Hebrew has a unique system of classifying verbs, quite unlike English. There are seven “binyanim”, which translates to “buildings” or “constructs”. Most all verbs in Hebrew have a three letter root (called SHORESH in Hebrew), but a few have four letters.
Very few verbs can actually be forced into the seven “binyanim”. The verb “see” is an good illustration of how a verb crosses six of these patterns. In Hebrew the root is “RAAH” (RESH – ALPEH – HEI) and here are some variation of meanings: see/understand, appear/become-visible, be seen, show (cause to experience), made to see (get shown), look at one another.
Let’s look at a couple of the first binyanim. QAL in Hebrew means “light” or “easy”, so it is one of the first binyanim learned by students. QAL is active, and it’s “twin” pattern is NIFAL, which is passive. For example, SHAVAR menas “he broke”, but NISHBAR means “he (or it) was broken”. Notice that both patterns have the same root SHIN-VET-RESH (where the VET “V” sound can interchange with the BET “B” sound). In the perfect (or past) tense, the NIFAL verbs typically start with the letter “NUN”.
The next pair is PIEL and PUAL, the first being active and the second passive. The most common example is “SHAVAR” (in the QAL) meaning “he broke”, and “SHIBER” (in the PIEL) meaning “he shattered”, or “he utterly broke”. It can change a stative verb to an active verb: “QADASH” (he was holy) to “QIDESH” (he sanctified).
The next pari are HIFIL and HOFAL, both of which have the concept of causation. An example is the QAL form “GADAL” (he was big) changes to HIGDIL (HIFIL: he made great or he magnified) and HAGDAL (HOFAL: he was made great or has magnified).
The seven binyanim are sometimes likened to the seven branches of a menorah. Each of the sides can be paired with one on the opposite side (an active with a passive), leaving the final binyan “HITPAEL” in the middle (with no pair). An interesting example of this binyan is “HITPALEL” – normally translated as “he prayed”, but the word “PALAL” means “judge”, so it’s kind of like saying “He judged himself”.
Not recognizing the proper binyan can render some erroneous and hilarious mistranslations. I remember when we were studying Hebrew with the Weingreen text, a sentence at first looked like “she took him in the house and ate his donkey”, when in fact is was “she took him in the house and fed his donkey”. The verb “ate” would be QAL in Hebrew, and the word “fed” was HIPHIL, thus “caused to eat”, which in English we say “fed” (or in old English “gave fodder”).
