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The Hebrew alphabet

Every letter with its name and sound, the five final forms, and all seventeen vowel points — the whole writing system on one page.

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The letters

Twenty-two letters, read right to left

Listed in alphabetical order, with the forms that change at the end of a word and the letters whose sound changes with a dagesh shown separately — because those are the forms you actually meet on the page.

# Letter Name Sound
1 א Alef (silent)
2 בּ Bet b, as in "boy"
3 ב Bet v, as in "vine"
4 ג Gimel g, as in "good"
5 ד Dalet d, as in "day"
6 ה He h as in "hay"
7 ו Vav v, as in "vine"
8 ז Zayin z, as in "Zion"
9 ח Het ch, as in "Bach"
10 ט Tet t, as in "tent"
11 י Yod y, as in "yes"
12 כּ Kaf, k, as in "kite"
13 כ Kaf ch, as in "Bach"
14 ך Kaf Final Form
15 ל Lamed l, as in "lake"
16 מ Mem m, as in "mother"
17 ם Mem Final Form
18 נ Nun n, as in "net"
19 ן Nun Final Form
20 ס Samek s, as in "son"
21 ע Ayin (silent)
22 פּ Pe, p, as in "park"
23 פ Pe f, as in "fine"
24 ף Pe Final Form
25 צ Tsade ts, as in "nets"
26 ץ Tsade Final Form
27 ק Qof k, as in "king"
28 ר Resh r, as in "run"
29 שׂ Sin s, as in "sin"
30 שׁ Shin sh, as in "ship"
31 ת Tav t, as in "tin"
The points

The vowel points

Shown here on the letter bet. A vowel point sits under, over or inside the consonant it follows in speech.

Point Name, length and value
בָּ Qamets (changeable long - a) — "father" or Qamets Hatuf (short - o) — "bottle"
בֵּ Tsere (changeable long - e) — "they"
בֹּ Holem (changeable long - o) — "role"
בַּ Pathach (short - a) — "yacht"
בֶּ Seghol (short - e) — "red"
בִּ Hireq (short - i) — "bee"
בֻּ Qibbuts (short - u) — "ruler"
בָּה Qamets He (unchangeable long - a) — "father"
בֵּי Tsere Yod (unchangeable long - e) — "they"
בֶּי Seghol Yod (unchangeable long - e) — "red"
בִּי Hireq Yod (unchangeable long - i) — "bee"
בּוֹ Holem waw (unchangeable long - o) — "role"
בּוּ Shureq (unchangeable long - u) — "ruler"
בֲּ Hateph Pathach (reduced - a) — "amuse"
בֱּ Hateph Seghol (reduced - e) — "metallic"
בֳּ Hateph Qamets (reduced - o) — "commit"
בְּ Shewa (silent)
Next

From the alphabet to the text

The alphabet is a week's work; the vocabulary is the year. Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary carries the alphabet and the vowel points as decks of their own, then over 5,000 words organised by the chapter of the grammar you are working through, and the 1,000 most frequent words in the Hebrew Bible, with spaced repetition underneath.

FAQ

Questions, answered

How many letters are in the Hebrew alphabet?
Twenty-two, five of which take a different form at the end of a word — kaf, mem, nun, pe and tsade. Counted with those final forms, and with the letters that change sound with a dagesh, the table above lists 31 forms a reader has to recognise.
Does Hebrew have vowels?
The consonants carry the word; the vowels are points written above, below or inside them, added centuries after the consonantal text was fixed. The table of vowel points above lists them with their names and values.
Which way does Hebrew read?
Right to left. Numbers and Latin-script words inside a Hebrew sentence still read left to right.
What is a dagesh?
A dot inside a letter. In the six letters bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, pe and tav it hardens the sound (a dagesh lene); elsewhere it doubles the letter (a dagesh forte).