ו — vav
«vav» is a consonant of the Hebrew script, read as “v / u / o (three jobs)”. A consonant v, but vav more often works as a vowel: u (shuruk) or o (holam). For example, in the word “שוק” — market. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters in total. In שלום the vav is the o: the word reads shalom. This letter is exactly why the course runs with a transcription. It appears, for example, in the word “שלום” — hi.
In short
| Character | ו |
| Name | vav |
| Sound | v / u / o (three jobs) |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 6th of 22, its neighbours in the course are ה and ז, appears in roughly every other word on this site.
How to type ו
- 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+05D5 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 05D5.
- Unicode code point: U+05D5. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
A consonant v, but vav more often works as a vowel: u (shuruk) or o (holam)
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.
- שוקшукmarket
The character in the “nine letters that read much as you expect” group
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.
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 «vav» it is “v / u / o (three jobs)”, as in the word “שוק”), 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 ו read?
As “v / u / o (three jobs)” — it is a consonant of the Hebrew script. A consonant v, but vav more often works as a vowel: u (shuruk) or o (holam). For example, in the word “שוק” — market.
What is the letter ו called?
Vav. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Hebrew script: it is called “vav” and reads as “v / u / o (three jobs)”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.