Lesson 1

In this first Lesson, the goal isn't to memorize the entire Hebrew Alphabet yet, but just to become aware of it, to see how it differs from the Latin Alphabet that we use to write English, and to begin to familiarize yourself with it.

You might have noticed that I use the terms Alphabet, Alef-Bet, and Aleph-Bet interchangeably. That's because when you transliterate from Hebrew into English, you have to decide how to represent the sounds. Don't worry too much about that yet, as there are several ways to transliterate, and none of them are inherently right or wrong, but I will begin to standardize this as these lessons continue. Being consistent while learning can be helpful, but being aware of the differences out there can also be important so you don't feel lost if you look at material from another soure.

Hebrew is written from right to left, which might seem backwards if you're used to writing English.

There are only 22 letters.

Six or seven of them can carry a dot in their center which is called a “dagesh.” This gives them a harder plosive sound, compared to the softer fricative sound they make without the dagesh. These are called Double Letters.

Five of the letters also have an alternate final form (usually a swoopy, dangling form) that happens only when they are at the end of a word! This is kind of like how some people will flourish the last letter of their name in a signature. They are called sofit (ending), for example, mem sofit is final-mem.

There are many styles of writing. There is something very similar to a sans-serif typeface, which is what you would see on road signs in Israel (or what you are seeing in the image below this paragraph.) There is also formal “book print”, which is what you typically find in a formal book before, such as a Bible or Prayer Book, and there are even ornate, calligraphic “crowned” letters that are used when traditional trained scribes copy a Torah scroll entirely by hand. There are also “cursive” handwritten writing styles, and ancient pictographic versions of the letters from before the current form of the alphabet was adopted. We will be looking at a few different forms during these Lessons, but when you “write” it out on paper, I recommend you keep it simple, like the version shown in the image below, or in the handwriting guide on the start page.

Start in the upper right, and say the name of each letter as you look at the chart.

There are different ways people pronounce the letters, but I will try to offer some guidance here (below) so you can know how I will be pronouncing them in this class. I've also made a video where you can hear me pronounce them, where I've also included some additional information. Here's the video link:

1. alef (the name of this letter starts with a sound like the “a” in father)
2. bet (sounds like it looks, or “beyt” or “bait”, or in its softer form, vet, or veyt or vait)
3. gimel (geem-el, the name starts with a hard g sound like in gear, not a J sound, and the end sounds like the “le” at the end of “Bible”; this apparently had a hard and soft form anciently, but the difference between them is indistinguishable in modern Hebrew)
4. dalet (pronounced like dahl - et. the soft from sounds like thal-et … where the “th” makes the voiced (buzzing) sound like at the beginning of “those”, not the voiceless (airy) sound like at the beginning of “thin”)
5. heh (pronounced like “hey!”)
6. vav (also written as waw, the “a” is like in “father”, or when it is waw it is pronounced like “wow”)
7. zeyin (rhymes with “sign” but starts with a “z”)
8. khet (also written heth, het, chet, cheth. this might be the hardest letter name to say. it starts with a throaty friction sound like the end of “loch” in lochness monster.)
9. tet (i say tet like it looks, but “teyt” is also used by some)
10. yod (or written yud, if I said it rhymes with blood but also rhymes with good, it's somewhere in between there. It doesn't rhyme with God.)
11. kaf (its name sounds like the English word “cough”, the soft form without the dagesh in it is khaf, and the beginning of that word sounds the same as the beginning of khet) this letter also has an alternate final form which is shown in the bottom row of the chart.
12. lamed (law - med, emphasis on the first syllable, rhymes with Muhammed)
13. mem (like it looks, mem, or meym) this letter has an alternate final form which is shown in the bottom row of the chart - and its the only one where the final form isn't actually swoopy.
14. nun (like the time of day “noon”, not like The Flying Nun 😄 ) this letter has an alternate final form which is shown in the bottom row of the chart
15. samek (saw - mehk)
16. eyin (its name is just like zeyin but without the z sound at the beginning)
17. peh (like the English word “pay”, or in its softer form, “fay”) this letter has an alternate final form which is shown in the bottom row of the chart
18. tsadi (the first sound is like the ts at the end of the english word “lots” … tsaw -dee) this letter has an alternate final form which is shown in the bottom row of the chart
19. qof (also spelled quf, to distinguish it from kaf I pronounce it like koof, or koaf)
20. resh (best if you can use the slightly rolled R sound to say its name, but still understandable if you use the American rhotic R)
21. shin (shin or sheen, but it also has another form where it sounds different, and in that case it is pronounced sin or seen)
22. tav (where the “a” is like the one in the word father)

That's the end of the material for Alphabet Lesson 1. If you want to, read through the list again to become more familiar with how the names are pronounced, but, again, don't worry about memorizing any of it yet. We will be memorizing specific small sets of letters in the upcoming lessons, as we begin to learn how to use them.

Practice what you've learned with the Lesson 1 Flashcards before you proceed to the next Lesson.