לדחות את התשלום לשבוע הבא.

Here הפקידה means the female clerk / receptionist / office worker.

A useful thing to know: without vowel marks, הפקידה can also be read as a verb meaning she deposited. But in this sentence, the next word is ביררה, so הפקידה is clearly the subject noun: the clerk.

It is feminine. The masculine version would be הפקיד.

ביררה is the past tense, 3rd person feminine singular form of לברר (to check, clarify, find out).

It is feminine singular because the subject, הפקידה, is feminine singular.

So the agreement is:

• הפקידה ביררה = the female clerk checked / found out
• הפקיד בירר = the male clerk checked / found out

Hebrew verbs usually agree with the subject in gender and number in the past tense.

Not exactly. ביררה comes from לברר, which often means:

• to clarify
• to check
• to look into
• to find out
• to inquire

So הפקידה ביררה בשבילי suggests that the clerk looked into it for me or checked it for me, not just that she asked one quick question.

If you used שאלה (asked), the meaning would be a bit narrower.

בשבילי here means for me or on my behalf.

That is slightly different from לי, which often means to me or sometimes for me, depending on context. In this sentence, בשבילי emphasizes that the clerk did the checking for my benefit.

So:

• ביררה בשבילי = she checked for me / on my behalf
• אמרה לי = she said to me

A more formal alternative to בשבילי would be עבורי.

Here אם means whether.

Hebrew uses אם to introduce an indirect yes/no question:

• ביררה אם אפשר... = she checked whether it is possible...

So even though אם often translates as if, in this kind of sentence English usually prefers whether.

It is not a condition here. It does not mean something like if this happens, then....

Because Hebrew often uses אפשר as an impersonal expression meaning it is possible or possible.

So:

• אם אפשר לדחות... literally looks like if/whether possible to postpone...
• natural English: whether it is possible to postpone...

Hebrew does not need a dummy subject like English it.

This is very common:

• אפשר להיכנס? = Is it possible to come in? / May I come in?
• אי אפשר = it is impossible / you can’t

לדחות is the infinitive to postpone / to defer / to push off.

In the sentence, it comes after אפשר:

• אפשר לדחות = it is possible to postpone

So the structure is:

• אם אפשר = whether it is possible
• לדחות את התשלום = to postpone the payment

Pronunciation note: לדחות is usually pronounced roughly lid-KHOT, with the throaty kh sound heard in words like Chanukah.

Because את marks a definite direct object in Hebrew.

Here, התשלום means the payment, which is definite because it has ה־ (the). So Hebrew puts את before it:

• לדחות את התשלום = to postpone the payment

Compare:

• לדחות תשלום = to postpone a payment / payment in general
• לדחות את התשלום = to postpone the payment (a specific one)

את usually does not get translated into English, but it is an important grammar marker in Hebrew.

Because with לדחות you are usually moving something to a later date or time, so Hebrew uses ל־.

• לדחות לשבוע הבא = postpone to next week

If you said בשבוע הבא, that usually means in/during next week, describing when something happens, not the new scheduled time after postponing.

So:

• הפגישה תהיה בשבוע הבא = the meeting will be next week
• דחו את הפגישה לשבוע הבא = they postponed the meeting to next week

Because the preposition ל־ combines with the definite article ה־.

So underneath, the phrase is basically:

• ל + השבוע הבא

But in actual Hebrew spelling, that becomes:

• לשבוע הבא

This kind of combination is very common:

• ב + ה → ב...
• ל + ה → ל...
• כ + ה → כ...

For example:

• בבית = in the house
• לבית = to the house
• כשצריך = when it is needed / as needed

Yes, but the nuance would change.

• אם אפשר = whether it is possible
• אם היה אפשר = whether it was possible

The original sentence uses אפשר, which sounds natural if the clerk checked the current/general possibility of postponing the payment.

If the speaker wanted to focus clearly on a past situation, אם היה אפשר could also work.

So the original sentence is normal and natural, but Hebrew sometimes allows either depending on the context and what time frame you want to emphasize.

This word order is very natural:

• הפקידה — subject
• ביררה — main verb
• בשבילי — for me / on my behalf
• אם אפשר... — the content of what she checked

Hebrew word order is somewhat flexible, but not every rearrangement sounds equally natural.

For example, the original sentence flows well because it first tells you:

1. who did it
2. what she did
3. for whom
4. what she checked

That makes it a very typical spoken and written Hebrew sentence.