Hebrew from the start
Learn to read Hebrew letters, hear every letter, and read short guides to how Hebrew works.
Alef-bet and vowels
Hebrew is written from right to left in 22 letters, all of them consonants. There are no capitals, but five letters take another shape at the end of a word, and a dot inside some letters changes their sound. The vowels are dots and dashes around the letters, called niqqud, which everyday Hebrew leaves out, so a few letters, like ו and י, also stand for vowels. Practice mixes the vowels in among the letters, so you read whole words from the start.
Read the guide: Reading HebrewLetters
22 lettersRead from right to left. ב, כ and פ take their first sound with a dot inside; ש is sh with the dot on the right and s with it on the left.
Final forms
5 lettersAt the end of a word these five letters change shape: four reach below the line, and ם closes into a square.
Dagesh and shin dots
5 lettersA dot inside ב, כ and פ (dagesh) makes them b, k and p; without it they are v, kh and f. On ש, a dot on the right makes sh and on the left s.
Geresh (loanwords)
3 lettersA mark like an apostrophe, the geresh ׳, gives a letter a sound Hebrew didn't have, for words and names from other languages.
Vowel points
11 lettersEach vowel is shown on מ, said m and then the vowel. Modern Hebrew has five vowel sounds, so signs side by side in the chart sound alike: patah and kamats are both a. The guide Vowel points has more.
Reduced vowels
3 lettersShort vowels written with a shva beside them, under the guttural letters א, ה, ח and ע where other letters would take a shva.