Hebrew Alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet contains twenty-two letters. Five letters each have a separate final form, called sofit, that is used instead of the regular letter shape when they occur at the end of a word. These are shown to the left of the regular forms in the table below.

Letter	Name	Sound
א	Aleph	silent
ב	Beth	b or v
ג	Gimel	g or j
ד	Daleth	d or dh
ה	He	h or silent
ו	Vav	v/w or silent
ז	Zain	z
ח	Cheth	kh
ט	Teth	t
י	Jod	y or silent
כ ך	Caph	k or kh
ל	Lamed	l
מ ם	Mem	m
נ ן	Nun	n
ס	Samech	s
ע	Ain	silent
פ ף	Pe	p or f
צ ץ	Tzaddi	ts
ק	Qoph	k
ר	Resh	r
ש	Schin	sh or s
ת	Tav	t or th

In pointed text, the dagesh lene is a dot used to disambiguate letters with multiple pronunciations. Generally, a letter with a dagesh represents a hard sound, while the plain letter represents a soft sound.

Letter	Sound	Letter	Sound
בּ	b	ב	v
גּ	g	ג	gh
דּ	d	ד	dh
כּ ךּ	k	כ ך	kh
פּ ף	p	פ ף	f
תּ	t	ת	th

A dagesh in any other letter, or in any letter including the above immediately after a vowel, is a dagesh forte, which indicates a double consonant. Rarely seen, a rafe (e.g. בֿ), is the opposite of a dagesh, indicating a soft sound or a single consonant.

A dot above the letter schin indicates which sound it represents.

Letter	Sound	Letter	Sound
שׁ	sh	שׂ	s

Vowel markings, or niqqud, are placed either above or below the letters.

Niqqud	Name	Sound
אָ	Qametz	ā
אַ	Patach	a
אֲ	Chateph Patach	ă
אָה	Qametz He	ā
אֵ	Tzere	ē
אֶ	Segol	ɛ
אֱ	Chateph Segol	ɛ̆
אֵי	Tzere Jod	ē
אֶי	Segol Jod	ɛ̄
אִ	Chireq	i
אִי	Chireq Jod	ī
אֹ	Cholem	ō
אֳ	Chateph Qametz	ŏ
אָ	Qametz Chatuph	o
אוֺ	Cholem Vav	ō
אֻ	Qibbutz	u
אוּ	Shureq	ū
אְ	Sheva	ə or silent