Hebrew/Aleph-Bet/7

Welcome to the seventh lesson of the Hebrew alphabet! In this lesson you will learn two new Hebrew letters - ט and כ - and the niqqud symbol ħataf-segol.

Letters

Tet

ט The ninth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Tet. Like Tav, it makes the "t" sound (IPA: /t/, "t" as in "tomato").

Kaf

כּ The eleventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Kaf. It has three forms:

• When the dot is inside כּ, it makes the "k" sound (IPA: /k/, "k" as in "kitten").
• When there is no dot inside כ, it makes the same sound as Ħet. For spelling distinction purposes, Ħet (Het, Chet) is transliterated as "ħ" whilst Khaf is transliterated as "kh".
• At the end of a word, it changes form ך. This form is known as Khaf Sofit. There is a hard K final form (ךּ), but it is rarely used.

It is about time for the dot to be explained. This dot, appearing in the letters Bet בּ, Gimmel גּ, Dalet דּ, Kaf כּ, a letter we haven't learned yet and Tav תּ, is known as dagesh ("emphasis"). What it does is to make sounds "harder": "v" to "b", "kh" to "k", and in ancient times "th" to "t", "dh" to "d" etc. Do not confuse the dagesh with mappiq (which indicates that He needs to be pronounced at the end of a word) or dagesh ħazaq (which indicates that a consonant must be emphasized, as in אִמָּא).

Vowels

One more and we're done!

Ħataf-Segol

בֱּ The shva and segol under the Bet are the Ħataf-Segol.

It produces the "e" sound (IPA: /e/, "e" as in "bet").

Words

טוֹב tov good, well (masculine, singular)
אֱלוֹהִים elohim God
מִטָּה mitah bed (feminine, singular)^[1]
כָּךְ kakh like this, like so
כֶּלֶב kelev dog, hound (masculine, singular)
חָתוּל ħatul cat (masculine, singular)
כֵּן ken yes
לֹא lo no^[2]

Summary

In this lesson, you've learned:

• The letters and forms Tet ט, Kaf כּ, Khaf כ and Khaf Sofit ך.
• The niqqud symbol ħataf-segol (ֱ).
• The words טוֹב, אֱלוֹהִים, מִטָּה, כָּךְ, כֶּלֶב, חָתוּל, כֵּן and לֹּא.

Practice what you've learned in the exercises.

Next lesson: Aleph-Bet 8 >>>

Notes