Hebrew alphabet: 22 letters, 5 final forms
The Hebrew alphabet, the aleph-bet, has 22 letters and no capitals, and it is written from right to left. Five letters take a different shape at the end of a word, which makes 27 forms in all. Open a letter to watch it written stroke by stroke, trace it on screen and print a practice sheet.
These pages teach the block letters used in print and signs. The stroke order is a common one and strokes usually start at the top right; teachers differ, so follow your own where it does.
Letters
Final forms
How to practise hebrew letters
Start with the letters that are easy to tell apart: ו י ד ר ל ש. Then add the look-alike pairs two at a time: ב and כ, ד and ר, ה and ח.
Write from the right side of the page. Start each line at the right edge and move left, and remember that a bar is drawn from right to left.
Say the name of each letter as you write it. Hebrew letter names (alef, bet, gimel) are also the way letters are numbered, so they come up everywhere.
Learn the five final forms last: ך ם ן ף ץ. They are the same letters that change shape only at the end of a word.
Pronunciation guide
| Letter | Name | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| א | alef | a silent letter that carries a vowel, like the start of "apple" without the consonant |
| ב | bet | b as in "boy" (with a dot inside) or v as in "van" (without) |
| ג | gimel | g as in "go" |
| ד | dalet | d as in "dog" |
| ה | he | h as in "hat"; at the end of a word it is often silent |
| ו | vav | v as in "van"; also used for the vowels o and u |
| ז | zayin | z as in "zoo" |
| ח | chet | a throaty kh, like the ch in "loch" but deeper |
| ט | tet | t as in "tin" |
| י | yod | y as in "yes"; also used for the vowel i |
| כ | kaf | k as in "kite" (with a dot) or kh as in "loch" (without) |
| ך | final kaf | kh, the form of kaf at the end of a word |
| ל | lamed | l as in "lamp" |
| מ | mem | m as in "map" |
| ם | final mem | m, the form of mem at the end of a word |
| נ | nun | n as in "net" |
| ן | final nun | n, the form of nun at the end of a word |
| ס | samekh | s as in "sun" |
| ע | ayin | a guttural stop made deep in the throat; in modern Hebrew often silent like alef |
| פ | pe | p as in "pen" (with a dot) or f as in "fun" (without) |
| ף | final pe | f, the form of pe at the end of a word |
| צ | tsadi | ts as in "cats" |
| ץ | final tsadi | ts, the form of tsadi at the end of a word |
| ק | qof | k as in "kite" |
| ר | resh | a guttural r, made at the back of the throat in modern Hebrew |
| ש | shin | sh as in "ship" (dot on the right) or s as in "sun" (dot on the left) |
| ת | tav | t as in "tin" |
A short history
The Hebrew alphabet descends from the Phoenician script and took its square block form around the 3rd century BCE. Hebrew went out of everyday speech for roughly two thousand years and was revived as a spoken language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the same square letters are still used today.