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Transliteration
rules
used in our Ulpan כללי
התעתיק
המקובלים
באולפננו |
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As this is a learning site, we use
transliteration of Hebrew words to Latin letters, to provide the reader a
"feeling" of how the Hebrew words sound.
Consonants:
- Consonants
corresponding to English ones are written exactly like they sound.
- Consonants
that do not have a corresponding single letter in English alphabet are the
following:
| Letter |
Corresponding
Hebrew
letter
|
Pronunciation |
| sh |
Shin |
a in father
or traffic |
| tz |
Tzadi |
tz
in
chutzpah, or zz in pizza or mozzarella |
| ch |
Khet or Khaf |
ch
in
chutzpah, like ch in German |
| ' |
Alef |
as a
"stop" between the syllables in Uh-oh!
Almost not pronounced, "leave it
blank".
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| ` |
Ain [aa-yin] |
A guttural
sound, specific to Semitic languages.
Not always pronounced even by
Israelis. You may either pronounce it
same way as Alef, or also "leave it blank".
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Special cases:
-
g always means g in get
-
English
sound W does not exist in modern Israeli Hebrew, however, it is
used in English and Arabic words. The appropriate letter for it is ו
(Vav), usually pronounced as V and sometimes as W.
-
Semitic
guttural sound ח
(Chet) will always be transliterized as ch (chutzpe),
even if common English transliteration is h. I.e., for learning
purposes we'll rather write Chaifa than Haifa, as
it's reflecting the pronunciation of most Israelis.
Since
the transliteration is about to represent pronunciation rather than
alternative writing system, we'll try to keep it closer to what the words
sound like.
Therefore,
letters which have different pronunciation under different circumstances,
will be transliterated the way they sound. Again, we transliterate sounds,
not letters.
- Bet
/ Vet - b / v
- Kaf
/ Khaf - k / kh
- Pei
/ Fei - p / f
Transliteration for Tet and Tav, Kaf and
Kuf, Sin, and Samech will be absolutely indistinguishable, as it is undistinguishable in modern pronunciation.
"Silent" Alef will be considered
the filling of preceding vocalization and will not be reflected in
transliteration: ראש
- rosh, ראשון
- rishon, מאזניים
- moznayim, צאן
- tzon
Vowels:
Note, that modern Hebrew
pronunciation does not distinguish between shorter vowels (i as in sick)
and longer ones (ee as in seek). The two words would sound
the same.
Also, note the ultra-short vowels (the Chatafs). They sound shorter indeed,
however, in modern pronunciation that is not a rule, and they may sound exactly like corresponding
"normal" sounds.
| Letter |
Corresponding
Hebrew
diacritic sign
|
Pronunciation |
| a |
Kamatz,
Patach |
a in father
or traffic |
| e |
Segol,
Tzeire |
e in get |
| i |
Khirik |
e in zebra |
| o |
Kholam,
Kamatz katan |
o in both, |
| u |
Shuruk,
kubutz |
oo in
book |
| ei, ey |
Tzeire |
as a
in face or ey in hey! |
| [_]a |
Khataf-Patach |
shorter a |
| [_]o |
Khataf-Kamatz |
shorter
o |
| [_]e |
Khataf-Segol,
Schva Na |
shorter e |
When we need to especially mention longer vowel (e.g. speaking of morphology), we'll mark them with a colon: a:, e:, i:, or o:.
Stress would be noted by either bold
underlined character or with a capital letter: boker vs boker.
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