Reading and Writing Hebrew

Lesson 1:

The Hebrew Alphabet

Regular Alphabet

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

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

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.