Consonants

The "lamed" is pronounced "l" as in long. When the lamed is prefixed to a word it means "to" or "for".

The "vav" is pronounced "v" as in visit. When the vav is prefixed to a word it means "and".

Vowels

The Sh'va. This vowel is silent and is often used as a syllalbe break.

The Segol. This vowel is pronounced "e" as in elephant.

Notes

1. When a syllable includes one of the "a" vowels and is followed by the consonant "yud", the pronunciation is "ah-y", which, when said quickly sounds like "ai" as in aisle. An example is the word lai-lah (Vocabulary Word #1). Note that this rule does not apply to words like ma-yim (Vocabulary Word #3) as the "a" is at the end of the first syllable and the "y" is the beginning of the second syllable.

2. In some languages nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter . Hebrew is much the same, all nouns are either masculine or feminine (there is no neuter).

3. The "yud-mem" combination is the masculine plural ending, similar to the the "s" ending for English plural nouns.

4. When the dagesh (the dot in the middle of a letter) is placed within some letters, such as in the nun in the word for "Here [am] I" in the vocabulary list below, it doubles the letter. Therefore, this letter would be pronounced "hin-ney-niy" rather than "hi-ney-niy".

	.1
	.2
	.3

Night		.1
God		.2
Water		.3
Amen		.4
Here		.5
Sea		.6
Here am I		.7
To me		.8

Night came.		.1
My son came to me.		.2
Mother came in the night.		.3
My father and my mother are here.		.4
Water is in the sea.		.5