The Hebrew Alephbet

The 22 constants that make up the Alephbet are shown in this chart, together with the name of each:

As suggested previously, you read Hebrew from right to left. Hence, the first letter of the Alephbet is ‘Aleph’ (at the top right of the screen shot), followed by ‘Bet’ immediately to the left and so on.

Of the consonants shown, five have a different form that is used when they appear at the end of the word. Not everyone agrees on this form, but when they are used, they are known as the ‘sofit’ or ‘sophit’ form of the letter:

You will need to recognize the ‘sofit’ characters because they will be used in some of the written materials that you are reading.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the pronunciation of many of the consonants and vowels that together make up the basic building blocks of reading and speaking Hebrew have changed over the centuries. Even so, this is not going to make any difference to your reading and the pronunciation does not change the meaning of the words either.

Nevertheless, you should be aware that the pronunciation of many of the consonants and vowels has changed over the centuries but stick to modern Hebrew usage when you are speaking (as others will when they speak to you).

Modern Hebrew is further split into two different forms, being Ashkenazy and Sephardic. As the latter is the form of Hebrew that is officially recognized in Israel, it is the one that is most commonly used.

You will note that some of the consonants highlighted earlier look very similar to one another. You therefore need to make sure that you can recognize the different characters and differentiate between them if you are going to make any sense of your Hebrew reading.

In particular, watch out for the following similar characters which could be a little confusing if you don’t learn to separate them from one another:

The final thing that you need to learn to recognize are the different ‘nikkudot’ that cause consonants to be used as vowels.

These are the vowel points added either above or below the consonant:

Now you have the basics of the Hebrew alphabet, let’s consider each of the different characters in turn.

Introduction to Reading Hebrew
The first basics
The Hebrew AlephBet
The Letters of the AlephBet
Aleph
Bet (Beyt)
Gimmel
Dalet
Hey
Vav
Zayin
Chet
Tet
Yod
Kaf
Lamed
Mem
Nun
Samekh
Ayin
Pey (Fey)
Tsade (Tsadik)
Qof
Resh
Shin
Tav
The Significance of the Alephbet
The Basics of Hebrew Verbs
The Hebrew Verb Subject
The Hebrew Verb Object
Hebrew Verb Tenses
Hebrew Verb Voices and Moods
Hebrew Verb Participles
The Infinite Verb Version
Hebrew Nouns
Hebrew Noun Constructs
Using Prefixes With Nouns
Hebrew Pronouns
Hebrew Plural Nouns
Hebrew Adjectives
Identifying Hebrew Questions
Adverbs, Prepositions and Conjunctions
Hebrew Reading Conclusion