ס — samekh
«samekh» is a consonant of the Hebrew script, read as “s (as in sun)”. A plain s. For example, in the word “סליחה” — excuse me. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters in total. Round and symmetrical — the only letter that looks the same from both ends of the line. It appears, for example, in the word “אני רוסי” — I am Russian.
In short
| Character | ס |
| Name | samekh |
| Sound | s (as in sun) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 15th of 22, its neighbours in the course are נ and ע, appears in 539 words of this site.
How to type ס
- On a phone: add the Hebrew keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+05E1 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 05E1.
- Unicode code point: U+05E1. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A plain s
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- סליחהслихаexcuse me
The character in the “sibilants you already own” group
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.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «samekh» it is “s (as in sun)”, as in the word “סליחה”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 22 letters — at once.
- 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.
Frequently asked
How does the Hebrew character ס read?
As “s (as in sun)” — it is a consonant of the Hebrew script. A plain s. For example, in the word “סליחה” — excuse me.
What is the letter ס called?
Samekh. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Hebrew script: it is called “samekh” and reads as “s (as in sun)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.