Hebrew verbs & fancy frequency lists

In my video about the root קדם, I talked about the frequency of the different verbs for the first time, since the English translations for them sound so much alike. When this video came out, some of my followers commented that they wanted to see more videos including verb frequencies.

This blog post will show you why frequency lists aren't a great way to learn Hebrew verbs. Keep reading, there is help! I'll also show you how to make your own list of verbs to work on.

Students love verb frequency lists for 2 reasons (when studying other languages than Hebrew)

Looking at such a list (whether it is real or made-up by somebody who offered it to download), students tend to see two advantages aka short-cuts:

1. Focus on High-Use Verbs: Verbs that are used a lot in everyday speech and writing are usually at the top of frequency lists.

2. Efficiency: You can start using the language more effectively and efficiently right away if you learn the most common terms early on.

Yes, great for WORDS, but not for VERBS, and here is

Why this is not a short-cut in Hebrew:

If you only learn Hebrew verbs by how often they occur, you might not fully understand how to conjugate them. If you use a verb in paal, its passive form will be found in nifal. But compared to other Hebrew verbs, the passive may not be used very often. The only thing that frequency lists do is compare one word to ALL verbs. Some verbs are used a lot in expressions, but expressions aren't used as often as simple verbs, and you might not need it as a verb by itself. You will end up with a picture that is nothing like the real thing.

Frequency lists can help you learn familiar Hebrew verbs, but they might not show you how these verbs change when you use different binyanim. Sorry, guys, but this is key in Hebrew. In order to learn Hebrew verb conjugation and understand the language's subtleties, you need to know about binyanim.

When you start learning Hebrew, you will most probably be exposed to verbs of high frequency, and only later, when you see the same root in different binyan, you will wonder, how to reorganize your learning routine for verbs.

How to make your own list

Let's go back to the first reason, why student's love verb frequency lists in the first place:

Focus on High-Use Verbs: Verbs that are used a lot in everyday speech and writing

Which are the verbs that are used a lot in everyday speech and writing? Granted, that might be a bit different in every language, but take a look at

1. the simple actions, every person on this planet does every day

2. add modal verbs

3. spice it up by looking at the verbs from the same root in other binyanim

4. take my collection of short stories with 200+ conjugated verbs

Simple actions are for example: eat, speak, sleep, talk, wash, drive, walk, etc. Modal verbs are used along with a main verb to express possibility, ability, permission, or necessity) such as: want, can, need, should, etc.

Once you've learned a few verbs from each of these groups, you can learn more by looking up the other verbs that come from the same root (get the book "501 Hebrew verbs"!). You will now fully understand how the binyanim relate with each other, and you have also learned more verbs.

If you want ready-to learn conjugation tables and vocabulary lists based on the collection of 10 short stories, then this book might be of value to you: 10 Hebrew-English short stories (available in 4 languages).