How to Read the Transliterations

Use this if: you daven in a Modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist or Religious Zionist setting, anywhere in Israel, or if you’re learning Hebrew as a language.

This is Modern Hebrew pronunciation — the Hebrew of Israeli streets, classrooms and ulpanim. It’s the most widely useful starting point, because every hour you spend on it also serves you outside the siddur.

It descends from Sephardi pronunciation, which is why it’s often labelled “Sephardi” in prayer books, but it has levelled away most of what actually distinguishes the Sephardi tradition. It’s its own thing, and we name it accordingly.

Note that ch covers two different Hebrew letters here, ḥet and khaf. In this tradition they genuinely sound the same, so this isn’t a shortcut — it’s accurate.

'

marks a reduced vowel that Israeli speech drops (b'rachah); when the vowel is pronounced it is written e (lefanecha).

-

separates syllables that would otherwise run together.

Use this if: you daven in a Sephardic or Mizrahi shul — Syrian, Iraqi, Moroccan, Turkish, Spanish-Portuguese, or a general Edot HaMizrach minyan.

This is Jerusalem-Sephardi pronunciation, the pan-Sephardi standard you’ll hear in Sephardi shuls in Israel and in most Sephardi communities abroad. Compared to the Israeli column it keeps several distinctions alive.

A doubled letter marks a dagesh: hold the consonant a beat longer, as in attah and rabbah.

Where Israeli writes ei, this column writes e — Elohenu, not Eloheinu. And short vowels are written out in full rather than clipped, so berakhah rather than b’rachah. Both reflect how the tradition actually sounds.

The ayin takes practice. If you’re starting out, saying it as a small catch in the throat gets you most of the way there.

ʿ

ayin — a real consonant, made low in the throat. Not silent.

ḥ

ḥet — also from the throat, but breathier. Different from kh.

kh

khaf — the rasping sound in “Bach”

doubled letter

a dagesh: hold the consonant a beat longer

Use this if: you daven at a Chabad house, or in a Chabad-Lubavitch minyan.

This is the Chabad havara — the Ashkenazi pronunciation used in Nusach Ari communities. If you’ve heard “Shabbos” rather than “Shabbat,” or “Moideh Ani” rather than “Modeh Ani,” this is that.

A caution worth stating: there is no single “Ashkenazi pronunciation.” Litvish, Hungarian, Galician and German communities each sound noticeably different, particularly in their vowels. This column represents Chabad specifically and shouldn’t be assumed to match another Ashkenazi shul.

The main shifts from the Israeli column, if you’re translating between them in your head:

• the a-vowel qamatz becomes o — Shabbat → Shabbos, Baruch → Boruch
• an unpointed tav becomes s — tallit → tallis, brit → bris
• the o-vowel ḥolam becomes oy — Shalom → Sholoym
• the stress often pulls back a syllable — mitzVAH → mitzvah

'

is a reduced vowel — every vocal shva, always pronounced.

-

separates syllables that would otherwise run together.

Use this if: you want to know what’s actually on the page.

This column doesn’t represent any community’s spoken Hebrew. It represents the letters. Where the Israeli, Sephardic and Chabad columns collapse distinctions the Hebrew still makes, this one keeps them: ḥet and khaf are written differently rather than both as “ch,” an unpointed tav is marked apart from a tav with a dagesh, and qof is marked apart from kaf.

Read it when you want to know what is actually written, not how to say it aloud. It’s useful for checking a word against a dictionary or a concordance, for seeing why two words that sound identical are spelled differently, and for learning to read the pointing itself. If you’re davening along with a minyan, use the column that matches the room.

One thing this column does not do: it uses a plain five-vowel system and doesn’t distinguish between the different Hebrew signs that produce the same vowel sound. Consonants are fully recoverable from it; vowels are not. That was a deliberate trade to keep it readable.

ʾ

alef

ʿ

ayin

ḥ

ḥet

ṭ

tet (as against t, which is tav)

ś

sin (as against s, which is samekh)

q

qof (as against k, which is kaf)

th kh gh dh v f

the soft forms of tav, kaf, gimel, dalet, bet, pe

doubled letter

a dagesh in the letter