You can identify the פעל form – also known as the קל (simple) form – by applying these basic rules of thumb:

In the past tense, the three letters of the root appear first in the word. For example, in יָשַׁבְתִּי עַל הַכִּסֵּא (I sat on the chair), the three root letters appear (י.ש.ב), and only afterward, the suffix indicating I (תי). And unlike the פִּעֵל form, there is never a dot in the second letter of the root, in the past tense.

In the present tense, there is almost always an oh sound in the first syllable. Take, for example, the following verbs: אֲנִי קוֹרֵאת (I (f) am reading), אֲנַחְנוּ לוֹמְדִים (we are studying ), הֵן הוֹלְכוֹת (they (f) are walking), etc. The exception is when the second letter of the root is a ו or a י, in which case that letter drops and the oh vowel is lost.

Witness these patterns as you review the chart below, which lays out all the possibilities of the verb לִכְתּוֹב (to write) in past, present, future and imperative (command) tenses: