An Introduction to the Hebrew Vowels

Learning the Hebrew Language can be beneficial to the faith of a Christian. In studying the Bible, a knowledge of Biblical Hebrew will clarify the meaning of the text in a way that simply studying from translations cannot.

Here are my free printable Hebrew vowel flash cards!

Although Hebrew can be intimidating at first appearance, English speakers can grasp it well with practice. In An Introduction to the Hebrew Alphabet, I introduced each of the 22 Hebrew letters. Now I’ll provide a very simple intro to the vowels as well.

The Hebrew vowels are not letters as they are in English but a series of markings called nikkud. The major difference between the vowels in English and those in Hebrew is that they’re optional in Hebrew. They’re added to the letters to make reading easier but a lot of Hebrew (both modern and Biblical) is written without them.

The concept that Hebrew would appear without vowels was at first very intimidating to me. But our familiarity with the English Language makes us able to read when the vowels are removed and the same happens in Hebrew as well.

Don’t believe me? What does this say?

Rdng wtht vwls sn’t tht dffclt!

It’s a bit challenging, but your mind fills in the blanks and you can make sense of a sentence with no vowels. This is the same for those familiar with Hebrew.

You can see the function of the vowels and how they dictate the pronunciation of a word by looking at the first word in my vowel-less sentence above. You may have read it as “Reading”, which was my intent but your mind may have substituted an “i” instead of the “ea” in reading. This would have led you to read the first word as “Riding” instead. The context gave away the correct pronunciation of the word but this example shows why vowels are added to Hebrew and how they clarify.

Vowels are found above (to the left) or below a letter. The consonant sound is made first and is followed by the vowel sound that’s below or above it.

In the explanations below, I use the letter aleph (א) to carry the vowels but they can accompany any of the other letters in the Hebrew alphabet as well.

אַ and אָ

These two vowels are different in appearance but make the same sound. Patah and kametz both make the “a” sound like in the word “yacht”. For example, the word אָמַר (meaning “to say” or “he said”), is pronounced “ah-mar”.

אֶ

Segol makes the “eh” sound as in “bed”. An example of a word containing segol is “אֶרֶץ“, meaning “land” or “earth”. It’s pronounced “eh-retz”.

אֵ

The vowel tsere, whose name is pronounced ser-ay, sounds like the “ay” in the word “hay”. It can also be pronounced “eh” as in “bed”, depending on accent. In Israel, the pronunciation agreed upon is “eh”. Example: לֵב is pronounced “layve” or “lev” and is the word for “heart”.

אִ

The name for this vowel is chiriq (with the “ch” pronounced in your throat, like the “ch” in “Bach). The sound it makes is like the “ee” in the word “bee”. Chiriq is often followed by the letter yod (י), which lengthens its sound. For example, the word “אִישׁ” is pronounced “eesh” and it means “man” or “husband”.

אֹ

Cholem appears as a dot above and just to the left of the letter it’s with. Just like chiriq, the word “cholem” is pronounced with the “ch” sound in your throat, as in Bach. When it appears with a consonant, cholem makes the “o” sound like the letter O in “foe”. An example is כֹּל, which means “all” or “whole” and is pronounced “coal”.

אֻ

Kubbuts is the name of this vowel. It has a “oo” sound, as in the name “Sue”. Kubbuts is used in סֻכָּה, which is pronounced “sue-kah”, and means “hut” or “temporary shelter”.

בְ

Shva (pronounced sh-va) is a more complicated vowel. Firstly, I put it under the letter vet above instead of aleph because shva cannot appear under gutterals and aleph is considered one.

Secondly, shva sounds differently, depending on where it’s found in a word. It can either make the “uh” sound, as in “buck” or it can be silent, indicating a pause.

In לְ, a word meaning “to”, “for”, or “in regard to”, the shva makes the “uh” sound and the word is pronounced “luh”. But, when in the middle or end of a word, shva is usually silent.

In a word like , with two shvas in a row, the first is silent and the second is pronounced. So, the word for “families” in Hebrew, מִשְׁפְּחֹת would be pronounced “mish-puh-chote”. And in the word יִשְׂרָאֵל, meaning Israel, the shva is silent, causing it to be pronouced “yees-ra-el”.

That’s a bit confusing so I’ll sum up the basic shva rules.

• At the beginning of a word, it’s pronounced “uh”.
• In the middle of a word, it’s a silent pause.
• Two next to each other: first is a silent pause, second is pronounced “uh”.

אֲ and אֱ

When patach and Segol are combined with shva, they basically make the same sound as without the shva. So, אֲ is pronounced “a” as in “yacht” and אֱ is pronounced with the “eh” sound, as in “bed”.

Examples of this are אֲשֶׁר, meaning “which” (pronounced “ah-share”) and אֱלֹהִים, which means “Elohim” (pronounced “El-o-heem”).

אֳ

This vowel is called chatef kametz but it doesn’t take the sound of the kametz or the shva, but has its own sound. It makes the “o” sound, as in “foe”. An example is the word שֳׁרָשִׁים, which is pronounced “show-ra-sheem” and means “roots”.

וֹ and וּ

These vowels use the Hebrew letter vav but the vav is not pronounced. Cholem vav (which is a vav with a dot above it, like this וֹ) sounds just like the cholem would above another letter. It makes the “o” sound as in “foe”.

Shurek, which is a vav with a dot inside of it like this וּ, is pronounced with the “oo” sound in the name “Sue”. Again, the sound of the letter vav is not used in this case.

Examples of these are the words יוֹם and רוּת (day and Ruth), which are pronounced “yohm” and “root”, respectively.

Working on memorizing the Hebrew vowels? Use my free printable Hebrew vowel flash cards to get started right away!

Click here for a printable version of the Hebrew Vowel Chart

Since many of the vowels make similar sounds, it’s not very difficult to memorize all of them with a little practice. For more resources to help you in your studies of Biblical Hebrew, check out my resources page!