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In Hebrew, what makes a verb get an "m" added to it?
I've noticed some verbs in their conjugations get a "mem" added to the beginning--for example: to hope (qoph-vav-he) in first person is "mekave". What triggers this, is it that it's hollow(middle vav) or a weak third letter? What other verbs follow this pattern?
no, it has nothing to do with that. hebrew like arabic and all semitic languages has several different ways of conjugating ANY root, though in practice only some are used. in hebrew they are called binyanim. there are usually differences of meaning between one binyan and another. the M-prefixed binyan you ask about is called pi'el, and is either the most frequent or the second most frequent. for many roots it simply is the one used by default in the active (the passive is called pu'al, also has M- but different vowels, e.g., medaber 'speaks' medubar 'is spoken), but historically (there only traces of this now) it expressed either a repeated or a more intense action. the two rules that do apply today is that virtually all denominal verbs (made from a noun, often of foreign origin but not always) use the pi'el, e.g., metalfen 'phones', metaktsev 'budgets', mevan'em 'internationalizes', me'amrek 'americanizes'. the other common binyanim are qal (or po'el), which you probably learned first (e.g., 'omer 'says', kofets 'jumps'), nif'al (the passive/reflexive of qal), hif'il (usually causative), huf'al (passive of hif'il), and hitpa'el (mostly reflexive, sometimes passive, sometimes reciprocal, sometimes other things), but there are others.