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Piel & hitpael: קבל & special expressions (PDF)

Updated: Jun 29, 2023

Many students are familiar with the above-mentioned root; mainly because we use it for the verb לקבל - to receive, which is a regular verb in piel. When you look it up in the 501 Hebrew Verbs, you will see in the old edition of the book, that there are 3 binyanim:

  1. piel,

  2. hitpael,

  3. hifil

Whereas the new edition only mentions piel and hitpael. Why? The new edition of that book is more efficient, and therefore they simply dropped hifil since it is far less used and the translation (to be parallel) has nothing to do with the other 2.

  1. piel: to receive, to accept

  2. hitpael: to be received.

Hitpael is now passive??? Hebrew native speakers would argue that this is not the passive voice, but in English it is. So, yes! From an English-speaking point of view, you have to say that hitpael took over the passive role for piel. But this regular-acting root has more surprises waiting for you:


The nouns. From "to receive", you surely want to know nouns like "reception, welcoming, ,etc." When we apply the piel noun rule, we end up in the noun "קִיבּוּל", but that means "capacitiy". If you are looking for "reception, welcoming, ,etc.", we need to add a form, that we would normally not see in piel. And with this we come to "קַבָּלָה". Yes, the same word as "kabbalah" :-)


Looks complicated?; here are my tips & DOWNLOAD for you:

  1. Never ask why, ask how, because languages are not logical per sé. Those who are able to accept things as they are, will mast the language much quicker than those who keep asking "why"?

  2. Watch the video (English, Deutsch, français, español) on all forms and tenses. (More languages coming soon).

  3. Download the multilingual PDF with the special expressions in that root.


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