How are you doing with your Hebrew lessons with Transparent Language? I hope you’re doing well. While learning Hebrew, you may want to express that fact, especially if you’re confronted with an answer to your question that has a two minute long answer….

The verb ‘to learn’ is לִלְמוֹד. The main part of this word that gives the concept of learning are the three letters ל.מ.ד (I wrote an article about roots and patterns last year). In the article I mentioned that the changes to the root by adding vowels, suffixes or prefixes creates new words.

So, you’re learning Hebrew, and to say so, you first drop לִ then change the vowels from ִ ְ וֹ to וֹ ֵ for the masculine gender: לִלְמוֹד – לוֹמֵד

For the feminine gender, it would be וֹ ֶ ֶ ת

לִלְמוֹד – לוֹמֶדֶת

Take a look at these examples:
David is learning English – דויד לומד אנגלית
Dan is learning zoology – דני לומד זואולוגיה.

Rachel is not learning Yiddish – רחל לא לומדת יידיש.
Eve is learning Hebrew – חוה לומדת עברית

Did you notice something about the examples I just gave you? The Hebrew word for “student” is תַּלְמִיד. It is based upon the same root letters ל.מ.ד – can you see them? Even the Talmud (תַּלְמוּד – the central text of Rabbinic Judaism) has the same root. All having to do with learning.

In the plural form

Let’s say you’re referring to more than one student doing the learning. Look at the captions for these pictures and see if you can find the differences between the masculine and feminine forms:

When speaking in the plural forms, there are two endings that are added on. They are
ִים – masculine
וֹת – feminine

And, believe it or not, that’s all you need to know to conjugate the verb לִלְמוֹד in Hebrew. Check it out:

I learn – אני לומד
you learn (masc) – אתה לומד
you learn (fem) – את לומדת
he learns – הוא לומד
she learns – היא לומדת

we learn – אֲנַחנוּ לומדים
you learn (masc) – אתם לומדים
you learn (fem) – אתן לומדות
they learn (masc) – הם לומדים
they learn (fem) – הן לומדות

We’ll look more at plural forms in a future article.

Check yourself

Let’s check how well you’ve למדת. Translate the following

1. David is learning Hebrew
2. Sara is learning mathmatics
3. I am learning electronics
4. You are not learning biology

Vocabulary
דָּוִד – David
שָׂרָה – Sara
מָתֶמָטִיקָה – mathematics
אֶלֶקְטְרוֹנִיקָה – electronics
לֹא – no, not
בִּיוֹלוֹגְיָה – biology