Hebrew/Aleph-Bet/7

 Aleph-Bet Lesson 7 —

Welcome to the seventh lesson of the Hebrew alphabet! In this lesson you will learn two new Hebrew letters - and  - and the niqqud symbol ħataf-segol.

Tet
The ninth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Tet. Like Tav, it makes the "t" sound (IPA: /t/, "t" as in "tomato").

Kaf
The eleventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Kaf. It has three forms:
 * When the dot is inside, it makes the "k" sound (IPA: /k/, "k" as in "kitten").
 * When there is no dot inside, it makes the same sound as Ħet. For spelling distinction purposes, Ħet (Het, Chet) is transliterated as "ħ" whilst Khaf is transliterated as "kh".
 * At the end of a word, it changes form . This form is known as Khaf Sofit. There is a hard K final form, but it is rarely used.

It is about time for the dot to be explained. This dot, appearing in the letters Bet, Gimmel , Dalet , Kaf , a letter we haven't learned yet and Tav , is known as dagesh ("emphasis"). What it does is to make sounds "harder": "v" to "b", "kh" to "k", and in ancient times "th" to "t", "dh" to "d" etc. Do not confuse the dagesh with mappiq (which indicates that He needs to be pronounced at the end of a word) or dagesh ħazaq (which indicates that a consonant must be emphasized, as in ).

Vowels
One more and we're done!

Ħataf-Segol
The shva and segol under the Bet are the Ħataf-Segol.

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

Words
tov good, well (masculine, singular) elohim God mitah bed (feminine, singular) kakh like this, like so kelev dog, hound (masculine, singular) ħatul cat (masculine, singular) ken yes lo no

Summary
In this lesson, you've learned: Practice what you've learned in the exercises.
 * The letters and forms Tet, Kaf , Khaf and Khaf Sofit.
 * The niqqud symbol ħataf-segol.
 * The words and.

Next lesson: Aleph-Bet 8 >>>