21st Century Bible Hebrew -- vowels

The end of Genesis 1:1.

 

א בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ:

 

Transliteration: B’reshit bara elohim et ha-shamayim v’et ha-arets.

Translation:     At the beginning Gd created the heaven and the earth

 

Vocabulary in this lesson:

בְּ	on, in, at (place or time), by (swear by), with (by means of), against
בְּרֵאשִׁית	at the beginning
בָּרָא	created
אֱלֹהִים	Gd
אֵת	direct object particle
הַ, הָ	the
שָּׁמַיִם	heaven
וְ	and, or, continuation particle
אָרֶץ	earth, land, world

Vowels:

Notice shva under the bet of “in” and “at the beginning.”
Under the resh of “at the beginning” is a pair of horizontal dots called tseire with the sound of short “e”.
Under the shin is a single dot called hiriq pronounced “ee”.  I transliterate it as “i”.
Under the first two consonants of “created” is a qamats which has the sound of “a” as in “father.”
Under the alef of “Gd” is a chataf segol which has the sound of short “e”.
At the top of the lamed in “Gd” is a single dot called cholam chaser which has the sound of long “o.”
The vowel under the first example of “the” is called patach.
The vowel under the resh of “earth” is called segol and is a short “e”.

People will tell you that’s not exactly how the vowels sound and with some of them, that’s true. I’m trying to teach you what vowels you are looking at when you see the words with the vowels.  You are going to be reading, not speaking, but if you want to learn to read out loud, you can imitate the man reading Torah in the mp3s I pointed you to.

Onward

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved