Numbers in Hebrew. Part 1. Basics: 1 - 10.

Numbers in Hebrew are rather confusing topic, especially for English speakers. In English we have two types of numbers: cardinal and ordinal: one and first, two and second, seventeen and seventeenth, and so on.. That's pretty simple and straightforward (or at least they seem to be if English is your first language.) They are all gender neutral, and the ordinal numbers are derived from their cardinal form with a simple addition of -th suffix.

Mixed orthography is very popular today, and slowly becomes de-facto standard in Israel (although I personally think it's a little bit controversal.) The idea is to show Hebrew words written with exactly the same letters, regardless of using vocalization or not. Actually, this is the way many Israelis would "intuitively" vocalize the Hebrew words: first write it the usualy way like they are written in כתיב מלא and then add some minimalistic vocalization.

Consider the following words:

כֹּל - כָּל - כֻּלּוֹ

Why this strange orthography? Why the word keeps changing the vowels in its every transformation?

Why do we write this word without Vav in most cases? Why in Ktiv Maleh we write כל אחד and not כול אחד? And if we write it without Vav, why the Vav might appear in the phrase זה הכול? And why even then it's considered "optional" and not mandatory?

Kamatz Katan (the Little Kamatz, read as "O" in modern Hebrew) is one of the first confusions every Hebrew student is facing. Why, for God's sake, it's the same sign as Kamatz Gadol (the Big Kamatz, read as "A")? How is the reader supposed to distinguish between them? Can I just learn all the "exceptions" with Kamatz Katan?

Today I'm going to explain the strange phrase you've read in Read and Understand section: "inversive Vav" ... turns Past to Future, and  Future to Past.

The explanation might sound even more confusing, but in fact it's very simple: there was no such thing in Hebrew as "Past Tense" or "Future Tense". These are modern Israeli Hebrew terms. Originally it rather was "Perfect" and "Imperfect" aspects. It is the Perfect which gradually developed itself to be used as "Past Tense", and that's Imperfect which we treat today as "Future".