Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet is the Hebrew script: 22 letters. 22 consonant letters and no vowel letters; the line runs right to left. The characters are grouped: three letters that change their sound (begad-kefat), throat letters and silent holders, sibilants you already own. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.
All 22 letters in one list
א, ב, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כ, ל, מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, ק, ר, ש, ת
Three letters that change their sound (begad-kefat)
ב, כ and פ sound different depending on the dagesh — the dot inside the letter. A working rule: at the start of a word, after a pause, read the stop — "b", "k", "p". Elsewhere, trust the transcription. The name is a mnemonic: the six letters that once had doubles spell out the phrase begad kefat.
Throat letters and silent holders
Two throat letters: ה is a light breathy h, as in English, and ח a squeezed throaty kh that English lacks. And א and ע have no sound of their own. Alef holds the vowel slot, and ayin is silent in modern speech. Both vanish from the transcription.
Sibilants you already own
sh, z, ts and s all exist in English, so these four need no learning — only attaching to a shape. A quarter of the phonetics here is done in one evening.
Two ways to write "t", two to write "k"
Hebrew spells "t" with two letters, ט and ת, and "k" with two, ק and כ. They sound almost the same but are written differently. Which shape goes in which word, the transcription and word habit teach.
Nine letters that read much as you expect
g, d, v, y, l, m, n take their most common English values. ר is the throaty r, and ת is a plain t. Together with the sibilant group these nine letters cover almost every transcribed word from the first lessons.
What to know about this script
There are 22 letters, and all of them are consonants. The vowel marks (nikud) are not written in ordinary text. So a bare word is a frame of consonants that can be read several ways. ספר is sefer (a book), sapar (a barber) or safar (he counted). That is why every word here comes with a transcription. The alphabet teaches you to recognize letters inside words, not to guess the vowels. The line runs right to left, so books open from what an English reader calls the back. There are no capital letters, and the letters do not join up. The modern square shapes settled about two thousand years ago and have barely changed since. Five letters have a final form (ך ם ן ף ץ) used at the end of a word. The shape changes, the sound does not.
Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does
Five Hebrew letters change their shape at the end of a word: kaf, mem, nun, pe and tsadi have a “final” form. The alphabet has twenty-two letters but twenty-seven shapes, and a plain form at the end of a word is visible at a glance.
Test yourself
Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.
- Which character reads as “b / v (the dagesh decides)”?
The first of the three begad-kefat letters. At the start of a word it is almost always b: בוקר reads boker; inside a word it is more often v: אבא — aba
- Which character reads as “h, often silent at the end of a word”?
Double duty: at the start of a word it is also the definite article — הבית is ha-bait, "the house" with the already built in
- Which character reads as “kh, deep in the throat”?
Not an English sound: squeeze the throat and breathe out. Listen to the audio: חלב — chalav
- Which character reads as “k / kh (the dagesh decides)”?
The second begad-kefat letter. At the start of a word usually k: כאן — kan; at the end of a syllable more often kh: שלומך — shlomkha
- Which character reads as “n”?
Its final form ן stands on a single leg. Pairs with מ/ם: both change their silhouette at the end of a word
How to learn letters so they stay
You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 22 signs in one sitting.
Frequently asked
How many letters in the Hebrew alphabet?
22 letters — Hebrew script: א, ב, ג, ד, ה, ו, ז, ח, ט, י, כ, ל, מ, נ, ס, ע, פ, צ, ק, ר, ש, ת. There are no capital and small forms: the character is written the same way everywhere.
Can I listen to how the Hebrew letters sound?
Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.
How long does it take to learn the Hebrew alphabet?
A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.
Where to start: letters or words?
With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.