Lesson 38: What I Did Yesterday

Now that you can talk about today and tomorrow, let’s talk about yesterday. This is your first real verb tense — the past — and the regular pattern is very consistent.

A conversation about yesterday

Grammar: the past tense (regular verbs)

In the past tense, the verb takes endings that show who did the action. Here is the verb לִכְתֹּב (lichtov, “to write”), a typical regular verb:

Who	Hebrew	Romanization	English
I	כָּתַבְתִּי	katavti	I wrote
you (m.)	כָּתַבְתָּ	katavta	you wrote
you (f.)	כָּתַבְתְּ	katavt	you wrote
he	כָּתַב	katav	he wrote
she	כָּתְבָה	katva	she wrote
we	כָּתַבְנוּ	katavnu	we wrote
they	כָּתְבוּ	katvu	they wrote

The endings ‑ti, ‑ta, ‑t, ‑nu, ‑u attach to almost every regular verb the same way. Learn them once and you can put hundreds of verbs into the past.

Tip: The “he” form (e.g. כָּתַב katav) is the base — dictionaries list verbs this way. Add the endings to it.

Vocabulary