Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Biblical Hebrew Part 4

good evening we're continuing learning biblical hebrew using the first hebrew primer and we are on page 16 this is chapter three the shiva is one of the vowels as well as other odd vowels and the dagesh we mentioned the dagesh before we mentioned the shiva before now we're going to learn more about them these are the vowels you have already learned and the x represents any letter so i'm just gonna pronounce the vowels without the sound of the letter so these are all the vowels that we've learned so far and the last vowel is called the shiva and it is written with a letter with two dots underneath and the shiva has two sounds that it can potentially make the shiva is sometimes silent and sometimes pronounced with a short slurred sound like e in stupefy so if shiva is silent then you just pronounce the sound of the consonant and if shava has a sound then it's like a short so the rule is the sheva at the beginning of a word is always pronounced with a short slurred sound now in in a dig duke in the hebrew grammar this is called shiva na na means a moving shiva and shavana is the other kind nach means it's resting shiva it's shiva doesn't have any sound on its own it just carries the sound of the consonant so at the beginning of the word is always a shava na it's a it's a moving which adds as a vowel a short a to the consonant for example me roon and reading from the right to left lagoon for those who just join we're on page 16 chapter 3 and we're learning about shiva now read the following line aloud and i'm reading from right to left ke li now properly this should not be pronounced cli but rather kelly as again as opposed to you you have to say ketav using the rule that shiva at the beginning of a word is a shavana it's a moving shiva it's a longer schwa and it adds the sound e to the consonant again i'll start the line from right um now this is the famous word shema israel and it's uh not correct to pronounce it shmeiser you're supposed to pronounce it so some communities lost that that that uh tradition and they pronounce it as but again the proper way is to extend the first syllable the first consonant i'm repeating it again and again so that we get used to the proper sound now another rule the shiva at the end of a word is always a silent vowel which means it's always shava nach a resting shiva and it makes sense because it's at the end of the word so you pronounce just the consonant itself and as i mentioned in previous classes usually such schwa is omitted from writing you just see the consonant without anything underneath and then you know that it's a schwab because it's silent it's usually omitted so you have already seen it under the final form of the letter half bach and here we have examples bach now read the following line aloud this is the the lowest line on page 16. at now on page 17 what about in the middle of a word so here it gets more complicated the two simple rules we learned so far at the beginning of the word is always shavana a longer shiva and the end of the word is resting silent with just the consonant so that's easy at the beginning of a word it's always a at the end of the word it's silent just the concept what about the middle at the middle of the in the middle of the world it can be sometimes shavana sometimes shiva nach now let's read the rules when ashwa appears alone in the middle of a word it usually falls at the end of a syllable and is not pronounced so a shava in the middle of a word that appears at the end of a syllable is usually it's a silent schwa it's not pronounced now let's see um practice words practice words will read also from right to left meet love again it's an english word to make it easier for you meatloaf not meat loaf but meatloaf the schwa and the tet is silent just the sound of t myth love carpool not carepool but carpool read the following words aloud the second line yeste again ha next rule whenever two schwas appear side by side in the middle of a word the first shava is silent and the second is pronounced as an extended which is a short s sound so for example the first shiva under noon is silent khan the second schwander summit is na it's moving it's longer read the following line out loud again the rule is whenever you have two schwas next to each other the first shiva is silent the second schwa is longer [Music] second word and now i'm going to read it a little faster this whole line practice read the following lines aloud each va is a silent vowel now they tell you in advance that these schwas are all silent yes israel now in the next lines each sheva must be pronounced with a short slurred sound so here each shiva in this exercise will be longer they may if you notice i went to the second line i'm going to read it again yes and in the next exercise each of these words the first shiva is silent and the second schwa is pronounced with a short slurred sound e yes i'm on the second line again tish now we are turning to page 18. and these are special vowels called combination vowels some letters are difficult to pronounce with just the shiva because they themselves are silent or or gotero and to pronounce them with the schwa which itself is silent or very short is very difficult so in words where these four letters have a schwa a full vowel is added to the shiva to make it easier to sound the syllable so anytime you see aleph hey iron and hat you might also see these strange vowels when she when the shava appears next to the vowel ah or the vowel it sounds like a hurried so again what's the example on starting from top right if you have a letter with a line underneath and the schwa next to it it makes the r shorter instead of ah it becomes next if you have three dots it usually sounds e but with a schwa it becomes short like bed bed not bad bad second line if you have just one line with two dots next to it again it's pronounced as a short ah and again two uh three lines with a schwa ed next to the vowel uh ah which is called kamats aligned with a little vertical line it sounds like the or so it changes r into o or now read the following line aloud ani instead of ani it's a shorter ah ani so the first eye is shorter and the second eye is longer hazak next word hadas the first ah is shorter and the second eyes is longer hadas now next word i changes into or or instead of anya it's red or oniya and again the o sound is a little shorter instead of we read it naomi naomi second line adon is shorter second a is a little bit longer emit and the last word again has the o sound now next paragraph syllables a hebrew syllable always begins with a consonant even aleph and i now consider consonants and it consists of either consonant and a vowel or two consonants with a vowel in between consonant plus a vowel plus a consonant so a consonant with a vowel the example is sha and the constant plus vowel and plus a constant the example is tish tish it is often easier to read hebrew words that have many letters when they're broken down into syllables and that's what we're going to do sometimes for difficult words especially on the next page in the next couple pages now the examples are the word tamid you can separate into ta and mead [Applause] the second column [Applause] three syllables has three syllables show me now we go to page 19 another benefit of dividing the word into syllables is that it helps you to figure out whether it is as we mentioned before that at the end of a syllable it's usually schwannach just like at the end of a word we have silent schwa so too at the end of a syllable we have silent now rule number one in most cases a silent shiva indicates the end of a syllable for example from right to left it's so at the end of each syllable you have a silent again i'll read the line yitz when shiva appears at the beginning of a word it is a syllable by itself because schwa with a consonant that it applies to forms a full syllable because schwa is a vowel for example from right to left number two so the just the sound ge is already a syllable with as a consonant and shiva as a vowel so the the schwa in the had is silent but the schwa in the first syllable is longer the third word now rule number three when two schwas appear in a row the second is a syllable by itself and is not silent this is the rule where two schwas are together the first schwa is selling the second schwa is not the middle letter pe in itself is a syllable because it it's a consonant with a vowel is now next topic is accents hebrew words are normally pronounced with the accent on the last syllable most of the time there are many exceptions unlike english where accent is usually on the first syllable in russian where there is no rule sometimes it's first middle or last hebrew the rule is that the accent is usually on the last syllable so if the accent is not on the last syllable we in this book will show an accent mark like an arrow on top of a letter over the syllable that should be accented when we present the vocabulary and here we have on the right side regular hebrew words that where the accent is on the last syllable and then on the left side um unusual hebrew words the exceptions where accent is in the middle of the word for example avraham unlike in english you would pronounce it as abraham with the accent on the first syllable abraham in hebrew you would pronounce it with the accent on the last syllable not avraham not but rather avraham next word ya'akov [Applause] again in english you would say jacob with the accent on the first syllable in hebrew the proper pronunciation is not yaakov but rather yaakov and again some people would pronounce this word as mashlichim but that's a wrong pronunciation you should say and the the the previous word instead of saying adaba adaber now the last column are exceptions some of the exceptions the accent is on a on the third syllable not on the last syllable and the last word by the accent is on the middle syllable and now odd vowels unusual vowels unusual pronunciation and that is when the letter hat is at the end of a word and it has an ah sound underneath when the last letter of a word is hat and the vowel underneath is a the combination is pronounced as ah we pronounce the vowel first and then the consonant ah and not ha for example and you see the accent is on cor that's why you have that line there and not not but rather and not because whenever you have a hat at the end of the word with a underneath you say and the next word is rue instead of saying you say ruach accent on the first syllable and instead of saying [Applause] which is incorrect you have to say okay last line read the following line aloud again two rules are used a an accent on the first syllable instead of last and ah under hat at the end of the word we read the vowel first and then um consonant again this is only with this specific vowel no no other vowels a now return to page 20. the vowel ah and you'd when the vowel i is followed by letter u the combination is i like i'll for example bow tie and here even um also pronounce the sound my and even though you'd doesn't have a shiva it's as if it is there my read the following line aloud allah [Music] that's the famous high word now the next exception is when you have a an o vowel with the you'd following it the combination is oi like boy boy soil and here even sephardi would pronounce the ye sound boy read the following line aloud now i noticed that some people join at nine o'clock uh just in case um you think our class starts at nine i want to point out that we switch to 8 30. um okay now the next topic is the dagesh we're on page 20 chapter three the dagesh is the dot in the center of a letter we mentioned it before it may appear in most letters of the hebrew alphabet and should be thought of as part of the spelling of a word it's not a vowel it is considered part of the consonants and even though in the torah it does not appear but it nevertheless is part of the spelling of the word and we explained that that the gesh may mean doubling of a letter instead of writing the letter twice we write the letter only one time and put the question there to put a special emphasis on the letter there are definite rules concerning the use of every dagesh but for the purposes of this text we will discuss only the most important ones so first of all we in studying the alphabet mentioned that some letters have uh dagesh a dot in them and therefore they are pronounced differently they are called beget cafete letters these are letters that the the gesh is commonly found and the the sound of the letter changes the words beget cafet is an acronym i used as a memory device for the combined letters in the baguette cathode group that gamel dalit like beget and half paid tough cafet combined to make cafe okay at one time all six of these letters were pronounced one way with a dagesh and another way without the gesh today depending on your custom only some of these letters are pronounced differently in particular vet half and pay which means instead of vet we pronounce bet with the dagesh instead of half pronounced and instead of we pronounce instead of f we say pen the other letters gimmel dalit and taf are not pronounced differently in most communities for example by safaradim whether the tough has a dot or not we pronounce it as t ashkenazim do pronounce it differently taf with a dagesh is pronounced as te but the tough without that gesh is pronounced as se however most people in israel and outside of israel all this faradim do not make this distinction and some people have a different mesura tradition and they say and fe like a th english sound but again for the purposes of uh this book we will use the most common pronunciation that does not differentiate between te with the dagesh and te without the gesh okay the next letter is uh gimel and most people don't differentiate between guimo with the dagesh and without except for yemeni jews that do have two different letters ge and j so for example they would say bore periha jaffen instead of geffen but again for the purpose of this book we will use ge whether it has the gesh or not and the last letter is dalid we don't differentiate whether it has uh dagesh or not but some people do and they would pronounce the uh with or without the gesh one of them they will pronounce as de and the other one is as th um the stronger th like in the then okay the gesh never changes the meaning of a word when it changes then the pronunciation okay now we go to the next page 21. two spelling rules even though we pronounce the the the letters the same way in the in the letter tough gimmel and the dalit but still when you spell it out you have to include the dagesh and for other letters where the the guest changes the the sound then of course you have to include it at the beginning of a word a bigoted catholic letter usually takes a dagesh with some exceptions for example buy it kimmel has a dagesh david since at the beginning of the letter dialed the first dalet will have a dagesh at the end of the word begit cafe letter usually does not take their gesh instead of saying ab we say av beged and now what about five gatoral letters the only letters in the hebrew alphabet that cannot take dagesh are the gother letters these letters are called gatherers and they were once sounded in the throat and again some communities still pronounce it like that one explanation for why gatorade letter cannot take a dagesh is that a dagesh often indicates doubling of a letter and gathers cannot be doubled as it is it's difficult to pronounce one gutter letter because they cannot take a dagesh these letters upset normal spelling rules and create exceptions in grammar we will discuss these exceptions as they arise it is important to memorize these five letters as a group the gutter letters olive hay hat ein and reish is the only exception that we commonly don't say it in a guttural way even though some people do pronounce it as but we will say it as regular okay now exercises page 21 exercise one below are some examples of words divided into syllables pronounce each syllable then read the new word to make it easier they first give you the word in a divided fashion now line one she none [Music] [Applause] line 6 line 7 line 8 now we turn to page 22 and here we have more exercises write out each of the following words in syllables which means divided into syllables and write it down for practice and then pronounce them so here i will just pronounce them and please do this exercise throughout the week one av [Music] [Applause] and that's the proper pronunciation that i have ta instead of there i have ta uh [Applause] again notice ma is a separate syllable ah is a separate syllable because it's iron which is a consonant with a vowel hem 12 no is its own syllable is its own syllable and no tenin instead of saying not nim you have to say no te nim mish pahot 14 mish [Applause] and this is another popular word that is often mispronounced instead of saying hamotzi we should say hamotzi now exercise three read the following words with odd endings if you have trouble pronouncing them review the endings on pages 19 and 20. line one koa now according to safari tradition the the word next to the last is pronounced is by adding extra w in there okay line two [Applause] yada buy it okay again i'm gonna read line three buy it [Applause] exercise four is uh for yourselves list the letters which always take the dagesh at the beginning of a word and for that we have to review what we learned on page 20. what two words do we use as a memory device for remembering these letters and again the answer you will find on page 20 and exercise five put the dagesh in the following words whenever necessary and here we have to um use the rules on um on page 20 and 21 now let's see if we can do it together line one we remember that at the beginning of a word beget catheter words beget catholic letters there should be a dagesh at the beginning of a word so instead of hol it should say kal a kaf should have a uh dagesh inside uh vo tai here no dagesh necessary next letter vet at the beginning of a word requires a dagesh does not take a dagesh next gimmel at the beginning of a word gadol requires a dagesh in gimel gadol davar again dalid as a part of a group beget the dalit requires the dagesh at the end at the beginning of a word same thing haf at the beginning of the word requires a dagesh line two paal [Music] here that doesn't have a dagesh because it it is a second word that follows sound i heal the first vet and no digestion a second and no da gesh in the tough at the end of the word line four parrot there should be a dagesh in pay at the beginning of ward and no dagesh in tough at the end of the world no dagesh not in vet nothing next word son no dagesh in dalit line five da min the gesh in dalit because it's the first letter of the word ko the gesh again because it's the first letter of the word and now exercise six let's list the five letters which do not take a dagesh what do we call them as the group and this the answer for this is on page 21. these are the gutteral the five gather letters and list them review it on your own now we are um on page 23. and these are english words with hebrew letters find the silly english sentences hidden in the hebrew and again for some of these you'll have to pronounce it with ashkenazi pronunciation let's see line one here you ton def here ted play bach or are you ton def here ted play bach line two park my car not to near my boat park my car not to near my boat line three my boy eats red meat today even i don't know what it means in english my boy it's red meat today i'm forgetting my english he it he ate tuna too he ate tuna too my boy it's red meat today okay meet today now line four you do not take cool coca cola to a carpool you do not take cool coca-cola to a carpool okay now exercise eight write these silly sentences with hebrew letters as many ways as you can and again do this exercise at home she said to ted go to bed do not read line two oh my dear take off your party shoes before or before papa sees you and if you want you can submit your exercises you can text whatsapp or email me line three she sells c shells by a c short and line four he said to ned i had to be let to cancer cancer met a deal on two two day day i'm reading it in a funny way because that's how we would write it according to safari pronunciation not exactly the way it's it's written in english or pronounced in english okay um and to finish today's class let's do quickly exercise nine um line one and i'm gonna go a little quicker adama [Applause] god [Applause] zachary is and now next page line [Music] and line 17 now caution do not be disturbed if you are still reading hebrew words haltingly in chapters one through three it is our intention to simply acquaint you with the letters and pronunciation reading hebrew will come more easily as you learn the language however if you want to improve your reading skills we recommend a different book teach yourself to read hebrew available with or without audio tapes from from the publisher okay um now we finished chapter three next week bazat hashem we're going to do chapter four and from now on every chapter will start with review we will review everything that we have learned previously in the exercise in the reading exercise at the beginning of each chapter so thank you for joining doing uh exercises at home uh please finish all writing and and other exercises and it's good to review the entire chapter with all the exercises as well during the week thank you for listening