Conjugating a pa’al verb into the future tense is going to take a little bit of learning to do here. I’m going to focus on the root ס-ג-ר, which gives the idea of closing and show you how it’s done. Ready?

In the future tense, there are four prefix letters before the root. They are: אֶ, יִ, תִ or נִ. All seven binyan have these prefixes in the future tense. Here is a chart showing the form of the future tense to let you see how it looks. Don’t let it scare you yet, I’ll break it down after this.

Let’s break it down some more

If you were able to catch it, did you see how the prefixes are distributed among the different forms of ס-ג-ר? In this chart I’ll put the prefixes into a separate column so you can see and compare:

Summary

For every verb in the future tense in Hebrew, we attach one of the following prefixes to the root: אֶ, תִ, יִ, נִ. They are always the first letter of the verb no matter how many other suffixes or vowel changes are made. These rules to all Hebrew verbs in all forms of binyanim.

The charts above are great for printing out as a reference. But how to remember them when you don’t have the chart to look at? Luckily, there’s a way to do so:

• For אֲנִי we add אֶ to the root.
• For הוּא and הֵם, we add יִ to the root.
• For אֲנַחְנוּ, we add נִ to the root.
• For the rest of them (אַתָּה, אַתְּ, הִיא, אַתֶּם, אַתֶּן, הֵן), we add תִ to the root.

Check Yourself

Just as in the previous article, I’m giving you a word, along with the Hebrew verb root. See if you can change them into the future form.

Guard – שׁ-מ-ר
Write – כ-ת-ב
Finish – ג-מ-ר
Close – ס-ג-ר
Trust – ב-ט-ח
Learn / Study – ל-מ-ד
Send – שׁ-ל-ח
Remember – ז-כ-ר