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עברית Hebrew
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Afro-Asiatic	Northwest Semitic	Israel	Hebrew abjad

Contents 1 Consonants 1.1 Your first five letters 1.2 Your next ten letters! 1.3 And the rest... 1.4 Vowels 2 Nikud (Dots) 3 Consonants 3.1 Vowels

Consonants

Your first five letters

Letter	Pronunciation	Dagesh?	Name
א	[ʔ] '	No	Aleph
בּ	[b] b	Yes; ב [v]	Bet
ג	[g] g	Yes; גּ [g]	Gimel
ד	[d] d	Yes; דּ [d]	Daled
ה	[h] h	No	Hey

Now it's time for a little explaination. The dagesh is a little dot that we put in the middle of the letter, it changes the sound from a "stop," to a "fricative." Like from a b to a v. Now, a lot of letters have a dagesh but the sound doesn't change. This is just so you know what's going on if you see it in a dictionary, for all intents and purposes, the dagesh isn't important.

Your next ten letters!

Letter	Pronunciation	Name	Dagesh?	Sofit?
ו	[v] v	Vav	No	No
ז	[z] z	Zayin	No	No
ח	[χ] ch	Chet	No	No
ט	[t] t	Tet	No	No
י	[j] y	Yod	No	No
כּ	[k] k	Kaf	Yes; כ [χ]	Yes; ך
ל	[l] l	Lamed	No	No
מ	[m] m	Mem	No	Yes; ם
נ	[n] n	Nun	No	Yes; ן
ס	[s] s	Same'ach	No	No

Now for some explanaition again! The "sofit" part, is a special letterform used only at the end of a sentence.

And the rest...

Letter	Pronunciation	Name	Dagesh?	Sofit?
ע	[ʔ] '	Ayin	No	No
פּ	p [p]	Pey	Yes; פ [f]	Yes; ף
צ	[ts] tz	Tzadi	No	Yes; ץ
ק	[k] k	Kof	No	No
ר	[ʁ] r	Resh	No	No
ש	[s] s; [ʃ]	Sin; Shin	No	No
ת	[t] t	Tav	Yes; תּ [t]	No

Okay, a final note on shin, then you're all set. Shin has a special diacritic, called the shin dot (the Jews, a creative people, aren't they?) When the shin dot is like this שׁ, it's pronounced [ʃ] as in shoe, but if the dot is like this: שׂ, it's pronounced [s] as in sue. A good way to remember this, is as if shin is a beach, and the dot is a boat. If the dot is on the right, it's on the shore, in it's on the left, it's at sea.

Vowels

Nikud (Dots)

Consonants

Classical Hebrew boasts some 29 consonants. Although Modern Hebrew is conciderably more conservative in its sound system, it is useful to know how the Classical Hebrew writing system works in order to understand why the Alephbet (Hebrew alphabet) does what it does today.

Remember, the Hebrew row goes right to left so the leftmostletter of the Hebrew row is the equivalent of the rightmost letter in the latin row.

Place of articulation →	Labial	Coronal			Dorsal			Glottal
	Bilabial & labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular & pharyngeal
Manner of articulation ↓
Nasal	m מ ם	n נ ן
Plosive	p b פּ בּ	t tˁ d תּ - ט - ד				k g כּ ךּ - ג	q ק	ʔ א
Fricative	f v פּ ףּ - ב	θ ð ת - ד	s sˁ z ס - צ - ז	ʃ ש		x ɣ כ ך - ג	ħ ʕ ח - ע	h ה
Approximant					j י	w ו
Trill		r ר
Lateral		l ɬ ל ש

These sounds were represented by 22 letters as follows:

note: some letter sin hebrew have 2 forms, in each case the latter is used exclusively for representing the letter word finally

note: the dagesh symbol (a dot in the letter) is used for differentiating between sounds represented by the same letter. If you can't see it, in each pair, the first is the one with dagesh

		pronunciation	notes
א	aleph	ʔ
בּ	bet	b	b is only pronounced /b/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /v/
ב	vet	v	v is not pronounced /v/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /b/
גּ	gimel	g	g is only pronounced /g/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /ɣ/
ג	gimel	ɣ	ɣ is not pronounced /ɣ/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /g/
דּ	dalet	d	d is only pronounced /d/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /ð/
ד	dalet	ð	ð is not pronounced /ð/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /d/
ה	he	h
ו	waw	w	after the vowels u or o, liek in arabic this letter was used to lengthen the vowel.
ז	zayin	z
ח	cheit	ħ
ט	tet	tˁ
י	yud	j	after the vowel i yud was used to lengthen the vowel.
כּךּ	kaf	k	k is only pronounced /k/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /x/
כך	kaf	x	x is not pronounced /x/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /k/
ל	lamed	l
מם	mem	m
נן	nun	n
ס	samech	s
ע	ayin	ʕ
פּףּ	peh	p	p is only pronounced /p/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /f/
פף	feh	f	f is not pronounced /f/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /p/
צץ	tzade	sˁ
ק	qof	q
ר	resh	r
שׂ	sin	ɬ
שׁ	shin	ʃ
תּ	tav	t	t is only pronounced /t/ at the begining of a word, otherwise it becomes /θ/
ת	tav	θ	θ is not pronounced /θ/ at the begining of a word where it is pronounced /t/

Modern Hebrew on the other hand has a slightly different set of sounds due to some changes over time

Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal			Dorsal				Glottal
	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal
Manner of articulation ↓
Nasal	m מ ם		n נ ן
Plosive	p b פ - ב		t d ת ט - ד				k g כ ך - ג			ʔ א ע
Fricative		f v פ - ב ו	(θ) (ð) ת׳ - ד׳	s z ש ס - ז	ʃ (ʒ) ש ז׳			χ (ʁ) כ ך ח - ר׳	(ħ) ח	h ה
Affricate				ts צ	(tʃ) (dʒ) צ׳ ג׳
Approximant						j י	(w) וו
Trill							ʀ ר
Lateral Approx­imant			l ל

The following letters have changed their sounds:

ת and ד no longer become /θ/ and /ð/, they are, however, used to represent those sounds when transcribing foreign languages with the use of a geresh mark ת׳ and ד׳ .

ג no longer becomes /ɣ/ although with geresh it now represents /dʒ/ ג׳ .

ק has merged with כּ and now both are said /k/

the soft כ has moved back and become /χ/ while ח has moved forward and also become /χ/. When differentiating between /χ/ and /ħ/ however, ח becomes /ħ/ and ח׳ represents /χ/.

the pharyngealised צ has become /ts/ or /tʃ/ when used with geresh צ׳. In the meanwhile pharyngealised ט has become /t/ the same as ת.

ש when pronounced /ɬ/ has merged with ס and both are pronounced /s/

ו has merged with ב and both are now said /v/ although a double waw וו is used to represend /w/

ע has merged with א and both are said /ʔ/

The following letters also use geresh to represent foreign sounds: ז׳ and ר׳ represent /ʒ/ and /ʁ/ respecively.

Vowels

In Hebrew, vowels are not written as letters, rather they are represented by niqqud which are a series of dots placed below the consonant they follow. Hebrew uses 5 basic vowels, /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ and /u/. Each can appear as long or short or very short, except for /i/ and /u/ which cannot be very short. Hebrew also has the vowel schwa which is a schwa sound // or no sound depending on context /ə/

The table shows the usual marks for vowels represented on the letter ט

	long	short	very short
/a/	טָ	טַ	טֲ
/e/	טֵ	טֶ	טֱ
/i/	טיִ or טִי	טִ	n/a
/o/	טוֹ or טֹ	טָ
/u/	טוּ	טֻ	n/a

Hebrew pages
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