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Lesson Transcript

Sherah: Hebrew Pronunciation Season 1 Lesson 2 - The Hebrew Double Agents: Which
Sound Was That Again?
Amir: Shalom! Bruchim habaim.
Sherah: Sherah here, Pronunciation Series Lesson 2 on Hebrew Double Agents. Hello and welcome to the pronunciation lessons at HebrewPod101.com, where we study modern Hebrew in a fun, educational way.
Amir: So brush off on the Hebrew that you started learning long ago or start learning today!
Sherah: Thanks for being here with us in this lesson. So Amir, what are we looking at in this lesson?
Amir: Well, in this lesson, we’ll all work on your pronunciation of Hebrew consonantal vowels and consonants with two sounds.
Sherah: Let’s start by revisiting the vowel sounds we went through in our last lesson.
Amir: The Hebrew language has a total of five vowel sounds.
Sherah: And they all sound very similar to vowels in English.
Amir: They are -a, -e, -i, -o, and -u.
Sherah: And in this lesson, we will have a look at what we call consonantal vowels.
Amir: Basically, two consonants that can also act as vowels and two other consonants that can hint towards certain vowels.
Sherah: Traditionally, there are no vowels in the Hebrew alphabet, but yod which is a letter that normally represents the sound -y and vav, a letter that normally represents the sounds -v came to represent the vowels -i, -o, and -u before the inclusion of vowel signs.
Amir: In modern Hebrew, we still use these two letters to represent these vowels in certain words.
Sherah: First, we will talk about the letter yod as our first consonantal vowel.
Amir: With the I-type vowels, the inclusion of the letter yod makes the difference between the two -i vowels, but it doesn’t make any real difference in the sound of the vowel.
Sherah: So sometimes, you have an -i sound with the yod and sometimes without.
Amir: Correct. Sometimes, the yod is included so that you know that the -i vowel sound is there, but other times, it’s not included because you know from the word pattern that there is an -i sound there.
Sherah: So that’s the general idea of our two consonantal vowels.
Amir: Okay, along with the -i sound, the letter yod also represents a -y sound and is included in two diphthongs “-ay” and “-ey.”
Sherah: Let’s hear word examples for each sound yod can represent.
Amir: Let’s start with the -y sound, yam.
Sherah: “sea”
Amir: The next sound is -i, ginah.
Sherah: “garden”
Amir: Let’s move on to the diphthongs, -ay, ħayim.
Sherah: This means “life.” With the -ay dipthong, it usually includes two yods.
Amir: Next stop is -ey which consists of the vowel -e which is two dots on the horizontal line under the preceding consonant and yod. Our example is beit sefer.
Sherah: “school”
Amir: So now, we’ve covered all the sounds that yod can represent. Let’s move on to vav.
Sherah: The letter vav can represent three different sounds; -v, -o, and -u.
Amir: Yes. And when you double the vav, it can also represent -w in foreign words.
Sherah: As in the name “Washington.”
Amir: So let’s practice our vav sounds beginning with the -v sound. Va’ad is the word for “committee.”
Sherah: Next stop, the sound -o.
Amir: yom
Sherah: “Day.” Now, for the -u sound.
Amir: tut sadeh
Sherah: “strawberries”
Amir: And that’s it for our consonantal vowels.
Sherah: Yes, but we still have some material to cover here. What about aleph, the first letter of the alphabet and heh, the fifth letter of the alphabet?
Amir: While although these aren’t consonantal vowels like vav and yod, they do hint towards certain vowels when they come at the end of a word.
Sherah: That’s right. Usually, it means there is an -a or an -e type of vowel at the end of the word. Let’s hear some examples. First with the letter aleph.
Amir: Okay, but before that, I should explain that aleph is a different sort of consonant in that it doesn’t have a particular sound. It always carries the preceding vowel sound with a following vowel sound.
Sherah: Good thinking, Amir. So now, let’s move on to the examples.
Amir: Okay, first stop is ָkara.
Sherah: “to call”
Amir: ֶּpe'le
Sherah: “Miracle.” Both those words ended in aleph and they took on the preceding vowel.
Amir: Here is an example of aleph when it takes on the sound of the following vowel, ishur.
Sherah: That means “approval.” Aleph can also act as a glottal stop, which is a point in the word where the sound stops deep in the throat. Can you give us an example of this?
Amir: Sure, ִnish'ar.
Sherah: “remained”
Amir: Let’s move on to the consonant heh. Heh usually represents the sound -h, but when it comes at the end of the word, it is in most cases silent and just carries an -e or -a vowel. Here is an example of this, mah.
Sherah: “what”
Amir: kafeh
Sherah: “coffee”
Amir: When heh is somewhere else in the word, it still represents the -h sound like this, zehirutְ.
Sherah: “Caution.” So now, we will move on to the consonants that can represent more than one consonantal sound.
Amir: Right. Historically, there are six double consonants in Hebrew, but only three of them still have two consonant sounds in modern Hebrew.
Sherah: What determines the difference between the two sounds is what’s called dagesh kal, which is a dot put into the center of the letter that indicates an accent on that letter.
Amir: Don’t get too frustrated with all these extra sounds.
Sherah: Yeah, just remember, if you have the standard sounds down, you’ll be able to read every word, sentence or both correctly.
Amir: So let’s get to them.
Sherah: What are the six traditional double-duty consonants then, Amir.
Amir: They are bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, peh, and tav.
Sherah: Great! Well, that doesn’t sound too hard. Which of those letters are still pronounced two ways today?
Amir: Bet, kaf, and peh.
Sherah: Okay, so let’s start with the first one.
Amir: Bet is a double-duty consonant that represents -b or -v.
Sherah: So let’s hear examples of both the sounds.
Amir: So with the dagesh kal, we say bayit.
Sherah: “House.” Now, let’s hear an example without the dagesh kal.
Amir: lev
Sherah: This means “heart” in Hebrew.
Amir: The next letter is kaf, which represents both -k with the dagesh kal and -kh without.
Sherah: Again, it will only be -k at the beginning of the word.
Amir: Yeah. Let’s try an example of this letter then, ken.
Sherah: “yes”
Amir: Another example, this time without the dagesh kal, mikhִ'tav.
Sherah: Which means “letter.”
Amir: The third and last double-duty consonant is peh.
Sherah: Peh is a letter that represents both -p and -f.
Amir: And our first example for it is mapah.
Sherah: “map” or “tablecloth”
Amir: And without the dagesh kal, you can say sְ'finah.
Sherah: “ship”
Amir: That’s right. So those were our double-agent consonants.
Sherah: Yep. That’s it for this lesson.
Amir: Thanks for listening and have a nice day.
Sherah: Premium members, use the review track to perfect your pronunciation.
Amir: Which is available in the premium section of the website.
Sherah: And through iTunes via the Premium feed.
Amir: The Learning Center and…
Sherah: And the Review Track. They all give you vocabulary and phrases, followed by short pause so you can repeat the words aloud.
Amir: The best way to get better fast!
Sherah: Okay. So now, that’s really it for this lesson.
Amir: Shalom!
Sherah: Bye!

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