You should be aware that we have recently begun a new trek into Dr. C.L. Seow’s A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew, Rev. Ed. (Abingdon, 1995), which you can purchase here on Amazon. If you don’t have a copy of the textbook, it will be difficult for you to follow along and you will miss a lot of the material.
In the first session, which you can view here and is embedded below, Jonathan leads us through a generic introduction to the Hebrew aleph-bet. At this stage, which is actually a pre-textbook lesson, it is important to begin to learn the names of the letters and their sounds. On the presentation, we divided the letters up into several groups to make memorization easier.
Here I will simply present the letters in order. We tend to call it the “aleph-bet” in Hebrew based on the names of the first two letters, but it is truly an abjad because vowels are not represented directly.
The Names of the Letters
It’s important to memorize the names of the letters in order. Here they are:
áleph bet gímel dálet heh vav záyin
chet tet yod kaf lámed mem nun sámech
áyin peh tsádi kuf resh shin tav
Memorize the letters in order. I have posted a video on YouTube that simply recites the name of the letters. It’s important to go over the names of the letters until they make sense to you. If you would like a musical version that includes the sounds of the fricatives (bet – vet; kaf – khaf; peh – pheh), check out Ms. Sarah’s sing-along video.
It isn’t enough to be able to recite the English letters (a b c d e f g…), but it is essential to be able to recite the alphabet. The same is true in Hebrew. It is not enough that one is able to recite the names of the letters, but it’s important to know how to give their names from beginning to end. Once you’ve got the names, it makes putting the shapes of the letters in order much easier—since you will be able to recognize where you are missing letters and can practice writing them from memory.
Take the time now to make sure that you know the names of the letters in Hebrew.
The Hebrew Aleph-Bet in Order
All comparisons below are to be compared to the standard non-accented English of newscasters and professional speakers in the United States.
א The letter א (aleph) is generally presented as a silent letter, representing the glottal stop or the sound between the two elements of “uh-oh!” or the word “water” in some British accents. It is also a seat for vowels that begin a word, since vowels cannot stand alone in Hebrew (because they were a later addition to the language).
ב The letter ב (bet) represents two different consonant sounds, depending on whether is a stop (hard) or a fricative (soft). In its hard form, it is written with a dot in its center. This dot is called dagesh (to be discussed later). Just remember that it makes it hard. Thus, בּ represents the sound b (as in banana). When soft (without the dagesh), however, it is written as ב and represents the sound v (as in very).
ג The letter ג (gimel) used to also represent two different sounds. Therefore, it has a hard representation (גּ) and a soft representation (ג). Today, both גּ and ג are pronounced the same, like the g in get.
ד The letter ד (dalet) is like gimel in that it was originally pronounced two different ways. The hard version (דּ) and the soft version (ד) are both pronounced like the d in done today.
ה The letter ה (heh) is similar to the letter h in English hello. As a mater lectionis, it often represents the vowels -a, -e, or -o at the end of a word. When it is pronounced as a consonant, it is sometimes very faint and cannot be heard (it becomes somewhat silent and might sound like א above). This is one of the three matres lectionis in Hebrew. The difference between ה as a vowel and as a consonant will soon be pointed out in a subsequent lesson.
ו The letter ו (vav) is another of the three matres lectionis. As a consonant, at some point in history it was like the Arabic waw, but from the period of late biblical Hebrew (lbh) it has been pronounced like the v in very. Grammars traditionally write it with w, but it should be noted that (1) they are attempting to represent historical developments in the language without regard to pronunciation necessarily and (2) the German grammarians gave us the transcription systems, and in the German language w sounds like English v. As a mater lectionis, it represents either o (וֹ) or u (וּ). Again, you will soon learn when it is a mater lectionis and when it should be read as a consonant (like v).
ז The letter ז (zayin) represents the same sound that we pronounce with z in English, as in the word zap. It’s one of the clearest one-to-one sound representations between English and Hebrew.
ח The letter ח is one of the two hardest sounds for English speakers to reproduce. Israelis tend to pronounce it like כ, which we will see below, such that it sounds like the ch in the Scottish word loch. Technically, it has its own sound, which we can discuss in our lessons. For now, just learn it as if it sounds like כ. Listen to Ruben’s explanation here.
ט The letter ט (tet) is like ז in that it has a single sound that is easily represented in English. It sounds like the t in the word tiger.
י The letter י (yod) is the third of the matres lectionis. We have now encountered all three of them: ה, ו, and now י. As a consonant, י represents the sound of the y in yellow. As a mater lectionis, it generally represents either i (the i in unique) or e (the long e in they or the short e in bed). We will cover the situations for each in future lessons.
כ The letter כ (kaf) represents two different sounds, like ב. When it is hard, כּ represents the k in kite; and when soft, כ represents the ch in the Scottish loch discussed above (see Ruben’s video). This sound is generally difficult for English speakers, but it is an important sound in Hebrew. When it falls at the end of a word, כ takes on a “final” or “sofit” form: ך. If it has no vowel, it will appear as ךְ but it often appears with the a vowel as ךָ.
ל The letter ל (lamed) represents the l in luxury. It is the only letter of the alphabet that extends above the lines within which the letters are written. We will see later that there are four forms that descend below the bottom line (one is כ above when at the end of a word), and we have already met י that doesn’t extend down to the bottom line but only takes up a quarter of the space of normal letters.
מ The letter מ (mem) is another of the simple letters that represent just one sound. It sounds exactly like the m in English. The only odd thing is it, like כ, has a separate form when it appears at the end of a word. In that situation, it looks like ם. So far, we have encountered two of the five letters that have “final forms.”
נ The letter נ (nun) also represents only one sound (the n of English) and has two forms: the normal form that appears at the beginning of a word or with in (נ) and the final form that appears only at the end of a word (ן).
ס The letter ס (samech) simply represents the s of English. It never becomes a z sound as in the English phase. It is always s as in some.
ע The letter ע (ayin) is normally taught to be the same as א. That is, it is said to be a silent letter. This will be enough for you as you begin your study of Hebrew, but technically ע has a sound of its own. We can demonstrate it during online lessons if you’re interested.
פ The letter פ (peh) is very similar to כ, in that it represents two sounds and has two shapes! When it is hard, פּ represents the sound of the p in English port. When it is soft, פ represents the ph or f sound in photo or film. At the end of a word, it takes on the form ף.
צ The letter צ (tsadi) is often called “tsadik” (Hebrew for “righteous”) by Israeli speakers of Hebrew. It represents the double sound of ts, just as in English the letter x represents the sound of ks together. This is the last of the five letters that have a final form, which is ץ. No matter what position the letter is found in, both the sounds of t and of s must be pronounced: צִיצִית tsitsit “fringe, four-cornered religious undershirt with tassels,” and בּוֹץ bots “mud,” and צוּף tsuf “reeds.”
ק The letter ק (kuf) today sounds the same as hard כּ, that is, as a k in English. Historically, it was produced further back in the throat and had a different sound. It is the same in all positions of a word.
ר The letter ר (resh) is similar to the r in Parisian French. Students may pronounce it like the r in English, but they should eventually learn to pronounce it in the throat rather than in the sides of the mouth. Historically, it was tapped or trilled like the r and rr in Spanish.
ש The letter ש (shin/sin) represents either the s in son (marked as שׂ) or the sh in shun (marked as שׁ). It represents two sounds that merged into one letter, and they are distinguished in pointing by the placement of the dot on the top right or the top left.
ת The letter ת (tav) has both a hard (תּ) and a soft (ת) form. Historically, they had different sounds (depending on the reading tradition), but today they both sound the same as ט—like the t in time.
Recommendations
Aleph with Beth
A playlist from Aleph with Beth that goes through the Hebrew alphabet clearly and professionally.
Biblingo
Biblingo’s excellent presentation of the Hebrew alphabet in a set of videos.