What These Lessons Will Teach

This series of web pages provides free lessons on the Hebrew Alphabet. If you want to learn Hebrew quickly, why not download our Hebrew Alphabet Flashcards and get started within minutes?


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The next 22 lessons will introduce you to each of the letters in the Hebrew Alphabet. You will learn the following things about them:

Hebrew Alphabet with a Hebrew scribe
  • What the Hebrew letter looks like.
  • The name and numerical value of the Hebrew letter.
  • How to pronounce the Hebrew letter. This web site uses the pronunciation used in Israel today. Ashkenazi Jews pronounce some letters differently.
  • How to actually write the Hebrew letter using an ordinary pen. This is very important, since it will enable you to write down vocabulary and copy notes.
  • What the sound of the Hebrew letter is, and the differences between the ancient and modern pronunciations where they exist.
  • A little about the Hebrew letter.

 
There is a separate web page for each letter in the Hebrew Alphabet. This allows you to learn the Hebrew letters slowly but steadily, and not be overwhelmed by learning too much too quickly. You can take things at your own pace. If you are learning the Hebrew Alphabet in a classroom setting, you can learn the Hebrew letters a few at a time, perhaps learning a few each week.

Moses with the tablets showing the Hebrew alphabetEach page has a grid to allow you to practice writing the letters. You can copy this grid and print it out. It is very important that you do this; it will help impress the letters on your mind and will make you feel more comfortable with them. At the end of each lesson, there are some practice exercises to help you learn the letters. Don’t ignore these. Practice in reading and writing is the only way to learn the Hebrew Alphabet!

In separate lessons about the Hebrew vowels, you will be introduced to the nikud (dots and dashes) that help you know how to pronounce Hebrew properly. You will also learn a little about the history of the vowel points and about the Hebrew language itself.

Once you have learned the Hebrew Alphabet and the nikud, you will be able to read the Hebrew Bible. You won’t understand what you are reading at this stage, but that’s what the rest of the web site is about! One of the aims of this web site is to show you things in the Hebrew Bible that you completely miss in an English translation. Even when you have only learned the Hebrew Alphabet, you will already be able to appreciate many wonderful things in Scripture. As you progress, more and more will become clear and you will soon see how beautiful the Hebrew Bible really is.

 
Even after you have learned the Hebrew Alphabet, at first you will only be able to read Hebrew slowly, letter by letter and word by word. It will take years before you can read Hebrew at the same speed as you read English (you’ve been reading English for decades, remember!) but the more practice you get, the faster you will become. There are many exercises in this course to help you become faster and more confident in reading Hebrew.

Before we discuss each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet, the next lesson explains how to write the Hebrew letters.

Home  |  Learning Hebrew  |  Hebrew Alphabet  |  What These Lessons Will Teach