Learning hebrew - The alphabet

hebrew is the language of Israel and it is written from right to left

here are the letters (if i made mistakes, please correct me)

א – alef - it's a silent letter and the transliterations: a

ב - bet - (b as in boy, or v as in vine) - transliteration: b or v

ג - gimmel - (g as in girl) - transliteration: g

ד - dalet - (d as in duck) - transliteration: d

ה - he - (h as in hay) - transliteration: h

ו - vav - transliteration: v

ז - zayin - (z as in zoo) - transliteration: z

ח - chet - (ch as in bach) - transliteration: ch or h

ט - tet - (t as in time) - transliteration: t

י - yod - (y as in yes) - transliteration: y

כ - kaf - transliteration: k

ך - final kaf

ל - lamed (l as in lime) - transliteration: l

מ - mem (m as in mom) - transliteration: m

ם - final mem

נ - nun (n as in new) - transliteration: n

ן - final nun

ס - samech (s as in sun) - transliteration: s

ע - ayin - silent letter

פ - pe (p as in park) - transliteration: p

ף - final pe

צ - tsadi (ts as in nuts) - transliteration: ts

ץ - final tsadi

ק - qof (K) - transliteration: k

ר - resh (r as in rush) - transliteration: r

ש - shin (sh as in sunshine) - transliteration: sh

ת - tav (t as in task) - transliteration: t



what is good to know, in hebrew there are no capital letters

need to memorize

why are you saying that א and ע are silent letters?

and about the capital letters... it is not 100% true.
there is a printed form and hand-write form...
like in this picture:


the printed form:

well in english when we start a phrase we start with a capital letter - A and not a. in hebrew it doesn't exist capital letters, but u know better.

and i must know when i transliterate alef like a or o or u. i think must be some rules

toda raba

Originally Posted by shhora

and i must know when i transliterate alef like a or o or u. i think must be some rules

well there is a lot of rules...
and it is depends on the 'niqqud" (ניקוד) that attached to the letter.

the full form of Hebrew writing is like this:

you can learn about the niqqud from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...s_%28Hebrew%29
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud

well thanks a lot, i am romanian and i try to study hebrew by myself, i learned the alphabet but when is time to read i can't is to hard .. i don't know what vowel to use

yes... i have this problem too...

i am confusing with Russian sometimes...

at least u can understand hebrew, i don't .. u are russian?

no, Azerbaijan, Caucasus.

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5042/3brephoto1.jpg

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9470/3brephoto2.jpg

Shalom, shhora & all.

What a nice thread. It's so nice to see people interested on this beautiful language. I'd like to add some points, if you allow me to. I'm taking a Hebrew course in the local university here and I'm so sorry that you're on your own. Learning Hebrew by myself never worked to me . So let's see:

1) "ו" (Vav) not always must be transliterated as an V. One must learn the pointed system to understand it. It can be an O or an U and it is this the most part of the cases. In the absence of a vav or an yod on the left of a consonant in the unpointed system, one can deduce the vowel in a consonant as A or E usually.

טוב - tov - good
גדול - gadol - big
סטודנט - student - student
כל טוב - kol tuv

2) The symbol ש can be two letters: both for the hissing SH or silabant S

שרית - Sarit
שלי - sheli - mine

3) The symbol "כ" can be two letters: the hard KAF or the gutural CHAF, similar to CHET. There is no final KAF. Actually in the end, it is supposed to be a CHAF. For a K in the end one uses KOF

כף - kaf - spoon
נכון - nachon - right
רך - rach - soft
רק - rak - only

4) The symbol פ can be the letters "PEI" or "FEI". There is no final PEI, actually in the end, a final FEI will always be a FEI.

פה - po - here
אפריקה - Africa
כף - kaf - spoon

PEI can be used in the end usually for non-Hebrew words to mean the plosive P

סירופ = sirop = syrup
פריסקופ - periscop - periscope

5) Besides an I, an yod can also work as the vocalical clusters ya, ye. In combination with vav, it can be yo or yu

איסמאל - Ismael
ים - yam - sea
יפה - yafe - beautiful
ילד - yeled - boy
יופי - yofi - beauty
יורי - Yuri

6) Alef and Hayn can, in fact, be silent too, and one must bear in mind that they usually indicate an vowel (in the absense of a vav or an yod on the left to mean i, o or u, generally). They also can stand for an E. Actually it is not them which is transliterated but the vowel right below it on the pointed system:

ישראל - Israel
אתה - atah - you (male)
אש - esh - fire
שאול - Saul
עברית - ivrit - hebrew

7) I'd rather say that sound of RESH is the Spanish R in caro, ahora. The English word rush seems not be very accurate to me.

Here the pointed version:



I don't know if you all are already doing it, but learning the cursive form of the Hebrew letters is a plus when learning Hebrew language, because you will be able to write down the words and memorize them.

If one is not working with the full Hebrew system, learning the orthography of the words is a prime. I like learning the pointed form of a word at first, because the consonants will follow more easily. It feels like learning Chinese, a case of picturing the word and not only spelling it.

Well, I don't agree with Nadi, my teacher who is an israeli told us that there is no capital letters in Hebrew. Actually some letters in the cursive version are pictured a little taller than the others, but this is independent on the position of them in a word. But I'll ask him again

Shalom, l'hitra-od

Here there is a nice online quiz for the aleph-bet. A letter will be pronounced and one must click on the correspondent one. Note that CHAF and FEI will always stand for the final ones. I took over two hours to learn the aleph-bet. But, of couse, the letters alone will not help that much. Learning and writing words is the way. It will improve reading, you'll see.

!כל טוב

http://www.languageguide.org/im/alpha/he/alpha_quiz.jsp

Originally Posted by algebra

Shalom, shhora & all.


שלי - sheli - mine

3) The symbol "כ" can be two letters: the hard KAF or the gutural CHAF, similar to CHET. There is no final KAF. Actually in the end, it is supposed to be a CHAF. For a K in the end one uses KOF

...

איסמאל - Ismael
Well, I don't agree with Nadi, my teacher who is an israeli told us that there is no capital letters in Hebrew. Actually some letters in the cursive version are pictured a little taller than the others, but this is independent on the position of them in a word. But I'll ask him again

Shalom, l'hitra-od

Hi algebra,
1. Sheli can be a female name too.., BTW.
2. the symbol CHAF and CHET are NOT to similar...
3. what is איסמאל? there is not such word... did you mean ישמעל?
4. i did not said the in Hebrew there are Capital letters. i meant there is a different form from hand-writing and the "book like" form.

but thanks for the correction...

Hi Nadi, I don't mean the symbol for CHET but the sound of it. And thanks for correcting that spelling, I kinda messed up.

thanks a lot algebra .... lately i amde some transliterations and i've been observed that pei is sometimes fei

well thank u very much, here i didn't find any hebrew classes

Great thread :-)

The Hebrew alphabet is quite difficult to learn for people who don't speak a Semitic language (even if they do it's still hard). But honestly, once you learn a little bit about grammar it makes TOTAL sense 95% of the time. One day it will all just CLICK for you and you'll totally understand the reasoning behind it :-)

א and ע aren't "silent" letters but they don't have a sound without niqqud or another letter to make them into a sound (in Modern Hebrew). ע used to be pronounced the same as ع in Arabic (3ayin) but it's not really anymore - it's pronounced the same as א but often it's used for "e" vowels whereas א is more used for "a" vowels (NOT always, this is just a very very simple generalisation).

Also ר (resh) is not like Spanish "r" or English "r" or Arabic "ر" at all. It used to be. Especially in some music ("Mizrachit" (oriental) music, like Eyal Golan/Sarit Hadad etc etc etc etc) they still pronounce it like that. But in Modern Hebrew it's pronounced like French "r". Do not, do not TRY deliberately to pronounce it as "r" in English or Spanish because you will instantly come off as a foreigner. If you can't pronounce "ר" like French "r" that's TOTALLY fine and you will still be perfectly understood. All I'm saying is that if you want to try to sound like a native then don't purposely try to learn it the wrong way :-)

Most importantly, Hebrew is not hard to pronounce or spell in guys, or even to learn. It's a great language and it is very confusing in the beginning but like I said, one day it will just CLICK and everything will be easy from then! The spelling system is actually 10000000000000000000% easier than English (but English is probably the worst). There aren't really hidden or strange changing sounds.

All the best guys! Keep learning - it's worth it!

Keep studying guys! :-p

איזה יופי
!!!!
תודה Algebra!
i hope i wrote "thank you so much" :-)
after your explanation now everything is more clear to me!
i only need a dictionary now! :-))

Originally Posted by 1inamillion1

Also ר (resh) is not like Spanish "r" or English "r" or Arabic "ر" at all.

What do you mean. I don't know what you mean by a french "R". I speak German so I know that sound.

I learned Hebrew in grade school in America, so I know the letters. But, unfortunately, we learned to read with vowels so I can't read modern Hebrew.

I have another question. Are all words a specific gender, like German, French, Spanish, etc. or do only obvious things like people and animals have male and female?