How many characters are there in hebrew?
We have 22 letters; four of them have final form. The Hebrew Alphabet is consonantal, which means that every character expresses a different consonant (letters Vav and Yud express vowels too, sometimes). The vowels appear inside, above or under the letters, and they are called “Nikkud”. In Israel, using Nikkud in everyday life is very rare, and usually we read the text without it. The letters are: א- Alef (has no transliteration in Latin characters other than this apostrophe: ‘. Sounds like the beginning of words that start with vowel letters, such as “I”, “all”, “Armagedon”…) ב- Bet (B, or V. When comes in the begining: always B; when comes in the end: always V) ג- Gimel (G) ד- Dalet (D) ה- Heh- (H) ו- Vav (V, O, or U) ז- Zayin (Z) ח- Chet (CH, as in the German word “Ich”) ט- Tet (T) י- Yud (Y, or I) כ- Kaf (K, or KH, a throaty version of “CH”. When comes in the begining: always K; when comes in the end: always KH) *ך- Kaf in its final form (“Kaf sofit”) ל- Lamed (L) מ- Mem (M) *ם- Me
