Some Hebrew Resources:

• Jewish Dictionary
• The Purim Story
• Hebrew Name Dictionary
• The Passover Story

Read The Rules For Reading Hebrew
March 12th, 2010

"Learn To Read Hebrew In 120 Minutes- Guaranteed"

Now a few more rules, and we are well on the way:

1. The letter Aleph is a kind of silent letter in Hebrew. This is unless it has a vowel with it and then it is pronounced in the manner of that vowel. For example in the word bud, the U is actually not pronounced, but more tells you how to pronounce the B. This is very much the same in Hebrew.

2. The letter Vav has two sorts of pronounciations. One is hard and the other is soft. 99% of the time, unless it has an 'o' or an 'oo' vowel with it, it is pronounced as a v sound. If it does have one of these vowels with it, then it is pronounced as an o or an oo, but once more more as a silent vowel than as a letter in itself.

3. If the letter Yod does not have a vowel on it, it acts like the letter Y would in English if after another letter. So for example, in the word "by", the 'y' is more telling you how to pronounce the letter 'b' than how to pronounce the 'y'. This is the same in Hebrew.

4. The letter Chet is not like a letter that we have in English. The sound may be compared to went someone is getting ready to spit. However, I wouldn't advise you to practice too much!!

5. The letter Ayin is also not like a letter that we have in English. It is similar to a hard A coming more from the back of the throat with a slight click.

6. The final letters from the above alphabet are written as such when they are at the end of words. There is no difference in the pronounciation.

So far we have done our letters, we have done our vowels, so let's try and understand how words are formed. Luckily in Hebrew this is easier than in other languages. Firstly because there are no real exceptions to pronounciation. Also because the way that you read Hebrew means that you can take each letter as it comes without depending on later letters for pronounciation. Once you do know the letters and vowels, it is easy to read words

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From: JoeJoe Acquisto Acquisto
Comment:

Hello,

I love your site, and do find it very helpful. I have a question concerning reading Hebrew. Quite often I notice at the end of words in Hebrew a particular letter or punctuation mark  that I can't identify. It looks like a longer than normal "reish", and has two dots to the left of it (sheva?). Here is an example that does not have the dots. "áòìéê" This is a word that is used in a Biblical passage from Isaiah 54:5. What is the letter on the end of this word 'baali"? Or is this a punctuation mark of some kind? Like a semi colon? I notice this character at the end of many words as I am reading, and would love to know just what it is.

Your help is much appreciated.

 

Sincerely,

 

Joe Acquisto

Woonsocket, RI