greetings everyone this is going to be a brief introduction to syllables to accompany hackett 2 through 6 and to make it easier to begin to sound out words so without further ado let's jump right in with a few definitions and then some examples to help make sense of what the definitions are talking about first of all a syllable in hebrew is something that has one consonant and at least one vowel or a half vowel that is a little schwa or a reduced vowel i'll say more about that in a moment so a syllable has to begin with a consonant and it has to have one vowel syllables take two basic forms they're either open or they're closed let's define those an open syllable has a consonant and a vowel c v and a closed syllable uh let me give you two examples here da adalet is a consonant and there's ahametz that is our long vowel [Music] those are both open syllables a closed syllable has a consonant a vowel and another consonant closing the syllable two examples said sonic segel dalit said var bait a soft bait comet's race an open syllable and usually has a long vowel and one way i think about this is that a syllable is of a set length imagine a syllable is this long an open syllable which is only going to have one consonant in it needs a long vowel to reach an equal length to fill out its syllableness so let's look at our two open syllables here da that's a long vowel that's a short vowel but you'll see that an open syllable has a long vowel unless it is accented and hebrew words are most often accented on the final syllable the last syllable in the word and they are when there's an exception and something before the last syllable is accented they will get an accent mark so because this syllable has the accent even though it's an open syllable it's allowed to have a short vowel conversely closed syllables which are consonant vowel consonant are going to have a short vowel by the same principle that because they've got to squeeze two consonants into that length of a syllable there's only room for a small vowel so to look at our same two words said one consonant one vowel one consonant it's a short vowel da var this is closed it has one consonant one vowel and another consonant it's a closed syllable but it's accented the last syllable of every word is accented and less noted unless otherwise noted and so it's allowed to have a long vowel i'm going to put up some hebrew words and we're going to try together to break up the syllables and to identify is a syllable open or closed to do this and to do your homework from chapter 6 it's going to be very helpful i think to have this chart i made handy because you can see all the long vowels across the top so those are vowels that are going to uh that will be enough for an open syllable then you see the related short vowel so a comet's is a long vowel a patak sounds pretty much the same but it's a short vowel and this is why you have long and short is it makes sense of how the syllables work so i think it'll be helpful to have this chart out and you'll start to learn the names of the different vowels and their their phonetic realization how to say them okay let's jump into a couple words i'm going to put a word up do you think this first syllable is open or closed we have a none and a long vowel so that's going to be enough for a syllable then we have a a long vowel and a sheen the first syllable is open it has a consonant and a vowel it's unaccented so that's a full syllable and most words are accented on their final syllable so it's allowed to have a long vowel god dole where do you think the syllable marker falls it's going to fall right after the gimmel and the comets that's a long vowel one way to think of it is as when we're reading i come to my gimmel and then i need to look for what vowel to say after it so i either look down or to the left to find the vowel if i look below if i find a long vowel i'm done that's my syllable and then i'm going to begin my next syllable with the subsequent consonant another way you can think about this is that if we were to put the dividing line here so we said g a d god you can make that sound the problem would be the next so-called syllable would start with a vowel and a syllable has to start with a consonant so you'll you will know you have gone awry when you draw a syllable line if you end up stuck with having to start the next syllable with a vowel let's do another one zoccain where will our syllable marker fall right after our zion and our comets su this is a horse where is our syllable marker going to fall you might have to check your chart is this here's my here's my stomach i look below for a vowel oh i didn't find one so i looked to the left for a vowel yes this is a vowel and it's a long vowel so we have su and sa toe vote end of syllable because this also is a long vowel it's a holem and it's written full or plenty with this helping letter so this together is a kholembov or just a hole it's a long o toe and then our final syllable toe vote okay we're going to add one little layer of complexity in this video and only one for now many words that are more than two syllables will begin with a shawa and a schwa is going to be the smallest little sound you can make just a little opening of the mouth and they'll either be a schwa or there's certain cases where it can't be a schwa and then it's going to be the next closest thing which so these are across the bottom of your vowel chart a composite schwa or a reduced vowel which is just to say an a with a schwa or an e with a schwa the smallest e you can make okay when this is the case how will the how will we say it this would be ge get consonant and then i look for a vowel i don't find a full vowel but i find something i get to open my mouth and i'm done i draw my line i'm hoping for that the next syllable begins with a with a consonant and thank goodness it does here's my dalet da and a long vowel o do so i'm done and then finally lamed and this heric with the together e and final mem good doleem let's see another word with a similar pattern aha now we have a schwa and a little a segal so this is going to be the smallest segal the smallest e sound we can make aleph makes no sound at all so i'm just going to begin to open my mouth and then say this sound i'm done next next letter le and then there's my whole m it's the o sound e lo and i'm going to begin again i'm hoping for a consonant i get one the hay the h sound another long i [Music] [Music] rheem and i duh another case where we open with a schwa and it's vocalized we have to make a little sound and when i get my next consonant my bet i see that it has a long vowel under it so i'm done i've got a consonant and a long vowel that's a syllable and then a rash this long i and a mem devarim finally because you're going to be practicing this song [Music] you might try breaking down these syllables a bit and thinking about what is open and closed what is long and what is short you'll notice here in chevit we have an open syllable shin and a short a short vowel well that's impossible that's not enough for a whole syllable unless it's accented and then it's okay and then we get our closed syllable beat now there's something here which is going to lead to our next video and that is we have a dogesh in the none and if you look at how i transliterated it i wrote h i n hin and then i wrote another n and that's because this dogesh and this dagesh and this dagesh are not the dogashes that make a letter hard in pronunciation but they double the letter and for more on that let's have a look at genesis 1 1 and 2.