Hebrew Alphabet (Alefbet) + Vowels - full tutorial!

[Music] the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph Aleph the standard Hebrew script is called the square script which means simply that each letter fits itself more or less into a square box like this now just like with English Hebrew can be printed with many fonts and the one that I'm using here called s BL Hebrew is a standard book font but I'm gonna teach you how to write each letter with a simple handwritten block script that doesn't include all the serifs and squigglies Aleph is written with just three strokes a diagonal and two shorter strokes I'll diagram each letter for you like this showing the order and direction of each stroke but then I'll use the chalk to let you see the letter written like this 1 2 3 you might want to pause the video at this point and practice writing Aleph on your own a few times now let's turn our attention to the sound of the letter there are actually two more or less silent consonants in Hebrew and olive happens to be one of them instead of making its own sound it just takes the sound of the vowel that follows it here are a couple Hebrew words that begin with the letter Aleph on e an e off off and that's the letter Aleph next we have MIT Beit Beit is written with two strokes one the curves around the right side and then a bass here's what it looks like with chalk one to notice that the base of the letter Beit sticks out past the right side of the box you'll want to pay attention to that because it'll help you distinguish Beit from some other letters that have a similar shape it is also one of the three letters in the Hebrew alphabet whose sound changes depending on whether or not it has a little in it that little dot is called a de guiche and if it's present in bait then bait makes a hard sound but if there's no de guiche it makes a soft vet the sound here are a couple examples I eat I eat and one with the soft bait of love and that's bait next up demon demon female is one of a handful of letters that are narrower than the rest they only use about half the box and it's written with two strokes one that wraps down like this and then a foot coming off here's what it looks like to write it with chalk one two gimel makes the sound gay gay as in keyboar keyboard da gal gal gal gimel that brings us to Dalit Dalit Dalit is simple to write it just has a long cap at the top and then a vertical line down here's how you write it one two just like the letter Beit vowel it also sticks out past the right side of the box on the top this time again notice that because there are a couple other letters that look a bit like Dalit and this will help you distinguish it from the rest Dalit makes the sound death death as in dog dog or vash Dalit finally in this lesson we have the letter hey hey haze written with two strokes one the wraps are on the right side and then a short upright that leaves a little gap at the top here it is written one - hey makes the breathy sound hey hey as in heaven heaven or hey Hal hey Hal hey it's the letter v' of father's one of the narrow letters of the Hebrew alphabet and is written with just two strokes a short cap and then a vertical line here's what it looks like when written sometimes Bob stands in for a vowel in a word in signals an O or an O sound but as a consonant it makes a vet sound vet actually the name of the letter valve is a word that means a hook or tent peg and it's shaped a bit like the letter Bob is also the conjunction and when attached to the front of another word there and that's the letter v' off next we have Zion Zion Zion is also a narrow letter and is written with two strokes an angled cap and then another vertical line down here it is with chalk one to notice that the cap of Zion extends out past the right side of the box that'll help you distinguish it from other letters like for example valve Zion makes the sound z Z as in Zaire ha xel-há or Z roof the roof Zion next we have the letter pet pet pet is written with two strokes one that wraps around the right side and then a vertical that connects at the top here it is with the chalk one two head looks a lot like the letter hei but the difference is head is closed at the top whereas hay has that gap that makes the sound yeah yeah this can be a little tricky at first because it's not a sound that we use in the English language it's made actually by constricting the air flow in the back of your throat kind of like when you say the word aha aha a bit of a rough H sound here are a couple words that begin with the letter het more MORE I love I love that that brings us to Tet Tet that's a little bit of a funny letter for me it looks a little different depending on what kind of font you're using but here's how I like to write it with a little hook and then a stroke that wraps around the bottom let's write it 1 2 no matter what form you find teton it'll always have that hook on the right and then a bit of a gap at the top that makes the sound yeah Ted as in tebah or tile tile and that's Ted finally in this lesson we have the letter Yoda Yoda Yoda is the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet and only uses a corner of the box you can write it with one little hooked stroke just like this sometimes yo'd stands in for a vowel in a word and makes an e sound but as a consonant yo'd makes the sound yeah yeah as in ya Yin Yin or yom-yom Yoda we have the letter cough cough cough is written by rapping strokes around the top right and bottom of the box here it is with chalk wrap it right around like that the shape of cough is quite a bit like the letter bit but if you remember from the first lesson the base of bait sticks out past its upright whereas cough wraps around smoothly cough is the first of five letters in the alphabet that have a final form that is their shape changes if they're the last letter of a word now the way you make a final form of the letter cough from the original is basically to take the base of the letter and rotate it down so that it extends below the bottom of the box now as you can see it doesn't look exactly like that so here's how you'd write it with chalk just two strokes over and down this final form of the letter cough looks a lot like the letter dalet and also like h which is a letter we'll learn later but again the final form extends the baseline that's how you can tell it apart cough is also one of the letters whose sound changes depending on whether or not it has the dagesh with the dug ish cough makes the sound k okay but without the dug ish it makes a softer ha ha now that sounds an awful lot like the letter het and for all practical purposes we can say it's the same sound remember it's made by giving a little friction in the back of the throat here are a couple words that start with the letter cough can live Kenneth key say key say and that's the letter cough next up is La mid Lama de la Madrid with three strokes starting above the box one two and wrap around down to the middle here it is with chalk 1 2 & 3 llama is the only letter that extends above the top of the box and it makes the sound let let to me la med looks a bit like a lightning bolt and that helps me remember the sound let here are a couple examples left him let him live live LA mid that brings us to maem maem here's how I like to write MAME one stroke up wrap around and then write that little hook at the top one two three just remember to leave a bit of a gap at the bottom of the letter name is the second of our letters that has a final form and it's made essentially by closing that gap at the bottom but as you can see it's not exactly the same you can write it by more or less drawing a square box and this is the final form of maem maem mix the sound meh-meh as in mead ba mead ba ma heme my name [Music] finally nuhn nuhn nuhn is one of the narrow letters and is written with three strokes one two and three let's write that with the chalk noon also has a final form and it's created in the standard way by bending the base of the letter down below the bottom of the box the final form of noon looks a lot like the letter volve but again remember that it sticks down below the baseline no one makes the sound net-net as in Naha Nahal and nosh-nosh noon sama-sama some X written with a flat top and then a stroke the loops around the bottom let's write it together 1 2 summit looks a lot like the letter Tet but remember that Tet has an opening at the top it also looks a bit like the final form of the letter MAME but name is boxy at the bottom whereas ama is rounded sama makes the sound set set as in sous-sous sofia sofia somnath next we have ayan iene you can write iron with two strokes one that wraps around to the bottom and then a second one that meets it in the middle like this one to notice that I mean does extend a little bit down past the baseline it's also the second of our consonants that doesn't have a sound of it own it just takes the sound of the vowel that follows it as in it's it's or yeah yeah I mean now on to Pei Pei Peis written with three strokes on their raps are on the right side a base and then a hook at the top let's write it with chalk one two and then that hook three is one of the letters that does have a final form as well and it's created in the standard way by pivoting the base down below the bottom of the box pays also one of the letters whose sound changes depending on whether or not it has a Doug ich with the Doug ich a makes the sound hey hey but without it it makes the soft sound phat phat here are a couple examples from pay Haim anima aha hey and now we have Soddy Soddy you can write sadi with three strokes a diagonal a bass and then the third stroke that stops in the middle one two and three now when I was first learning Hebrew I got Saudi mixed up with the letter I in quite a bit because to my eye they both look like the letter Y in English but you'll have them distinguished in no time Saudi is also the last of the letters that has a final form and you might be expecting by now that it's made by pivoting the base of the letter down past the bottom of the box and that would be almost right actually the final form of Saudi looks like this and you can write it simply with a vertical line and then a second stroke that meets it in the middle but it does extend below the baseline sadi makes the sound set set which is a sound that we don't have with just one letter in the English language but it's the kind of sound that we hear when we use the word it's set set as in sowon sowon or all see all sadi cough cough coughs written with two strokes one that wraps around and then a vertical that extends below the bottom of the box let's write it together one two cough does extend below the baseline and it makes the sound okay okay here are a couple examples Thai eats kites care their care their cough next is the letter whoosh whoosh you can write the leash with one stroke that wraps around the right side let's try that with the chalk H looks a lot like the letter dalet oh remember Oh H has a rounded corner whereas dalit has that sharp corner now the sound of the letter of H is something like the English letter R wrath wrath but that doesn't sound very much like how a native speaker would pronounce it and the way that I've taught myself to pronounce it as best I can like a native speaker is to start with the English sound of w wet wet way SH and what I do is visualize that sound starting not with my lips but further and further back in my throat wet oh yeah oh yeah alright almost like I'm swallowing the sound until it's back where the uvula hangs down in the back of your throat okay oh yeah as in wash wash or blow a hole a vise next we have the letter Xin Xin you can write Xin with just two strokes on the loops around the bottom and then get that middle spike and attach it just to the left of center here it is with chalk one two now you'll notice at the top that gene has two letters with dots above them that's because it makes two different sounds depending on where that dot is if the dot is over the left spike then Sheen makes the set sound and you actually call the name of the letter seen set set but if that dot is over the right spike then it's just your general Xin and makes the sound chef chef here are a couple examples but the scene Sade Sade and with Xin Shum I'm Shamim Xin and finally have Tov Bob's written with three strokes that one that wraps around the right side and a vertical line and finally a little foot here's how you write it with the chalk one two and three Bob looks a lot like the letter het but it will always have that foot on the lower left where as head is straight at the bottom Bob makes the sound ten ten just like the letter Tet as in pal mean I mean or to Fela Fela Tom congratulations on making it all the way to the end and for sticking with us we have a bonus shear ha alef-bet the olive bed song let me teach it to you let's bet gimel dalet Ava sign that you're half lawmen main hoon Sam I'm a daddy cough h-scene cinta let's try it again I left it gimel dalet a Vogue's I heard that your calf lawmen mamnoon some I'm a sadiq of Rage sin cinta Shalom Sayyed lead Aloha and good Shalom hello this is a supplement to the blackboard Hebrew lessons on the Hebrew alphabet this time looking at the Hebrew vowel pointing system I'll introduce you to each of the vowels and then we'll have a game to play that will give you some practice with them by the way for this video I'll be using an academic style pronunciation like you'd find in a seminary or graduate school outside of Israel native speakers use a slightly simplified vowel system so don't be thrown off by that okay let's dive in so this is our friend the letter dalet she's here to give us a spatial reference for these vowels now all of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet are actually consonants for the longest time ancient hebrew speakers didn't write down their vowels at all but just knew that particular clusters of consonants formed particular words that had associated vowel sounds about the 7th century c e Jewish scribes wanted to preserve the vowel sounds within the written texts but since the texts were talking about were sacred they didn't want to disturb the continental form instead they developed a system of dots and dashes that they could put around and inside the letters primarily underneath to indicate which sound followed that consonant the form of these dots that has stuck comes to us from the Masoretic scribes so let me introduce you to each of these marks first we have the comet's comets Kamata is a little T looking symbol which makes an R sound as an Father I think of the shape of the Comets a is looking a little bit like a necktie kind of like the type that my father might wear that helps me remember it come on next is potage fatah but that also makes an a sound as in father although it's a shorter ah technically and so I think of it as kind of like that necktie with the tie part snipped off it's a shorter ah a doc next we have say of a say of a survey makes a long a sound as an hooray hooray for its array and we have sir gold say gold the gold makes a short a sound a as an egg and I think if Segal is like a little cluster of eggs a say gold next we have here eck hearing here ik by itself makes a short a sound as an dish yeah and I think of that little dot like the dot on a short letter I in English and that helps to remember it for here ik now sometimes here ik is followed by yo-yoed and in that case it changes its sound from a short I to a long e sound and we call this a Hirakud yi yi as in meat and we have column column column is a dot above a letter and a little to its left it makes an O sound is in boat often you will find a Holum atop the letter valve and so we call this a hole involved but it makes an O sound : and we have Sharik shoe heck Sharik looks like a valve for the dog ash in it but it's actually a vowel of its own and it makes an O sound whoo as an scoop scoop ooh and there's key boots boots the key boots is a diagonal line of three dots that makes a short o sound or an O as in book o good boots then there are a handful of shorter or reduced vowels that come up from time to time I just want to introduce you to them here this one the Comets cat oof it is like a half comets and it looks just like the regular comets except you'll find it in a closed unaccented syllable don't worry about all that for now I just want you to know that this exists and that it makes a shorter ah sound as in LA but for now when you come across this sign start out by assuming that it's probably irregular comets making a long ah sound but just know that this shorter form exists likewise this is the schwa and it has a number of rules associated with it that deserve a whole lesson of their own so we're not really gonna talk about that this time but know that that's out there and there are three more reduced vowels that each start with a schwa and then have either a comets a Pythagoras a gol following it and they make a reduced sound of the vowel that's with them so the first one the Kotaku mots makes a reduced comet sound or an AA and then the others which are already short to start with just make more or less the same sound that they would with the vowel by itself so aa and a we're not going to spend a lot of time on those you'll get to know them as you encounter them in the text so here's a chart with the primary vowels in it I wanted to show this to you just so you can see that there are five general vowel types like there are in most languages ah II oh and ooh and in Hebrew for each one there at least one long in one short form of that vowel ah and AH a and F E and E oh and ah ooh and ooh okay now that we've had a little bit of an introduction to these vowels here's where you'll actually learn how to use them we'll play a little game and in this game I'll show you two syllables and I'll pronounce one then I'll give you five seconds countdown to decide which one you think is the accurate syllable put your attention on that one and the other one will disappear here's what it's like ba ba which one is ba focus on that one and the other one will disappear there it is ba okay you should have the idea here's the next one doo doo there it is do next hit yeah yeah love love love so so so hey hey pay Zig Zig Zig me me me howl howl howl all right how are you doing this is gonna get a little trickier now you ready Mellie Mellie yes Mela Shama Shama Shama ish ish ha ha ha ha ha ha Jana Jana Jana pain pain pain hoot whoot yes hoot alright so there we have it the primary vowels of the hebrew vowel pointings system and some practice with that feel free to go back and try that game again and see the get yourself a better score after a while these will all become second nature so just give yourself some grace and some time with it and in the meantime love your Hebrew [Music] you

Channel: Tim McNinch

Views: 448,085

Rating: 4.9295897 out of 5

Keywords: Hebrew, Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Alphabet, Alefbet, Alephbet, Aleph, Tutorial, Lessons, Game, Song, Hebrew language, read, write, Hebrew characters, writing system, how to, fast, quick, easy, letters

Id: kkxvqIxTE3A

Length: 37min 28sec (2248 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 17 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/percygreen]

This is a 37 minute video. Maybe you could let us know the timestamp where the singing begins?

[u/yellow-ass-gold]

To me it sounds like a classic melody used in religion... it doesn’t stand out to me