0-Menu-01 : 0-Menu-01 Hebrew Aleph-Bet jacob@ecker.com Next Hebrew Aleph Bet
Power Point Program
Version 1.1
Copyright June 07, 2008
Revised January 03, 2010
Jacob E. Ecker
Lake Charles, LA USA
jacob@ecker.com
0-HelpPage : 0-HelpPage Hebrew Aleph-Bet Help Page jacob@ecker.com Next Most pages have control links on the bottom right corner of the page. (Notice this page has a small green arrow labeled “next”. Click it when you are ready to go to the next page) You can also go to the next page by pressing the down arrow on your keyboard.
This link will bring you here to this help page from any page that has it displayed.
There is a “Main Menu” which allows you to choose a chapter. From any page with links, click on the link labeled “Main Menu” to go directly to the main menu.
There are also chapter menus for each chapter. Click the link labeled “Chapter Menu” to go to the menu for the current chapter.
Go to the next step by clicking the green link labeled “Next” or press the down arrow on the keyboard.
Go backwards by clicking the red link labeled “Back” or press the up arrow on the keyboard.
To return to the page you were on before coming here to the help page,
click this link.
0-Menu-01 : 0-Menu-01 Hebrew Aleph-Bet Chapter Selector Week01 – Aleph, Bet, vowels Patakh, Qamats, Shin/Sin, Tav Week02 - Gimel, Dalet, vowel kHolam, Vav, kHolam Vav, Lamed, vowels kHiriq, Tsaray jacob@ecker.com Week03 – Hay, Yood, Yood as vowel helper, Mem, Noon, vowel Segol Week04 - Zayin, kHayt, vowel Sh’va, Tayt, Kaf Week05 – More Sh’va, Combination vowels, word order, gender, number, dictionary Week06 – Pay, Tsadi, combination vowel kHataf Qamats, Qof, Raysh Week07 – Samekh, Ayin, dipthongs, Furtive Patakh Next Introduction starts on next page
0-Aleph-Bet-Tonight : 0-Aleph-Bet-Tonight Back Main Menu Next
Handout page 02 : Handout page 02 Chapter 01
handout page 02 Back Next Main Menu Chapter7 Menu
0-Instructor-8weeks : 0-Instructor-8weeks Back Main Menu Next
0-Name-Ya-aKov : 0-Name-Ya-aKov Hebrew Aleph-Bet Back Main Menu Next
0-TonightPlan : 0-TonightPlan Today we will learn:
Four consonants (letters):
Aleph, Bet / Vet, Sheen / Seen, Tav
and two vowels from the ah family
Patakh, Qamats Back Main Menu Next
0-AlephBetSplash : 0-AlephBetSplash Back Main Menu Next
Handout page 02 : Handout page 02 Chapter 01
handout page 03 Back Next Main Menu Chapter7 Menu
0-General Concepts : 0-General Concepts First - a few general concepts Many of these will be covered in more detail as we go through the course. Back Main Menu Next
0-Language-not-Religion : 0-Language-not-Religion Since Hebrew is the language of the Jewish religion and also the source of many references in the Christian religion, there may be some occasional references to some of the readings from the Torah or Tanakh (known as the Old Testament to Christians), but remember, we are not here to learn religion or argue religion or evaluate religion.
I am not promoting or defending a religion and neither will anyone else in this class.
We are here to learn a language that you may have a opportunity to use in your religion, or you may use for a visit to Israel, or for your general knowledge, or for other reasons. Hebrew Aleph-Bet
This is a language class, not a religion class. Back Main Menu Next
0-Shalom Talmidiym : 0-Shalom Talmidiym Hebrew is read from right to left.
The word on the right is pronounced shalom – it means Peace, it this case it is a greeting like “hello”
The other word is pronounced talmidiym – it means students
Hello Students Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie : 0-Anie Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie Yaakov : 0-Anie Yaakov Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie Yaakov Iekar : 0-Anie Yaakov Iekar Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie Yaakov Iekar-02 : 0-Anie Yaakov Iekar-02 Back Main Menu Next
Handout page 02 : Handout page 02 Chapter 01
handout page 04 Back Next Main Menu Chapter7 Menu
0-Anie-02 : 0-Anie-02 Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie-02 : 0-Anie-02 Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie-02 : 0-Anie-02 Back Main Menu Next
0-Anie-02 : 0-Anie-02 Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Written Languages
Languages are spoken.
When we write we are trying to record the meaning of the spoken word.
There are two types of writing systems which are used to record the spoken language.
The earliest writing systems used pictures to represent a meaning. The pictures eventually became stylized into icons which symbolically represented an object.
An ancient example is Egyptian Hieroglyphics Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters A modern example is Chinese. Every Chinese symbol represents an idea, the “pictures” have become simplified so that we might not recognize the object being pictured. Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters The ancient Egyptian system eventually evolved into a system that used the picture symbols to represent sounds.
The modern Chinese system uses the picture system with additional symbols to represent different meanings.
Most modern language systems use letters to represent the sounds of a language. The meaning is in the words, not the symbols.
The original Hebrew writing symbols were pictures. They also evolved into the current system which uses symbols to represent sounds. Back Main Menu Next
I Love NY : I Love NY Here is a sign that we have probably all seen, that uses both a picture as a symbol and letters. We see it, we know what it means, but can you read it to me?
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Old Hebrew also started as drawings of the objects it signified. The pictures eventually evolved to represent not only the object pictured, but the sound of the name of the object.
So now, Hebrew letters represent sounds.
When the letters are put together to make written words, we can combine the sounds that the letters represent to be able to say the words.
So first we will learn the letters, then the words, then the grammar.
Most of the letters represent sounds that are common in the English language. A few are slightly different and two represent sounds that are not used in English. (You probably already know how to make the sounds, but they don’t occur in any English words. You can hear similar sounds in German or Spanish or Scottish) Back Main Menu Next
Aleph-OX : Aleph-OX
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Before we start studying Hebrew, let’s explore the sounds that we make when we speak English. In English and in Hebrew and in almost all of the world’s languages, the letters that we write represent sounds. The letters themselves have no meaning. The ancient Egyptians and the modern Chinese use an entirely different type of writing system. Their writings are actually little pictures that represent a meaning. But in both English and Hebrew the meaning comes from the word; letters are used to represent the sounds that are put together to make the word.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next The human vocal system (mouth, tongue, throat, nose, teeth and lungs) can make about a hundred different sound syllables. But we have only 26 letters in English, only 22 in Hebrew so not every sound has a letter to represent it. Most of the Hebrew letters represent sounds that are the same or very similar to the sounds that we can make in English. Some of the English sounds don’t have a Hebrew letter and some of the Hebrew letters represent sounds that we don’t make in English.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Sounds. Letters represent sounds. Sort of.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Actually most of the sounds that we make when we talk are the sounds of the type of letters known as vowels.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Much of the distinction between one word and another are not actually made by the sounds of the vowels themselves, but the way that we shape the sounds, how we start and stop a sound. There are two basic types of letters in the English language. (with some letters sometimes crossing over) The vowels are the sounds.
But if we just used vowels we would have words like ooooooo and uuuuuuu and aaaaaaaa and eeeeeee.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next We can and do make theses sounds, but these sounds are not words. We can also make a difference in the way we start and stop the vowel sounds. The letters which are used to shape the vowel sounds are called consonants. Most of the consonants themselves don’t actually make any sound.
What is the sound of the letter B?
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next What is the sound of the letter B?
Say B If you said Bee, you said the name of the letter, not its sound, you actually used the consonant B to start the sound and the vowel eee to continue it.
What you have just made is a syllable. A syllable is the smallest package of sound, it has one or more vowels and usually also has consonants.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next The consonant B shapes the beginning of a vowel sound to make the syllable BEE. Say eee, then Beee, hear the difference. What is your mouth doing to shape the sound? To be heard a syllable must have a vowel sound. It can have a consonant that shapes the beginning or end of the vowel sound or it can have two consonants, one shaping the beginning and one shaping the end. BeeeB. BaaaaB. BuuuB. (I know of only three consonants that can be heard by themselves, S, Sh, Z)
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Now lets do a little experiment with what we do with our tongues, lips and teeth to make the consonants the shape our syllable. Say Bee, Bee, Bee, Bee; Say Vee, Vee, Vee, Vee; Say Tee, Tee, Tee, Tee; each of these consonants are made with the lips,
or lips and tongue
or teeth and tongue.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Bee,Bee,Bee made just with the lips.
Vee, Vee, Vee, made with the upper teeth and lower lip.
With a different vowel Bee would become Buuu, or Booo or Baaa.
None of these consonants themselves have any sound at all, to be heard we added some vowel, maybe a uuuu or aaaa or eeeee.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Many of the consonants are represented by single English letters. But there are only 21 consonant letters in the English language but about twice that many possible consonant sounds. So some of the consonants sounds use a combination of two letters to represent one sound. Let’s do a little experiment with sound. This is one that we will hear again when we start working with the Hebrew letters.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Make the sound of SSSS. Just the hissing S sound. Take very careful note of what each part of your vocal tract is doing.
Where are your lips?
Where are your teeth?
Where is your tongue?
Are your vocal cords (vocal folds) making a sound?
Now make the sound of a ZZZZ. What is different? What is the same? Back to SSSS.
Now change it to Shhhhh. What is the same? What is different?
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next We have two common ways of making sounds.
1, We can hiss, meaning blow the breath through some constriction so that it produces a sound. That sound can vary from a soft whisper to a whistle.
2. We can cause the vocal cords (usually referred to as "vocal folds" in anatomy books) to vibrate.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Put your fingers on your Adams apple and make the sound of an "S" Now make the sound of a "Z". What was different?
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next In addition to what you feel in your throat, take note of where your lips and tongue are when you make these sounds.
When we made the sound of "Z", the vocal cords made the sound, but the mouth, tongue and lips "shaped" the sound. For the "S" the mouth, tongue and lips all had the same shape, but the sound came only from the air hissing through the opening between the tongue and the top of the mouth. The same hiss must have existed with the "Z" but the sound of the vocal cords was the main sound that we heard
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Now make the sound of "S" again. Change it to an "Sh".
What changed?
(although Sh is spelled with two letters, it actually represents one simple sound. There aren't enough letters in English to represent all of the different sounds so we use combinations of two or more letters to represent one sound)
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Why are we doing this? Because to properly make a sound (when we learn as adults), it is very helpful to know how the sound is made and how it is shaped.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Now make a "Th" sound, as if you were beginning to say "the", but only make the "Th". Did your vocal cords make a sound? We actually have two ways of making sounds that are represented by the letters "Th". One with vocal cords, one without.
In English these two sounds are considered to represent the same letter and we don't notice the difference. We haven't learned to distinguish between the two different sounds because both of the sounds represent the same letter to us.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Now make the "S" sound without the vocal cords.
And add the sound of the vocal cords, and we have made sounds that are represented by two different letters. We can hear the difference between "S" and "Z" because we have learned that they are different and are used in different words. We can hear the difference, we can make the different sounds.
We are familiar with sounds that we use to communicate, but we could make other sounds that aren't used in our language.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Some languages use sounds that we could make if we knew how, but which aren't used in our language. In Japanese they don't have sounds that we would represent in English as "L" and "R". In English, these seem to be very different sounds, because we are familiar with using them differently. But the way they are made in our mouths are very similar.
In Japanese there is one sound, which is probably not exactly the same as our "R" or our "L", but somewhere in between. We couldn't make the sound that the Japanese make, because we couldn't hear it as different. We might hear it as an "L" or an "R". They have difficulty hearing the difference between our "L" and "R" sounds.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters Back Main Menu Next Now, make the sound of "Th" ( the one without the vocal cords) and move your tongue so the sound becomes an "S". What happened?
What moved?
Go back and forth, changing from "S" to "Th" and back. Now add a "Sh" to the pattern and switch between the three sounds. All three sounds are the same, just a hiss. But we hear them differently because of the tongue placement. In a few weeks we will learn two Hebrew sounds that don't exist in English. (Thankfully most Hebrew sounds are very similar to English). These two different sounds will sound the same to us, but we will try to learn to distinguish between them by making careful note of how the mouth is shaped to make the sounds.
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters In English we use the letter S to represent one of the sounds we just made. The other two sounds are also single sounds, but there is no single English letter to represent that sound. When we write Sh, it does not mean the sound of S followed by the sound of H, but it is the way that we indicate a particular sound. A sound similar to S but also distinctly different. Th does not mean T followed by h.
We will learn one Hebrew letter today that can represent two of these sounds. The difference will be indicated not by the addition of another letter, as English did, but with the change of location of a dot above the Hebrew letter. In one place it makes the S sound, in the other place it makes the Sh sound.
These sounds will be easy for us, the Hebrew sound is EXACTLY the same as the English sound. (we won’t always be so lucky) Back Main Menu Next
0-The Letters : 0-The Letters The Letters
The sounds of Hebrew words are represented by consonants and vowels, just as in English
BUT in Hebrew the consonants are considered to be the “letters” and the vowel sounds are indicated by additional marks, dots and lines added below or above or after a letter. Most written Hebrew will be written using only the letters (consonants).
There are 22 letters (consonants). Five of the letters have a different shape if they are the last letter in any word. Back Main Menu Next
0-Dagaysh : 0-Dagaysh Three of the letters have a different sound if there is a dot (known as a dagaysh) in the letter. One letter has a different sound depending on the location of a dot above it.
Unlike English, a letter almost always represents the same sound (except for the four letters which represent two sounds each) There are also some regional differences in pronunciation.
Most of the other letters may occasionally have a dagaysh in it for grammatical reasons, without any change of the sound. Five letters can not accept a dagaysh. Back Main Menu Next
0-cld yu nderstnd : 0-cld yu nderstnd cld yu ndrstnd nglsh f t wr wrttn wtht vwls? Back Main Menu Next
0-cld yu nderstnd -02 : 0-cld yu nderstnd -02 cld yu ndrstnd nglsh f t wr wrttn wtht vwls? Back Main Menu Next
Handout page 02 : Handout page 02 Chapter 01
handout page 05 Back Next Main Menu Chapter7 Menu
0-cld yu nderstnd -03 : 0-cld yu nderstnd -03 cld yu ndrstnd nglsh f t wr wrttn wtht vwls?
Could you understand English if it were written without vowels?
I think it would be pretty tough the first time you saw it, but that you would catch on to it pretty quick. I expect you to catch on to Hebrew with only a little more difficulty than you would have if you were learning English for the first time. In Israel there are 6 year old kids writing Hebrew every day.
(the six year old kids do use vowels and so will we) Back Main Menu Next
0-cld yu nderstnd -03 : 0-cld yu nderstnd -03 cld yu ndrstnd nglsh f t wr wrttn wtht vwls?
There are three letters that can be used as vowel substitutes or vowel helpers. The letters are left in the word as a vowel indicator when the vowels themselves are not used in the writing.
Notice that I did use one vowel in the NGLSH sentence above. The vowel helper letters are used in the same way, when they are needed to clarify the meaning. Back Main Menu Next
0-Sounds Of Hebrew Letters : 0-Sounds Of Hebrew Letters Most Hebrew letters have a sound the same or very similar to the English sounds that you are familiar with already.
Two of the Hebrew letters have a sound that we will expect to have some difficulty with, it is different from any sound that we make in English.
Not all English sounds can be represented by a Hebrew letter. Back Main Menu Next
Handout page 02 : Handout page 02 Chapter 01
handout page 06 Back Next Main Menu Chapter7 Menu
0-DebbieFrieman-Intro : 0-DebbieFrieman-Intro Song by Debbie Friedman While we’re here in Hebrew School
we’re going to have some fun
and sing the Hebrew Alphabet
A song for everyone.
It’s going to be quite simple,
cause all you have to do,
is sing the letters after us,
Then we’ll sing after you. Back Main Menu Next
0-DebbieFriedman-AlephBet : 0-DebbieFriedman-AlephBet Song by Debbie Friedman Back Main Menu Next
0-All Letters-Misteaks : 0-All Letters-Misteaks As we go through the examples and exercises in the next hour or so, be sure to watch carefully at the examples and letter and word search exercises. I have been known to make misteaks, if fact, sometimes I will put one in on porpose to see if you will catch it.
I promise you there is AT LEAST one mistake in tonight’s lesson. I put one in intentionally, but there may be others. It is your job to find them. Back Main Menu Next
All Letters : All Letters Back Next Main Menu Chapter8 Menu