I – Past Tense
Free Hebrew lessons – November 2010 – Training – Day 44
Shalom,
Let’s read a comment I recently received from Sylvie about one of our lessons (I think it was lesson 14):
Shalom
I was wondering about the use of “ani” in past tense. When you say “I wanted one dress”, “ratsiti simla a^at,” must you say “ani ratsiti simla a^at?” as in “I wanted one dress” compared to “wanted one dress”?
toda!
Think about this question, but meanwhile I want to remind you that in our previous lesson we had an important teaching about the future tense.
Today, I will try to answer Sylvie’s question, broadly.
Today’s menu: I – Past tense
Attention: The underlined letters represent the accent.
Let’s take a look at the verbs we learned in lesson 39:
| English Verb | Hebrew Verb |
| break | shover |
| count | sofer |
| drive | noheg |
| close | soger |
| sell | mo^er |
| wear | lovesh |
When you are talking about yourself in the past tense, the suffix of every verb in Hebrew will be “ti.”
The “i” in the suffix “ti” takes the place of the “i” in “ani,” indicating the first person.
Let’s put it in a table (present tense and past tense – masculine and feminine):
| English Verb Present Tense | Hebrew verb Present Tense | English Verb Past Tense | Hebrew Verb Past Tense | |
| I break (m) | Ani shover (m) | I broke (m) | Shavarti (m) | |
| I break (f) | Ani shoveret (f) | I broke (f) | Shavarti (f) | |
| I count (m) | Ani sofer (m) | I counted (m) | Safarti (m) | |
| I count (f) | Ani soferet (f) | I counted (f) | Safarti (f) | |
| I drive (m) | Ani noheg (m) | I drove (m) | Nahagti (m) | |
| I drive (f) | Ani noheget (f) | I drove (f) | Nahagti (f) | |
| I close (m) | Ani soger (m) | I closed (m) | Sagarti (m) | |
| I close (f) | Ani sogeret (f) | I closed (f) | Sagarti (f) | |
| I sell (m) | Ani mo^er (m) | I sold (m) | Ma^arti (m) | |
| I sell (f) | Ani mo^eret (f) | I sold (f) | Ma^arti (f) | |
| I wear (m) | Ani lovesh (m) | I wore (m) | Lavashti (m) | |
| I wear (f) | Ani loveshet (f) | I wore (f) | Lavashti (f) | |
Another interesting (and easy) thing about the first person past tense: notice that there is no difference between masculine and feminine. Both verbs in the first person past tense are the same. Go ahead, you can say it…. yippeeee!
See, I told you this week would be easy, and after last week’s complex lesson, you probably needed a break.
I really recommend going back over last week’s lesson on the future tense. It is so important, and I’ll admit, a little difficult in the beginning. Well, not really a beginning since we are almost a year together… 😉
Lehitraot in lesson 45…
