Hebrew PronounsPronouns that are added to nouns are used in either a possessive or non-possessive manner. In the following list of possessive pronouns, you will need to change the grammatical constructions slightly to make proper sense of the Hebrew usage in English: ִי-- of me (i.e. my, mine) נוּ-- of us ךָ-- of you (M,S) ךְ-- of you (F,S) כֶם-- of you (M,P) כֶן-- of you (F,P) וֹ-- of him (i.e. 'his') ה-- of her (i.e. 'hers') ֶם-- of them (M) ן-- of them (F) For example, in the simplest of the possessive pronouns, 'of me' would be transliterated in English as 'my' or 'mine'. Similarly, 'of him' would be 'his' whereas 'of her' would be 'hers' Consequently, the Hebrew word יָדוֹ which actually means 'hand of him' would be 'his hand' in English.
Below is a list of non-possessive pronouns that you will see with nouns in written Hebrew text: אֲנִי and אָנֹכִי I אֲ נוּ and אֲנָחְנוּ We אַתָּה You (M,S) אַתְּ You (F,S) אַתֶּם You (M,P) אַתֶּן You (F,P) הוּא He הִיא She הֵם They (M) הֵן They (F) It is not uncommon to see both possessive and non-possessive pronouns combined together in one word. For example, בּוֹ is a combination that gives the word 'in him'. One final thing to be aware of with pronouns is that when a noun is being used in the plural with a possessive pronoun added, it is necessary to make changes to the construction of the phrase to make sense of what is being read. As an example, the noun בֵּן means 'son'. When the possessive pronoun וֹ is added, it becomes 'his son'. It is of course perfectly possible for there to be more than one son, in which case the singular would need to be converted to the plural. This is done by adding ים as a suffix בֵּנִים which now means sons. So far, everything is following the regular construction path but if you want to create the phrase 'his sons', you have to make a few unexpected changes. In this scenario, you would still add the expected possessive pronoun but drop the ם. Hence, the final phrase for 'his sons' would be בֵּנָיו. Introduction to Reading Hebrew The first basics The Hebrew AlephBet The Letters of the AlephBet Aleph Bet (Beyt) Gimmel Dalet Hey Vav Zayin Chet Tet Yod Kaf Lamed Mem Nun Samekh Ayin Pey (Fey) Tsade (Tsadik) Qof Resh Shin Tav The Significance of the Alephbet The Basics of Hebrew Verbs The Hebrew Verb Subject The Hebrew Verb Object Hebrew Verb Tenses Hebrew Verb Voices and Moods Hebrew Verb Participles The Infinite Verb Version Hebrew Nouns Hebrew Noun Constructs Using Prefixes With Nouns Hebrew Pronouns Hebrew Plural Nouns Hebrew Adjectives Identifying Hebrew Questions Adverbs, Prepositions and Conjunctions Hebrew Reading Conclusion |