The Hebrew grammar - tense formation?

Question

Could you give me some basic rules governing the formation of the past, present and future tense in Hebrew?

Answer 1

*Past:
Verbs in this tense appear in their "natural" form (sort of like Past Simple in English), and the root letters are "cast" to the mold of the buildings as following:
Pa'al (פעל): katav (כתב)
Pi'el (פיעל): kitev (כיתב)
Hif'il (הפעיל): hikhtiv (הכתיב)
Hitpa'el (התפעל): hitkatev (התכתב)
Nif'al (נפעל): nikhtav (נכתב)
Pu'al (פועל): kutav (כותב)
Huf'al (הופעל): hukhtav (הוכתב)

The affixes of the different pronouns are added at the end of the Past-tensed verb:
No affix: he- katav (he wrote)
"Ah": she- katvah (she wrote)
"U": they (both male and female) – katvu (they wrote)
"Nu": we- katavnu (we wrote)
"Ti": I- katavti (I wrote)
"Ta": you (singular male) – katavta (you wrote)
"T": you (singular female) – katavt (you wrote)
"Tem": you (plural male) – ktavtem (you wrote)
"Ten": you (plural female) – ktavten (you wrote)

*Present
Also called "Beynoni" (participle), as all the verbs in this tense can function as nouns as well. The conjugation of the Buildings is as following:
Pa'al (פעל) - po'el: kotav
Pi'el (פיעל) - mepa'el: mekhatev
Hif'il (הפעיל) - maf'il: makhtiv
Hitpa'el (התפעל) - mitpa'el: mitkatev
Nif'al (נפעל) – nif'al: nikhtav
Pu'al (פועל) – mefu'al: mekhutav
Huf'al (הופעל) – muf'al: mukhtav

In this tense there are only 4 pronouns: singular male, singular female, plural male and plural female.
Singular male: kotav (no affixes)
Singular female: kotevet (suffix "et")
Plural male: kotvim (suffix "im")
Plural female: kotvot (suffix "ot")

*Future
The most difficult tense to learn. In this tense, additionally to the suffixes that indicate the pronoun (the same suffixes like in the Past tense), there are prefixes too.
The prefixes are as following:
E/ A (א) - I will: ekhtov (I will write)
Y (י) – he will: yikhtov (he will write)
T (ת) – you (both male and female) will and she will: tikhtov (you will/ she will write)
N (נ)- we will: nikhtov (we will write)


These rules are very basic and in order to learn it properly, one has to practice it well.

Answer 2

Getting a little ahead of yourself, there. You can´t get to "a detailed description of the formation of" different tenses of verbs in Hebrew, until you get the language, the basics, and the fact that there isn't just one third person! Back up, and start from the beginning, which would be to get the alphabet.