אתם
“אתם” (атем) — you (plural) in Hebrew. Pronoun, level A0, topic — pronouns. To a group. A company of women hears aten (אתן). Polite and ordinary you are not distinguished here. In a live sentence: “ואתם?” — And you? Written with the characters א, ת. One of 27 words in the set “pronouns” in the Hebrew course.
In short
| Written in Hebrew | אתם |
| Read in Latin letters | атем |
| Translation | you (plural) |
| Part of speech | pronoun |
| Level | A0 |
Why it looks that way
To a group. A company of women hears aten (אתן). Polite and ordinary you are not distinguished here
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- ואתם?ве-атем?And you?
Nearby words: pronouns
I, you, we, they. There is a handful of them, they turn up in every sentence, and politeness rides on them: most of these languages keep a formal “you” apart from a familiar one, and choosing the wrong one is noticed faster than a mispronounced word.
- אניаниIThe first letter א has no sound — the word reads ani. One word for men and women
- אתהатаyouSaid to a man. To a woman — at (את); the difference is one letter
- הואхуheReads hu: the letter ה at the start gives a light h, and the ו here is the vowel u
- היאхиsheThe pair to hu: the same letters, but the second one is i. He and she differ by one vowel
- אנחנוанахнуweMid-sentence it often shrinks to anu — both variants sound native
- אנחנו שנינוанахну шнейнуthe two of usLiterally "we two" — shneynu from shnayim, two. There is no separate pronoun for two people; it is a phrase
- הםхемtheyAbout men or a mixed group. About women — hen (הן)
- שליшелиmyHebrew says shel plus who: sheli is literally "of me". Often the noun takes the owner right on as a ending of its own
- שלךшэлхаyourTo a man it sounds shelcha, to a woman shelach — spelled the same way: שלך. The polite your to one person is the same word
- שלנוшэлануourBuilt from shel and anachnu: of us. There is no special form for the two of us — just as there is no special our
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “pronouns”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “you (plural)” in Hebrew?
To a group. A company of women hears aten (אתן). Polite and ordinary you are not distinguished here
- How do you say “they” in Hebrew?
About men or a mixed group. About women — hen (הן)
- How do you say “he” in Hebrew?
Reads hu: the letter ה at the start gives a light h, and the ו here is the vowel u
- How do you say “our” in Hebrew?
Built from shel and anachnu: of us. There is no special form for the two of us — just as there is no special our
- How do you say “the two of us” in Hebrew?
Literally "we two" — shneynu from shnayim, two. There is no separate pronoun for two people; it is a phrase
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “you (plural)” in Hebrew?
«אתם», read “атем”. In a live sentence: “ואתם?” — And you? Pronoun, level A0, from the set “pronouns”; written with the characters א, ת.
How is “אתם” written in Latin letters?
атем. This is a practical spelling — you need it to read aloud and be understood, not to meet an academic standard.
Why does this word look the way it does?
To a group. A company of women hears aten (אתן). Polite and ordinary you are not distinguished here. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.