Vocabulary

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אבּא [אבּא] aba Father

Lesson Transcript

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Shalom, ani Yana! Welcome to Hebrewpod101.com’s Alef-Beit be-kalei kalut.
The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn the Hebrew alphabet: the alef-beit!
Over the next 20 lessons, you'll learn everything there is to know about reading and writing Hebrew. By the end, you’ll even be able to read some portions of the Hebrew Bible. Are you ready? Then let's start! Bou natchil!
Hebrew has only one alphabet of 22 letters, so its super easy! Once you know these, a few variations, and a simple vowel system, you will be ready to read one of the most ancient languages in the world!
As you may know, the Hebrew writing system is written from right to left. At first this may seem intimidating or confusing, but you’ll get the hang of it in no time!
Let’s start with the first letter: Alef!
What sound does Alef make? In Hebrew, the name of each letter starts with the sound you use to pronounce it! Which means, the sound of Alef is ‘a’.
It is handwritten like this:
א
Now in Hebrew, there are always two ways to write a letter-- The written way, which is used in everyday handwriting-- and the print way, which you will see in books and newspapers, on signs, and so forth. This is the written way.
The print version looks like this
א
When Israeli kids first learn how to write they use this print-type writing. It’s useful, and, as you’ll see later, very easy, to learn both versions of every letter.
Let’s do it again- Here’s the written form:
And here’s the print form:
You can now write your first letter in Hebrew!
Good! Let's move on...
The second character is -ב-Beit. The sound of beit is ‘b’ and it looks like this.
ב (handwriting)
Pay attention to the dot- it has to be in the middle.
The print version is like this
בּ (printed)
If you leave out the dot, Beit becomes Veit-
The sound of Veit is ‘v’ but we don’t count Veit as a separate letter in the alphabet.
So far you’ve studied two letters of the Hebrew Alef-Beit! and you’ve learned three sounds!
Wanna write them one again? Let’s do it!
Alef - handwritten
א (handwriting)
Alef - printed
א (printed)
Beit - handwritten
בּ (handwriting)
Beit - printed
בּ (printed)
Viet - handwritten
ב (handwriting)
Viet - printed
ב (printed)
Did you know you can already write a word in Hebrew?
This is ‘aba’.
‘aba’ in Hebrew means father.
It is the first word every Israeli baby says! These are the simplest phonetic sounds. Try it out!
אבּא (handwriting)
and now the print style-
אבּא (printed)
Great job! In this lesson, you learned the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet- The Alef- Beit! You also practice your first word--in both print and writing styles!
Before we move on to the next lesson, I want to introduce the Hebrew vowel system;
Among 22 Hebrew letters there are 5 Vowels- one of which we learned in this lesson.
But beside those five there is another vowel system called “Niqqud”.
“Niqqud” are a series of dots or points that are used to indicate vowel sounds connected to consonants.
Once you have more experience reading Hebrew, you may not see these symbols so often in native texts, but if you can master them when you start learning Hebrew, it will make learning Hebrew much faster and easier-
The Niqqud take the form of dots, lines, and combinations of the two and are written in, under, on top, or beside consonant letters.
Sound complicated?
Don’t worry! We’ll ease into them, and after you’re done with this series, they’ll seem easy!
Now it's time for Yana's insights.
Have you been writing as you watch? Hope so! There's no better way to master the Alef-Beit quickly than to write them yourself!
I also recommend that you make flash cards for each letter and study them whenever you get a chance!
Do you know how to write דג-, the word for fish in Hebrew? It will definitely come in handy when you sit down to read a menu in Israel, and you'll learn that and much more in the next lesson.
Lehitraot!
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