Hebrew/Aleph-Bet/2

 Aleph-Bet Lesson 2 —

Welcome to the second lesson of the Hebrew alphabet! In this lesson you will learn three new Hebrew letters - and, two new niqqud symbols - qamats and tsere, as well as the definite article in Hebrew.

Letters
So far we have learned 3 letters:, and. Now we will learn two new letters:

Vet
Remember the previous lesson we learned that the dot in the Bet is important? Well, here is why. When Bet loses the dot it becomes Vet and stands for the "v" sound (IPA: /v/, "v" as in "violin"). Note that normally it isn't considered a separate letter from Bet.

He


The fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is He. It makes the "h" sound (IPA: /h/, "h" as in "heart"). When at the end of a word it is silent.

Nun
The fourteenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Nun. It makes the "n" sound (IPA: /n/, "n" as in "name"). When at the end of a word, it changes form. This final form is known as Nun Sofit - ("Sofit" is Hebrew for "final"). A few letters in the Hebrew have this property, and Nun is one of them.

Vowels
The following vowels resemble in pronunciation Pataħ and Shva, but they are different depending on the accent. Many Israelis pronounce them (Pataħ and Qamats, Shva and Tsere) the same.

Qamats
The qamats is the horizontal line with the smaller vertical line under the Bet.

Like pataħ, qamats produces the "a" sound (IPA: /a/, "a" as in "spa").

Tsere
The tsere is the two horizontal dots under the Bet.

Tsere produces the "e" sound (IPA: /e/, "e" as in "bet").

Definite He - He Hayedi‘ah
In English there are two different types of articles: definite ("the") and indefinite ("a"/"an"). In Hebrew, while there is a separation between the definite and indefinite, there exists an article only for the definite; that is, there is no "a" or "an" in Hebrew, just "the". If the noun or adjective doesn't have the definite article, it simply means it is indefinite.

Unlike English, where the definite/indefinite article exists as free form (a separate word), in Hebrew the definite article appears as an affix. By simply adding the letter He to the beginning of any noun or adjective, regardless of its gender and number, the word becomes definite. The definite He is known as He Hayedi‘ah (lit. "knowledge He").

Why don't we implement it on the noun we know?

bat (singular, feminine, indefinite) "daughter" We add the letter and the result: habat (singular, feminine, definite) "the daughter"

Words
In Hebrew there are two genders: masculine and feminine. Learning the gender of every word is important, because in Hebrew, almost everything has a gender, even numbers. Finding a gender just by looking at a word is harder than the Romance languages, especially Spanish, but somewhat easier than say German. In most cases, words ending with Tav or He are feminine. There are numerous exceptions.

With two new letters and two new niqqud signs we can put together even more words! First let's look at the vocabulary we have so far: at you (singular, feminine) bat daughter, girl (singular, feminine)

Now we'll add some more words. We have the singular feminine form of "you". What about the masculine form? atah you (singular, masculine)

And we have a "girl", what about a boy? ben son, boy (masculine, singular)

Other new words: ta cell, cab (truck), cabin, locker, cubicle, group (people) (masculine, singular) av father (masculine, singular) aba dad (masculine, singular, informal) banana banana (feminine, singular)

Summary
In the past 2 lessons, you have learned:
 * The Hebrew letters and forms Aleph, Bet , Vet , He , Nun , Nun Sofit and Tav.
 * The niqqud symbols Qamats, Pataħ , Tsere and Shva.
 * The words, , , , , , and.
 * The definite article in Hebrew - He Hayedi‘ah.

Practice what you've learned in the exercises.

Next lesson: Aleph-Bet 3 >>>