למוד עברית מן-בראשית

Transcription

1 Page 1 of 104

2 Page 2 of 104 למוד עברית מן-בראשית מאת בנימין לי כפיר האלף מהדור ליהוה וליהושע

3 Page 3 of 104 Learning Hebrew From Genesis Written by Benjamin Lee Cooper Aleph3 Edition Uploaded on July 23 rd 2018 to and as a PDF file.

4 Page 4 of 104 Copyright 2018 by Benjamin Lee Cooper. All rights reserved, but some permissions are described later in this book.

5 Page 5 of 104 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Should I learn Hebrew?...6 Chapter 2 The Hebrew AlephBet...13 Chapter 3 The Hebrew Vowels...17 Chapter 4 Guttural and Dagesh letters...20 Chapter 5 Syllables את ו ב Chapter 6 First Vocabulary, Special vowels Chapter 7 First Verse and Structure and ה prefix...27 Chapter 8 Word Pairs and Perfect 3rd person forms...30 Chapter 9 Imperfect and the reversing vav...34 יכי יבין Chapter 10 and verse ס or פ prefix, verse 5, and ל Chapter היפ עעי ל prefix, participles, and מ Chapter 12 ינ עפ לעל Chapter 13 and verse 8 and Chapter 14 3rd person Poss. Suffix, Imperfect drop letters...48 Chapter 15 Plural Suffixes, Adjectives, Chapter 16 3rd person pronouns,,אות infinitives...55 Chapter 17 Verbs with extra suffixes, 2nd person, Commands ה, direction ימן, לאל prefix, כ person, Chapter 18 1st...65 יאין and יש, and לאל and לא Comparisons, Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Cardinal numbers, word duplication...68 Chapter 21 Age, questions...71 Chapter 22,הית עפלעיל and sealed words, conditional...74 אנא, לגם Chapter 23, and doubling או spacing, and,פיעיל Chapter 24 לעד עוד יעם יאת Chapter 25 and cantillation...86,כתיב Chapter 26,קרי and And Letter Duplication...88 Chapter 27 Original Script, the word 'God'...91 Chapter 28 Names, Prefix...94 ש ע Chapter 29 Ligatures and the יכי Suffix...98 Chapter 30 Parenthetical Chapter 31 Conclusions...102

6 Page 6 of 104 Chapter 1 Should I learn Hebrew? 1.1 Introduction In my book What is Truth? I wrote about the history and many other aspects of the Hebrew Language. My views are not typical like what is believed by the majority of people. This book can be used to learn Hebrew without referencing my other book, but people would understand much better the terms I use and the viewpoints I hold, if they read What is Truth?. Also they would learn cool things about the Bible and the Hebrew language that are not mentioned in this book. This book teaches what I call The Pure Language or Original Hebrew. This is not the same thing as what most people refer to as 'ancient' or 'paleo' Hebrew, because most people believe very differently about how Hebrew was in older times. You could kind of say that I teach Biblical Hebrew, but I also view Biblical Hebrew as being part of the Pure Language, or Original Hebrew. Anyway, from now on when I use the word Hebrew in this book, I am referring to the Original Hebrew unless I specifically mention the word 'Modern' or otherwise. 1.2 Should I learn Modern or Biblical? The first thing you must decide is if it would be Modern Hebrew or Biblical Hebrew that you want to learn. Modern Hebrew is not the original Hebrew of creation, its not the original Hebrew of the Garden of Eiden, and its not the original Hebrew that Noach, Avraham, and Yaaqov spoke. There are some added and removed grammar aspects, and many added words that are not in the Biblical Hebrew. If you are going to be spending a lot of time in Israel, then maybe you should learn Modern Hebrew to speak it there. If you will be spending a lot of time reading and studying the Tanakh, then you should probably learn Biblical Hebrew. I don't recommend that you learn both Modern and Biblical at the same time. Because of the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary differences, you will probably confuse the two often. I suggest that you first master one, then start to learn the other. Start with the one that you need the most first. Most people believe that they don't have much free time, so the more projects you have going at the same time, the more you are going to neglect each one. This is another reason why you should choose either Modern or Biblical. People who speak Modern Hebrew, and who also can read the Bible, do not differentiate the two languages usually. They think of the Bible as being an outdated form of the language. So, if your goal is to speak Hebrew with other people fluently, you should learn Modern Hebrew. I'm not saying Modern and Biblical Hebrew are really two different languages, but they are so different, it is not a big stretch to call them two different languages. 1.3 How much time can you commit each day to learning Hebrew?

7 Page 7 of 104 If you don t have at least 30 minutes per day on average to dedicate to learning Hebrew, then you should not try to learn it unless you believe God has told you to. 30 minutes a day is the absolute minimum really. Less time than this studying each day is probably not going to do you much good, as you will be forgetting more than you are memorizing probably. The ideal time period of daily study varies from person to person, but on average, I would suggest that you try to eventually get to about an hour or an hour and a half of learning Hebrew each day. More than this could be counterproductive actually, because excessive studying can cause irritability, frustration, fatigue, and less focus. If you don't think you have 30 spare minutes each day, then I have some questions for you. Do you watch television regularly? Why not do something that will be useful and lasting with your time, and instead of watching one or two shows a day, use that 30 minutes or hour each day to learn Hebrew? Have you enrolled in too many sports or volunteer actives? Do you really need to be involved with more than one sport? Do your children really need to be involved in more than one sport? How much time do you spend playing video games each day? Does that give you any life lasting skills that will improve your life or the life of others? It is important to keep Hebrew in your mind every day while learning it. Even if its just doing a few extra things like listening to the Tanakh being spoken, or practicing reading or writing Hebrew, or making a journal entry with Hebrew, or translating some of the Tanakh. Even if you have looked up the same word ten times and forgotten it ten times, keep trying and pray for memory improvement and study skills. You have to keep taking steps up the path of learning Hebrew, one step at a time. Giving up is to stop walking that path. Even if its one step a day, make that one step per day. Learn using many different methods. 1.4 Is learning Hebrew Difficult? Really, the hardest part about learning Hebrew is establishing a daily study time, and keeping it every day. Many things will tempt you to quit or put off studying for a day. If you don't have the passion or the drive, you will quit. Taking one day off from learning each week is probably fine, but anything more than that will turn into a habit that will lead you to quitting. If keep your daily study times, learning Hebrew pretty much boils down to memorization. You don't have to be 'smart' to learn Hebrew. You will even get used to reading 'backwards' and one day you wont even think about it when you change from reading English to Hebrew. There are many study skills that make learning Hebrew much easier than most people would think. Its mostly just a matter of routine, dedication, and asking God for help with learning concepts that you need help with. There are methods you can use with learning Hebrew to make the memorization easier. 1.5 Other people are smarter than me

8 Page 8 of 104 The thought that classmates or peers are smarter than us, is a lie from the serpent who is trying to tell us that we are not smart enough, so that we quit learning. When people in a classroom setting feel lessor than their peers, either they didn't put in enough study time, or they need to learn better study skills, or they need to get healthier in order to restore their memory, attention, clarity, and focus. Many foods have harmful chemicals in them which effect memory and concentration, or simply lack any useful nutrients that our brains need in order to have a good memory, focus, clarity, and attention. You cannot spend ten minutes per day studying Hebrew and expect to keep up with a class where the other students spend 30 minutes or more per day studying Hebrew. I will provide some study skills soon in this book introduction. 1.6 I don't want to learn the Modern script (Block letters) I have not seen a Tanakh in physical print that is in Ancient Hebrew, and even if there was, I doubt it would be as accurate as the Letteris Hebrew, and I doubt it would have vowel points and cantillation markings. As I previously stated in my book 'What is truth?, there is no proof of the picture like Hebrew font ever existing, there is only proof of the Ancient font (script) found on the many stones, pillars, and scrolls which is slightly more runic looking (but yes there is some similarity where an Ancient aleph looks like a ox head). Many people try to say that the cartoonish or picture looking font is the most ancient, I have seen no proof it was ever used other than in very modern times when this myth arose. So, you are not likely to find a Tanakh that you could read, even if you knew the true Ancient font. You wouldn't be able to read Modern Hebrew. Only very few people that know Hebrew and the Ancient font would be able to read what you write and could write something you could read. If you want to read the Tanakh in Hebrew, you are simply going to have to learn the Flame / Modern font, or keep the excuse and wait until somebody makes a Tanakh with the Ancient font, vowels, cantillations, and accuracy. I would be amazed if that happens anytime soon, and if it does let me know because I would want to own one of those Tanakhs. I have seen an online text of the Tanakh without vowels or cantillation marings that was in the ancient Hebrew font. You can still write your own ancient Hebrew when you practice writing Hebrew. Then when you read your own ancient font Hebrew, you will be learning it. This is what I have done. When I write Hebrew, I write it in the original, ancient script, whenever possible. I want to be able to read any ancient Hebrew writings I might see in person in the future, or that I might see on artifacts shown online. However, I do not recommend that people learn the ancient script until they have a solid memorization of the modern block style script. I will not be teaching the ancient script in this book because it is not needed to read the Bible in Hebrew.

9 Page 9 of It costs too much to learn Hebrew I started learning Hebrew by doing yard work for my first teacher, and my second teacher was nearly free because I was at a Tabernacles gathering which my friend helped pay for, and there were free Hebrew classes there for people who were enrolled in the gathering. I didn't have to buy a grammar book. There are free online grammar websites and Youtube videos. If you want to learn Hebrew and it is Yehovah's plan for you, he will make opportunities for you that you can afford. For example, this book is free and is meant to be used for individual learning, without a teacher being present. 1.8 Its whatever You should also have a strong desire to learn Hebrew if you plan on learning it. If you are on the fence about learning Hebrew, or if you think its not a big deal, then don't bother learning Hebrew. But if God has told you to learn Hebrew and you are not happy or excited about that, well then id tell you to learn Hebrew anyway. In that case ask God to help you have the desire to learn Hebrew, and the persistence to study sufficiently each day. Again, taking one day off each week from learning, might be healthy. Learning Hebrew will require a drive and passion to keep a person from being discouraged by people of the world and the serpent. They will tell you that it is pointless to learn Hebrew because we have many English translations. 1.9 Study Skills to learn Hebrew Meaning Associations Most of the time, there is a very real connection to the individual letter meanings of a word, and the overall meaning of a word. Ask Yehovah to show you these connections as you learn words. Once you understand these meaning connections, you can memorize the word based on these connections, which is א.ה.ב example, much more efficient than just memorizing without associations. For means to love, and the individual letter meanings are strong,א house,ב and ב of the house א The picture concept for this word is 'a strong one.ה revealing being ה revealed '. אב is father, the strong man of the house. So in more clarity, is the Father being revealed, this is because the center letter of a word root א.ה.ב has the most weight, and therefore the most weight is put on revealing. Who is being revealed?ה The Father,.אב That's what love is, us seeing our Father Yehovah for who he is, who can and does love us purely. He is our example of what love is, and the Hebrew language itself shows us the proof of this. The times when you cannot seem to find a connection between the letter meanings and the Word meanings, then try to think of other roots that have at least 2 letters in the same exact places. Most of the time, if two different word roots have two identical letters in the same places, they have very related or similar meanings.

10 Page 10 of Letter numerical value associations. Sometimes it helps to memorize a word when you know the numerical values of the letters. For example, the Hebrew word Shelosh שלש means three, the written form of the number 3. Every letter in the word שלש has a 3 in it. ש has the numerical value of 300 and ל has the numerical value of 30. thus it is 300, 30, 300. that makes it easy in this case to remember that Shelosh is three. You could not make this connection if you don't know the Hebrew letters for Shelosh (if you only knew the transliteration). This also shows the importance of knowing the number values of each Hebrew letter Avoid transliterations Transliterations will remove your ability to associate the God given connections of the Hebrew letter Meanings, and number values to the meanings of the words. Using transliterations will take away some of the study skills you can use to memorize Hebrew words, and it will lessen the beauty and extra information you would be getting from seeing the actual Hebrew Letters. Also, you will be כ (c or ch or k or q), Kaf ח often confused by the many different spellings for Chet (c or k or q) and Quf ק (c or k or q) that people use. This is because those 3 Hebrew letters can sometimes have the same exact sound. Also, Samekh ס (S) and Sin ש (S) ט are often confused in transliterations because the both have the same sound. Tet (T) and Tav ת (T) also have the same sound in most dialects. Therefore, if you use transliterations, you are not learning the real spellings of Hebrew letters, and you are not even learning the most accurate pronunciation. In order to follow the lessons in this book, you will have to learn to read the actual Hebrew letters, and not the English transliterations of Hebew Learn the grammar Grammar will help you to know the meanings of words based on the context of the whole sentence. Many Hebrew words can mean more than one thing, and you need to know the context of the sentence or sentences to know the meaning. You cannot accurately know the context of a sentence if you don't know all the grammar. Some people may claim that all you need to know is the Letter meanings to decipher the word meanings, but this is not going to help you often enough, and it is not going to teach you the grammar. Grammar can change past to future tense, or future to past, or show present tense, or show you if its a question, or a possible action that is expected. Hebrew grammar can clue you in on when English punctuation is needed when translating. Grammar can tell you if its your cat or my cat, or if the cat is bad or fat.

11 Page 11 of Use flash cards or other visual aids Until you master the Letter and Vowel pronunciations, the Letter meanings, and Letter numerical values, you should make flash cards and practice regularly with them. It is very helpful to know everything about each letter to the point that you rarely make mistakes. In time, you can have it mastered and you wont need flash cards for these basic things. Later on, you can use flash cards for memorizing a few words a day, or a few words per week. Perhaps even write down the words you forgot each day or week Focus on word roots When you come across a noun or adjective that you want to memorize, it is often very helpful to trace the word back with a Hebrew dictionary to the three letter word root. This is because that three letter word root often holds the main concept for the root, which is very related to the noun that has the similar spelling. Often, I find it best to look at the verb of the root that is shared with the noun, because the verb will give me a good understanding of the root meaning, and then I can understand the noun or adjective meaning better. Basically, if you can associate the nouns with the roots that they come from, in your mind, it will make it easier to memorize both the nouns and the verbs, and it will make it less likely that you will forget the words when you associate them with other words. Almost every root that ש.מ.א.ל can be turned into a 'verb' is a three letter root. Two exceptions are the root which means 'to choose the left', and ש.ת.ח.ו which means 'to worship', but you do not need to memorize these roots yet Cursive script In this book, I will not be teaching the Modern Hebrew cursive script. It is only useful for communication in Modern Hebrew, and perhaps also if you want to read some of the Bible manuscripts of Matthew which were written in Hebrew using the cursive script. I recommend that you ignore learning the cursive script, because you wont need it for reading the Bible, and if you do want to use handwriting to communicate in Modern Hebrew with other people, then perhaps this book is not meant for you. Even computers now use the same script found in the Hebrew Bibles Introduction This book is meant to teach you Hebrew by using Genesis chapters 1-3, and then you will have enough skill on your own to finish all of Genesis or the Torah in order to gain fluency in Hebrew. The reason why this book is so short, is because I am not putting 'exercises' into each chapter for you to practice on. The reader is meant to develop their own practice by using flashcards, and reading and writing

12 Page 12 of 104 Hebrew on their own, before each lesson. This also means I do not need to write a 'answers' section in this book. This book also does not have a 'glossary' at the end, because, I am also writing a complete 'dictionary' as a separate book, and if readers need to, they can use that. If I had all of these things in this book, it would needlessly double or triple the size of this book. This book also does not list every possible vowel spelling for words, but instead I use a root based teaching method. Hebrew vowels are very important, but fluent readers should eventually know how to read Hebrew without vowels, therefore knowing the exact vowel spellings of any possible word is kind of like perfectionism in my view. This does not mean I teach a lazy way of learning Hebrew, or that I don't respect the language.

13 Page 13 of 104 Chapter 2 The Hebrew AlephBet 2.1 Flashcards I recommend that you either buy or make some flashcards to learn the Hebrew letters and vowel markings. You can buy enough index cards for a couple dollars or less, then you can use those as flashcards. You can also buy cardstock paper that is used for business cards and then cut it down to the size you want the flashcards to be. It is probably better if you make your own cards because it is best if you also write on the cards the number value and the meaning of each Hebrew letter. This way, you are not just learning the pronunciation of the letter, but also the other aspects of each letter, all at once. Learning all of these attributes about each letter will greatly benefit you in the future. It may seem like a chore now, but it will benefit you a lot. 2.2 Hebrew Letter Chart You can use this chart below to make your flashcards. There are five letters which change their appearance when they are at the end of a word. These letters are כ מ נ פ צ and their final forms (sofit) are ם ן ף ץ.ך These final forms of the letters are not considered as different letters, and they do not have different meanings or number values. However, it would be best to make separate flash cards for each final form letter, and then separate flash cards for the normal forms of the letters. This will help you to learn both forms. The 5 final letter forms that change are very common, so you will need to memorize them. Do not feel overloaded. You are not expected to learn all of this information about the Hebrew Letters in a matter of days. You probably wont master this Letter information for a few months. These flashcards will help you during that time. Some of the letters look very similar to ם each other, so take the time to recognize the differences. For example, Mem Sofit and Samekh ס look very much alike and still to this day sometimes I confuse the two. Hey ה and Chet ח also look very similar and still sometimes I confuse them. In June of 2018 I got the idea to find the words relating to each letter meaning. I have listed these words in the chart below also. Although the pronunciation of those words are very similar to the Sephardic pronunciation of the word names, they are not exact. I am guessing that, just like in English, there is no apparent official name for each letter that is written out with the pronunciation of the word it is describing. For example, in English, we call the letter A, 'the letter A'. If there were official words made for each English letter that were to also describe the word pronunciation, it would look something like this: Eigh, Bee, See, Dee, Eee, Ef, Gee, Eh, I, Jay, Kay, El, Em, En, Oh, Pee, Qu, Arr, Ess, Tee, You, Vee, Double-U, Ex, Why, and Zee. Anyway, it is interesting to look at those Hebrew words below that match each letter.

14 Page 14 of 104 Heb rew Lett er Nu mbe r Valu e Letter Name Meaning and (Concept) the, 1 Aleph ox, strength, I, א (first) (in, 2 Bet, Vet house, earth, ב on, about, with, during, by, while) foot, 3 Gimmel Camel, ג (movement) 4 Dalet Door, (opportunity ד or choice) towards, 5 Hey Behold, ה the, her, (revealing) and, 6 Vav Nail, hook, ו his, (connection) plow, 7 Zayin Weapon, ז tool, seed (using a tool or weapon) 8 Chet Fence (separation ח or containment) basket, 9 Tet serpent, ט (twisting or containing) 10 Yod Hand, deed, he י Pronunciation None, depends on vowel B or V sound depends on Dagesh G like Go D H V Z CH like bach T Hebrew Word thousand אל ף house בלית camel גאמאל door דל ת behold היא hook ואו weapon? א יזן 20 ך כ Kaf, Khaf (thought or action) palm of hand, open hand, as, your (holding something, opening the hand) shepherd, 30 Lamed Staff, ל for, to, by (teaching or learning) Y like Yours K L wall לחיץ dirt, clay, יטיט mire hand יאד palm לכף disciple ילמוד

15 Page 15 of 104 womb, 40 Mem Water, ם מ from, among, part, their, comparison, noun prefix (chaos, effect of water) be, 50 Nun fish, seed, life, ן נ we, their, noun prefix (something being or existing) Support, 60 Samech ס (roundness, turning) 70 Ayin Eye, (see or ע ף פ ץ צ experience) 80 Pey, Fey mouth, word, (something done with the mouth like speaking) M N S None, depends on vowel P or F, depends on Dagesh waters מלים to continue נ.ו.ן to ס.מ.ך support eye לעין mouth לפה 90 Tsade Need, desire Ts צלד side 100 Quf Sun on the ק horizon, eye of a needle, back of the head (piercing, being on a horizon / field, thought or movement of the head) one, 200 Resh Head, exalted ר top (being first or on top, thought, involving a Q R apes? קוף head רא ש ש ש 300 Sin, Shin person) Teeth, the sun or it's rays, that, which, who (consumption, clinching of teeth) S or Sh, depends on dot on top teeth ישן

16 Page 16 of 104 Tav, 400 ת Thav Heb rew Lett er Nu mbe r Valu e Letter Name Sign, mark, cross, you, she, noun prefix, (being last, affliction or service) Meaning and (Concept) T or TH, depends on Dagesh Transliteration mark תאו Hebrew Word 2.3 Lesson 1 Your first lesson will be to get a decent understanding of the meanings and number values of the Hebrew Letters, while focusing on the most important thing about the letters, and that is their appearance and their pronunciations. During these first few weeks (you can finish lesson 1 soon if you want to, but don't feel rushed) your main goals is to be able to recognize the name of each letter and it's pronunciation. Don t focus too much on the meanings and number values of the letters just yet. Within a month or two though, you should try to have a firm understanding of the Hebrew Letter values and meanings. Spend at least 30 minutes a day looking at the flashcards and guessing their names and pronunciations. As a bonus, you could listen to an audio file of a person reading the Hebrew letters out loud and then saying their pronunciations. Listen to that for another 30 minutes as 'extra credit'. You should be able to find a free audio file or youtube video where somebody reads the Hebrew Letters out loud. Don't worry about vowels yet, that will be the next lesson. Just focus on the letters for this lesson. Also, don't worry about concepts like Guttural letters, or Dagesh markings just yet. Taking things one step at a time without overwhelming ourselves is the best way. 2.4 Extra Credit Most of the Hebrew letters have a literal meaning of a literal thing, like a camel, or a house, and so forth. But most of the letters also have a conceptual meaning that is tied to the literal meaning. For example, Gimmel ג means camel or foot in the literal sense, but in the conceptual meaning it means movement. Both a foot and a camel provide movement to people, and the reason that the literal meanings are foot or camel, is because its root concept is movement. Samekh ס on the other hand, is a bit different for many reasons. Samekh ס almost always means support as a concept. Only on rare times does Samekh have a literal meaning in a word, but when it does it means something round, like in the word סאבי ב which means encompassing or round-about. In the root ס.ב.ב that that word comes from, the Samech has nothing really to do with support, but roundness. Yod י often means

17 Page 17 of 104 a hand, but can sometimes also as a concept mean thought or action. Chapter 3 The Hebrew Vowels 3.1 The Hebrew Vowels These next weeks (you can finish this lesson sooner if you want) will be about learning the Hebrew Vowels. The chart below shows them all, and their pronunciation. I recommend that you make flashcards with these vowels on them, י and ה and א along with their names and pronunciation on the backs of them. The letters in the chart are just examples so that you see how the vowels look below the letters. Don t worry right now about if the vowels are short or long, just concentrate on their pronunciations. All vowels of each type have the same sound other than the Tsere and Segol 'E' types in the Sephardic dialect. The Sheva could be considered as part of the E type of vowels but it is special in that it is often silent and often at the beginning of a word or syllable. Vowel Name Sound Transliteration Class א Qamets Aqua A Long אל Patach Aqua A Short א Chateph Aqua A Reduced Patach אה Qamets Aqua A Long Hey אי Tsere Eight Ei Long אל Segol Red E Short

18 Page 18 of 104 א Chateph Segol Red E Reduced אלי Segol Yod Eight Ey Long אי Tsere Yod Eight Ey Long אי Chireq Green I Short אי Chireq Green Iy Long Yod א Cholem Yellow O Long א Chateph Yellow O Reduced Qamets א Qamets Yellow O Short Chatuph או Cholem Yellow O Long Vav א Qibbutes Blue U Short או Shureq Blue U Long א ע Sheva Red or silent ** Short or Silent Vowel Name Sound Trans- Literatio n 3.2 Writing Hebrew Class Hebrew is written and read by starting on the right side of the page. When you write Hebrew, make sure to always start on the right side, and then write each letter moving toward the left side of the paper. When you read it back to yourself, always start on the right side of the page and work your way to the left. In a few month or less, you wont even realize that you are reading and writing 'Backwards'. During these weeks while you memorize the Hebrew vowels with flashcards, along with the Hebrew Letters, I recommend that you start writing the Hebrew letters and vowels several times for each letter and vowel. Do this every day. For something fun you can also write your name in Hebrew as close as you can get the pronunciation. It probably wont be exact because Hebrew cannot reproduce every English sound. For example, in the Sephardic dialect, there is no W sound. If you have a name that is in the Bible, you can look up the actual Hebrew spelling in a Hebrew dictionary, Strong's, or blueletterbible.org. If you get bored of that, you could also find and write the names of your friends and family. You can develop

19 Page 19 of 104 your own method of writing each letter so that they look like the Block script in the chart I showed you. But if you want to write the letters the 'correct' way, you can easily find youtube videos showing how to write each letter. I recommend that you find whatever feels the most comfortable and natural for yourself when you write the letters. 3.3 Extra Credit A transliteration is when you take the letters of one language and try to make it sound like another language. This is what was done in the Bible with the names of people. The Hebrew names were written in English with English letters which had similar sounds to the Hebrew letters, so that the name sounds similar in both Hebrew and English. The sounds are usually not exactly the same when names are transliterated. As an extra practice method during these next weeks, you can write a journal using Hebrew letters, but making the Hebrew sound like English words. Then when you read the Hebrew letters back, it will sound similar to English. For example: לאי אם ר יע ידנג יהברו As further extra credit, continue to memorize the Hebrew letter meanings and number values if you want to.

20 Page 20 of 104 Chapter 4 Guttural and Dagesh letters 4.1 The Dagesh This lesson will be about guttural and dagesh letters. A dagesh is a dot in the middle of a letter. It can be present at the beginning of a word, or at the beginning of a syllable. There are only 6 letters that commonly have a dagesh on them, and 3 of them get a pronunciation change in the Sephardic dialect. In the ancient pronunciation, all 6 of these letters might have had a pronunciation change כ without a dagesh is a 'v' sound, the ב depending on if it had a dagesh or not. The without a dagesh is a more throaty 'k' sound like the,ח and the פ is a 'f' sound without a dagesh. The 6 letters that commonly have a dagesh are: ב ג ד כ פ ת and they can be referred to as the 'Beged Kephet' letters. Other non-guttural letters can בגד כפת sometimes have a dagesh. In those cases where the letter is not one of the letters, the dagesh doubles the sound of the letter so that the letter is used twice, in two different adjacent syllables. בגד כפת letters can also sometimes have its pronunciation doubled, depending on if it is preceded by a vowel. I will explain that more later, so don't worry about that now. If you haven't done so already, I recommend that you put a dagesh on these 6 letters in your flashcards, so that you get used to seeing these letters with a dagesh, to remind you that they are the common dagesh letters. 4.2 Guttural Letters There are 5 guttural letters that never get a dagesh, except a Hey ה at the end of a word can on rare occasions have a dagesh for example. The 5 guttural letters are: א ה ח ע ר. These letters often have different vowels, or sometimes no vowel at all. For example, it is common for an א to have no vowel under it at all, even if it is in the middle of a word. Most of the time, there are no vowels under the last letter

21 Page 21 of 104 of a word, but these guttural letters can sometimes have a vowel under it even if it is at the end of a word. However, when a ר is the last letter, it never has a vowel under it. Also a ך (which is the final form of (כ can sometimes have a sheva under it, and then it looks like this at the end of a word: ך Don't worry too much about all of these guttural letter things, we will practice it more later. It would be a good idea to make a note on your flashcards for these guttural letters, to help you remember that they are guttural. 4.3 Practice A bit of reading practice is a good idea. Here are some transliterated sentences of English words using Hebrew. Sound it out as you read it. There is no 'Th' sound in Hebrew in the Sephardic dialect, but some people believe that Hebrew once had a 'Th' sound when a Tav ת did not have a dagesh on it. A ת Im not sure if it is true or not about the.ת looks like this ת Dagesh on a pronunciations, but for this practice, if you want to sound out ת as 'Th' and ת and 'T' ב than that would sound more like English in this practice below. Remember that has the sound of 'B' and ב has the sound of 'V'. In the Bible, a : is used at the end of a verse, much like an English period. It is called the sof pasuq. In these practice examples below, the vowels I used to not follow normal Hebrew vowel rules due to it being a transliteration of English, so in these examples there are no doubling of pronunciations when you see a dagesh. I just used the dagesh as a way to show you how the dagesh can change the sound of letters. Anyway, here they are: לתה לדג לברכט לאט לתה ינבורס יב לכס יתי ימד נו יעס: לעי א מ אג יענג טו לתל לתה לדג ט ה יבי יסלנט לב ירי סע ן:. יהי יעש יא ג ד לדג וסע לא יל:. סומ יתמס תו יהי יעש לעננוינג:. Answer: The dog barked at the neighbors because they made noise. I am going to tell the dog to be silent very soon. He is a good dog usually. Sometimes though he is annoying. 4.4 Extra Credit Don't be discouraged if you are still having trouble getting a mostly acurate memory of the vowels and the letters and their pronunciations. Just keep on practicing with flashcards to get them memorized well. If you are starting to have a

22 Page 22 of 104 mostly accurate memory of the letters and vowels and their pronunciations, then בגד כפת spend some extra time memorizing which letters are guttural and the dagesh letters. Also, try to get to an accurate memory of the letter meanings and the number values of each letter. You can do this by adding the number values and letter meanings to your flashcards if you haven't already, and then focusing on those things when you cycle the flashcards. Chapter 5 Syllables 5.1 The Sheva, Qameits, and Qameits Chatuph Vowels Most of the vowels have the same sound regardless of where it is in the word. However, there are a few exceptions. The Sheva ע, when it is the very first vowel of a syllable, has an 'e' sound like the 'e' in red. This means if the sheva is the very first vowel of a word, or after a letter that has a long vowel, then that sheva is pronounced. If a Sheva is at the end of a word or at the end of a syllable, then it is silent, and not pronounced. If two shevas are next to each other (under letters that are next to each other) in the middle of a word, then the second sheva is pronounced, because it is a new syllable. Although technically the Qameits א and the Qameits Chatuph א are officially thought of as separate vowels in the Sephardic dialect, one could easily say they are the same vowel, because they look identical. What determines the sound it makes, or what people call it, depends on where in the word the vowel is. The Qameits Chatuph only occurs in closed syllables that are unaccented (I will explain accents soon), or in other words, if you see a א, it is going to be a 'ah' sound unless it is in a closed syllable without an accent. A closed syllable is one that ends with a 'consonant' sound. For example, if the syllable ends with a sound that sounds like an English vowel, then that syllable is probably an open syllable. Most of the time when you see a א vowel, it will have an 'ah' sound (as the Qameits). For example אכל is a closed unaccented syllable, so it sounds like the English word 'coal'. When you learn the word,כאל you will realize that it is also commonly spelled as,כאל which has the same exact 'coal' sound. So that will help you to remember that אכל sounds like 'coal'. Here are some Hebrew transliterations of English words using these vowels and the rules for them that I just explained:

23 Page 23 of 104 feel פיל peck עפך peek פיך law לאה loan אלן shed עשד (Notice that the first word 'peck' has two shevas, the first one gets the pronunciation and the one at the end of the word is silent. Sometimes you will see two sheva vowels next to each other in Hebrew.) 5.2 Accents Most of the time, there are accents pronounced at the end of of each Hebrew word. In some special cases, some words do not follow this pattern. For example, one syllable words do not have an accent. Words that are joined in a word pair by using a in the Hebrew text also do not get an accent. In Genesis 1:2 and 1:3 there are examples of word pairs with a Maaqef sign. They look like this in the text: לעל- עפ יני לו עי יהי-אור Word pairs like the examples above, do not have accents on the words. Some rules. regarding accents are: A long vowel in a closed syllable gets an accent, otherwise it will be closed with a short vowel. A sheva never gets an accent. A reduced vowel does not get an accent. Verbs can often have accents on the second syllable 5.3 Syllables There can only be one vowel in each syllable in Hebrew words. In the vowel chart previously shown in this book, I listed which vowels are short and which ones are long vowels. If a short vowel is under a letter, it means that the next letter will also be a part of the syllable. This can happen if the vowel after a short vowel is a sheva, in that case the sheva is silent. If a long vowel is under a letter, then that means that the next letter is a new syllable if it has a vowel. Letters at the end of a word usually don't have a vowel, and so that letter is part of the last syllable. I will describe later on how some vowels can be under some last letters of a word, but for now, just know that in those cases, it is a new syllable if there is a vowel under the last letter of a word. Here are some real Hebrew practice words with syllables shown below it. They י in the word וליא מלר below is a dagesh that repeats that letter pronunciation. So that י gets sounded out two times. The first time is with the gets pronounced as the start of the י in the first syllable, and the second time is the ו second syllable. Notice also that the א doesn't have a vowel under it. This is a common thing, especially for the א in the root.א.מ.ר Below, the אש letter has a dagesh because of the ה before it, which is acting as a definite article. I will explain definite articles later, but just know that this letter ש in the word הלשאמלים does not repeat its sound, because this dagesh is there only because of the.ה Don't worry about what the words mean just yet, just try to pronounce them:

24 Page 24 of 104 הא רלץ א לשר לויא למר לע לרב לה אש למים א ל יהים ית עש עמרו tish-meh-roo el-oh-heem ha-shah-my-eem er-ev vay-yo-mer ah-sher ha-ah-rets 5.4 Extra Credit This book has the main goal of helping you to be able to read from the Bible, and so there will not be much practice with syllables, accents, and pronunciation in this book. I mainly just wanted to cover the very basics of pronunciation. If you are feeling confident at this point, try to master which vowels are short, and which are long. Continue to use your flashcards until you rarely make mistakes on your flashcards. Try to memorize all of the aspects about each letter and vowel. You should also continue your writing practice of the Hebrew letters and vowels, and do some transliterations of English words sometimes. את ו ב Chapter 6 First Vocabulary, Special vowels 6.1 Special vowel situations When a vowel is under a ח,ע, or a ה at the end of a word, then that vowel is pronounced before the this last letter. These are the only situations where vowels ל are pronounced before the letter that the vowel is below. When there is a patach or a qameits א vowel before a י then these combinations are pronounced in a slightly different way regarding syllables. In those cases the vowels are mixed with the י to make a 'eye' sound, then the vowel that is under the י starts the next syllable. This vowel under the י is usually a chireq י or 'eee' sound. When a cholem-vav ו or a cholem vowel א is before a,י then this also has the same kind of situation. It has a 'oy' sound and then the chireq under the י starts the next syllable. Also when a chureq ו is before a י it is a 'ooy' sound and once again, if there is a vowel under the next י then it starts the next syllable (there is not always a vowel under a.(י In the rare cases when you might see a וי after a qameits א vowel, then it has a 'av' sound. When a chireq י vowel is before a,י this makes an expected 'eey' sound but then there is usually no vowel under the.י These are the only times I can think of that a vowel starts a syllable when it is not on the final letter. Don't worry about the meaning of these common words below, just look at the pronunciation: אי ימים לח ייים גוים מלים רוחל ru-ach may-eem goy-eem chay-yeem ya-meem את 6.2 First Vocabulary and Here is the first set of word for you to put on flashcards and memorize until the next lesson:

25 Page 25 of 104 אלרלץ שאמלים א ל יהים רא ש head or top God heavens or sky land or earth Rosh רא ש has an aleph with no vowel, which does happen sometimes. It mean head, top, or first, and is the reason why the letter ר is called Resh and means the same things. Elohim א ל יהים almost always means God, as in the creator, and it is in שאמלים the plural form which brings many different theories to people. Shamyeem means heavens as in space or the universe other than the Earth, or it can mean the sky as in the atmosphere of the earth. It can also mean both at the same time which essentially means the universe including the Earth. It all depends on the context of the Hebrew verses around it. Erets אלרלץ means land in a local area, or the entire Earth. Again, this depends on the context of the Hebrew verses in the Bible. This vocabulary is short because also there will be one other special word and two prefixes that you should memorize for the next lesson also. אלת and יאת are called direct object markers (DOM) which do not usually have a direct translation in English, but instead they point to an object being talked about in the text. The object is right after one of these DOMs. You should put these two DOMs on flashcards also. The את can also represent 'the first and the last' or the 'beginning and the end' because it has both the first and last letters as one word. אית does not get a maaqef after it but לאת can sometimes have a maaqef between it and the object it is pointing to (there can be more than one object in a verse and usually each one will have a DOM). I will show an example of this with a real verse from the Hebrew Bible in the next lesson. It can look like this in the Hebrew manuscripts: יאת לה אש למים prefixes ב and ו 6.3 The word 'and' (a conjunction) is not a separate word in Hebrew. It is represented by a ו which is attached to the beginning of a word as a prefix. Then depending on what letter and vowel is at the beginning of the word that it is attached to, a vowel is put under the ו prefix. Right now it is not important which vowels are under it, but the most common vowel under a ו prefix is a sheva ע, So, when you practice writing a ו prefix, write it with a sheva like this ו ע. Sometimes the ו ע prefix can mean 'or' instead of 'and', and on rare occasions it can mean 'then' or 'so', but it usually means 'and'. Hebrew is a very flexible language, with even many acceptable variations in grammar and vowel usages. The prefix ב can commonly mean 'In, on, by, over, or against' (it is a preposition) when it is attached to the beginning of a word. It is usually clear by the context of the verse which meaning the ב prefix has. It commonly has a sheva under it so but the vowel under the ב prefix depends on what the next letter to it is and what it's vowel is. The vowel also depends on if the word it is attached to is definite or indefinite. Right

26 Page 26 of 104 now it doesn't matter what the vowel is, so practice writing the ב prefix with a sheva like this ב ע. There is a separate word that can also mean the same things as the ב prefix, but I will cover that later. It might help you to make two additional flashcards for these two prefixes to help you to memorize what they can mean. Sometimes when a prefix is added to a word, a בגד כפת letter can have it's dagesh dropped, or it's vowel could change. Other letters can have vowel changes to when a prefix is added. Right now its just important that you know that the vowels can change, so you don't need to memorize the changes anytime soon. Here are some real examples of these prefixes in use in the Hebrew Bible, don't worry about what the words mean, just look at the ו and ב prefixes: עב יא עשתו עב לגן יע לדן עו אכל- יע לשב עוא אדם עו אכל In the example above, אכל and אכל are the same words with the same meanings and the same sounds, they just have different vowels because the sign can change the vowels when it pairs words together, probably due to the accents being removed or the syllables being changed. 6.4 Extra Credit It might be a good idea at this point to get a Hebrew Tanakh (old testament) so that you can follow along in your own Bible when I talk about Bible verses or use them as lessons. The next lesson will use a verse that you will be able to read from the Hebrew Tanakh. I recommend that you get a Letteris version of the Tanakh. I found a KJV parellel Bible that has Letteris Hebrew. It is called Old Testament Hebrew & English with the ISBN-10: or ISBN-13: Even a JPS or BH Tanakh is ok for just starting out, or even just use blueletterbible.org for free to see the Hebrew text. On my book What is Truth? I explain the differences between the major English and Hebrew Bible versions. If you get a physical copy of a Hebrew Tanakh, then it will help inspire you to want to read it.

27 Page 27 of 104 Chapter 7 First Verse and Structure and ה prefix ה 7.1 The definite article There are different ways to make a word definite in Hebrew, and one of them is by adding a ה prefix to the word. When a ה prefix gets added to a word, it adds a dagesh to the next letter that the ה is before, but guttural letters do not get a dagesh. The vowel that goes under the ה prefix depends on what the first letter of the word is and what vowel is under it. The added ה prefix can also change the vowel of the first letter of the word because the added ה prefix changes the syllables of the word because of the added ה at the beginning. Don't worry right now about what vowels might go underneath the ה prefix. It would be a good idea to add the ה prefix to a new flashcard so that you can memorize it as being a prefix. On the flashcard put a patach vowel ל under the ה like this הל because this ה prefix often has a patach vowel under it. If a noun does not have a ה prefix, then there it is probably indefinite. You will be able to know for sure by the rest of the grammar in a verse in future lessons. So שאמלים means 'a sky' or 'heavens' because it is indefinite, הל means 'the sky' or 'the heavens' because it is definite due to the added הלשאמלים and prefix. Also notice the added dagesh on the letter.ש There is no separate word or method in Hebrew to make a word indefinite. It is indefinite by default unless it is made definite by a ה prefix or some other grammar method. In rare places (other than Daniel and Ezra), a word can be made definite with a א suffix and the last vowel is changed to a patach א like this.אאאא This א suffix is not something you need to remember, but eventually you might come across it, and then you might remember what it is. For example, in modern Hebrew, you might hear somebody say 'Abba' when talking to their dad. This is the א definite suffix added to the word father אב and most modern Hebrew speakers don't even realize this has happened because 'Abba' in modern Hebrew is treated as a whole word and not אב with a suffix. In rare occasions, with this א suffix, it can mean 'my' just like how the

28 Page 28 of 104 Imperfect 1 st person prefix א means 'I will' (don't worry about this imperfect 1 st person prefix yet though). 7.2 Sentence Structure and your first Bible verse Hebrew is a very flexible language. Although the common way is for a 'verb' to come before a 'subject' doing the action, it is not always this way. Sometimes Hebrew grammar acts a bit different in songs or poetry like in the books of Psalms and Proverbs, or even the song of Mosheh (Moses). The Book of Daniel is very different also. Anyway, I will teach the common method, and the method that is most common in Genesis. The Hebrew Tanakh was designed for us by the creator for many reasons, and one of those reasons was to help us to learn Hebrew accurately. Basically, the Hebrew Torah (first five books) can be used as a way to learn Hebrew, because this was one of the many goals of the Torah when the creator made it for us. What I call a Hebrew word root, is basically a 'verb' that I will write like this ב.ר.א with a. between the letters so that it is clear that I am talking about a root and not a word that is written in the Bible. From the root word comes the nouns and other words that are directly related to that three letter root. Most of the time, any word that is related to its root, will have all three of the same letters as the root. Sometimes a word will have additional letters to the root like an added מ ad the beginning of the word. An added מ at the beginning of a word is common for nouns. 'Verbs' are written differently depending on who is doing the action, and then there is sometimes a את DOM, and then after that is the object that the action is being done with. ב.ר.א means to 'create'. It is a word you should eventually memorize, but it is not a common enough word to justify memorization just yet, so don't worry about memorizing it. In the third-person as a 'verb' it is written as אב ארא which means 'he created'. This verb form actually implies that a male is doing the action because it is in the masculine form, so there is no need to write a separate word for 'he' after אב ארא unless if we want to make it definite and say who exactly is creating something. One last thing before I show you your first full Hebrew verse from the Bible. The Hebrew Tanakh sometimes has letters that are purposely written smaller or larger than the other letters, in order to teach us something important. Some Tanakhs don't keep these smaller or larger letter sizes, and instead just print the letters the same size as the other letters. This is why I like the Hebrew Letteris Tanakh, because it keeps the correct letter sizes when they are a special size. Here is your first verse from the Bible to read, Genesis 1:1: עב א ירא ישית אב ארא א ל יהים יאת לה אש למים עו יאת אהא לרץ: Notice that the first Hebrew letter ב is bigger than the other letters. Try to translate ב the verse yourself, but I will put the translation at the end of this paragraph. The prefix means 'in' in this verse, because the other meaning options make less sense in the context. Other meanings for a ב prefix are 'during', 'on', 'by', 'against' and etc. ראשית comes from the same root as ש,רא so with ראשית the word means 'in the