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Reading and Writing Hebrew

From Wikiversity

Lesson 1:

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The Hebrew Alphabet

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Regular Alphabet

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In Hebrew there are no vowels (except a few letters that can also function as vowels), only consonants.The Hebrew Letters are:


Aleph - א - Similiar to A but again it is not a vowel, it's a consonant, a sound.

Beit - ב - Like the letter B or V.

Gimel - ג - Like G or J but only g as of gum. It can sound like G as of Germany if it is written like that: 'ג.

Daled - ד - Like D.

Hey - ה - Like H. If used at the end of a word it makes the word end with AH sound.

Vav - ו - As a consonant, the letter is pronounced as V. as a vowel it's pronounced as O or U.

Zain - ז - Like Z. When 'ז it's pronounced like a soft J (Like Jean in french).

Khet - ח - Like KH. it's similiar to J in spanish but harder sound.

Tet - ט - Like T.

Yod - י - As a consonant, it's pronounced like Y. As vowel it's like I.

Kaf - כ - Like K or Khet(KH).

Lamed - ל - Like L.

Mem - מ - Like M.

Noon - נ - Like N.

Samekh - ס - Like S.

Aeen - ע - Similiar to Aleph but it's pronounced from the throat.

Pey - פ - Like P or F.

Tsadik - צ - Like TS. When 'צ it's pronounced like CH.

Koof - ק - Like K.

Reish - ר - Like R but rolling.

Shin - ש - Like SH or S.

Taf - ת - Like T. When 'ת it's pronounced like TH though that sound doesn't exist in the hebrew language, only in foreign words.

Ending Alphabet

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There are also "final letters" which replace some letters at the end of a word and sound exactly the same, they just look different:

Kaf Sofit (Ending Kaf) - ך - Like Kaf.

Mem Sofit - ם - Like Mem.

Noon Sofit - ן - Like Noon.

Pey Sofit - ף - Like Pey, but nearly always pronounced F.

Tsadik Sofit - ץ - Like Tsadik.

Notes

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Almost all of these letters look different in hand writing but we won't get into it right now.

Instead of vowels, in hebrew there is Nikud- signs that show the reader how to pronounce the words but that is quite difficult and we also won't get into it right now.