Hebrew diacritics

Hebrew diacritics are little symbols that are added to Hebrew letters to help us know how to say and spell words correctly. They are kind of like little hints that help us figure out how to read and pronounce Hebrew words.

Imagine you are building with blocks, and you want to make sure that you build the tower correctly. The diacritics are like the pictures on the box that show you how the tower should look in the end. They help you understand how to place each block correctly to make the tower actually look like the picture on the box.

In Hebrew, there are a lot of words that look very similar, but are pronounced differently and mean different things. So, the diacritics help us differentiate between these similar-looking words. For example, the word "chatul" (חתול) means cat, but if we remove the diacritic that makes the "h" sound, the word becomes "katul" (כתול), which means stained.

There are different types of diacritics in Hebrew, but the most common ones are the vowels, which are little dots and lines that are placed above, below, or inside the letters. These vowels help us know what sounds each letter makes in different words.

So, if you see the letter "aleph" (א) without any diacritics, you wouldn't know how to pronounce it because it can make several different sounds. But, if you see an aleph with a "patach" diacritic (אַ), you know to pronounce it like the "a" in "cat."

Overall, Hebrew diacritics help us read and understand the Hebrew language better. They are like little helpers that make reading and speaking Hebrew easier and more accurate.