Intro to Hebrew Alphabet
READING HEBREW: AN OVERVIEW
Writing and Reading Hebrew: Right to Left
Hebrew is written and read from right to left. This is the opposite from English. Where is the “front” of the book in Hebrew? It is on opposite side from English books. Hebrew readers open their books and read from the rightmost page and finish their books at the leftmost page. Again, the opposite of English.
The Consonants
There are 26 differing functioning consonants in the Hebrew alphabet (as seen on the chart above), although there are several pairs of letters that are almost identical apart from a single dot in the letter; with this, many consider that there are only 22 consonants. The four pairs that are almost identical are bet and vet, Haf and kaf, pey and fey, and shin and sin. Take a look at the chart above and identify these four pairs.
The Vowels
There are also a handful of vowels, and these vowels get “attached” to the consonants as little dots or dashes. When you read a Hebrew word, you will typically read the rightmost consonant, then read the vowel attached to that consonant; then you will proceed to the next consonant and vowel, and so forth until you finish reading the word. You will work your way from right to left through the word, reading one consonant-vowel pair to the next consonant-vowel pair.
Modern Hebrew vs. Biblical Hebrew
Note that modern Hebrew leaves the vowel markings off the words for efficiency. This can be difficult for people who are new to Hebrew. However, biblical Hebrew includes the vowels. With this, you can open a Hebrew Bible and see the vowel markings, but if you search a Hebrew news website you may see that the vowels are missing.
Recommendations for Learning to Read Hebrew
The first step to learning to read Hebrew is to memorize what each Hebrew consonant looks like along with the English sound each consonant makes. This can be done fairly quickly. Get used to the vowels the same way. The letter chart above will help you with this as it provides clear renderings of each Hebrew word along with its English sound equivalent. When it comes to the letter chart’s instruction for the vowels, it gives a generic א (aleph), ע (ayin), or ו (vav) as example consonants to attach the vowel markings to.
Two more things to consider. First, the “H” in the consonants chet and Haf is pronounced as a guttural “h” sound. Second, there are a few consonants that look a bit different when they appear at the end of a word, including: Haf, mem, nun, pey, and fey. Take a look at the letter chart and see that these consonants have two ways of appearing, and the leftmost version is the one that appears when the letter ends a word.
This page is simplified - maybe even a little oversimplified - with the understanding that this may very well be your first time attempting to read Hebrew. We tried to make it as simple as possible to be as helpful as possible.
Have fun!
NOW TRY Reading Hebrew FOR YOURSELF
מַזָּל טוֹב
שָׁלוֹם
קוֹקָה קוֹלָה
הַלְלוּיָה
אָמֵן
Above are five common Hebrew words spelled out in the Hebrew alphabet. You are almost certainly familiar with most of these words. Remember to read Hebrew from right to left. If you need the answer key, we provided one at the bottom of this web page.
Answer Key: Mazel Tov, Shalom, Coca-Cola, Hallelujah, Amen.