HEBREW · STEP 10
Read lechem
Bread: one new consonant, two familiar sounds, and a new vowel shape.
In this lesson
Recover three familiar words
Read before checking. Keep the modern Israeli pronunciation used throughout these lessons.
Read and give the meanings of יָם, בֵּן, and יוֹם
yam, sea; ben, son; yom, day. In ben, tsere's two side-by-side dots give e as in ten. Remember that sound; you will meet another way to write it.
Meet het, and distinguish it from he
Het
Written ch in our reading aid
For our modern Israeli model, ch represents a single friction sound made toward the back of the mouth, like the ch in the name Bach. It is not the ch in chair, and it is not two sounds, c followed by h. Some Jewish reading traditions preserve a different throat sound for het.
Het looks close to he, the letter you met in Torah. Compare the connection at the upper left.
- חHet
- The top joins both upright strokes.
- הHe
- A gap separates the short left stroke from the top. As a consonant, it gives h.
Which is het: ה or ח? What feature tells you?
ח is het. Look for the joined top, not the gap of he. The two letters are not interchangeable.
Use known vowels to read חַ and חִ
cha, chi, using our single ch sound. Patah gives a; hiriq gives i as in machine. These are practice syllables, not new vocabulary.
Meet segol: a new shape for e
- לֶLamed with segol
- Three dots in a small triangle below the letter: le.
- לֵLamed with tsere
- Two dots side by side below the letter: also le in our pronunciation.
Segol is the name of the three-dot vowel sign. It gives e as in ten, the same vowel sound we have used for tsere. Their shapes and spellings remain different. A shared sound does not let us replace one mark with the other.
Read לֶ, חֶ, and מֶ. Which mark appears below all three?
le, che, me. All three use segol, the three-dot triangle. Keep the same e sound as the consonants change. These are sound practice.
Compare לֵ and לֶ. Does the reading sound different? Is the writing identical?
Both read le in our modern Israeli model. The writing differs: tsere has two side-by-side dots; segol has three in a triangle. Preserve the vowel sign used by the word.
Read lechem: bread
LE-chem
Bread
- Lamed with segol gives le.
- Het with segol gives che.
- Final mem closes the second part: chem.
Join le + chem. There are two syllables, with the stronger beat on the first: LE-chem. This differs from sha-LOM and to-RA, whose stronger beat falls on the second syllable.
Cover the model. Read לֶחֶם, give its meaning, and count its syllables.
LE-chem, bread: two syllables. Both vowel signs are segol. Final mem contributes m, not another vowel.
Repair these readings: “le-hem,” “le-CHEM,” and “le-che-ma.”
- “Le-hem” replaces het with the h sound of he. Check the joined top of ח and use our ch sound.
- “Le-CHEM” puts the stronger beat at the end. Say LE-chem.
- “Le-che-ma” adds an unwritten vowel after final mem. Close the second syllable with m.
Bread in a welcome
Genesis 18 describes Avraham welcoming three visitors. He offers water, rest, and bread before they continue their journey. Read the word for bread from his offer.
לֶחֶם
Bread.
The following verse has Avraham ask Sarah to prepare cakes from flour. The scene gives this small word a setting: food offered to people who have arrived.
Read the excerpt. Does lechem by itself tell you who offers the bread?
LE-chem means bread. The surrounding narrative tells us that Avraham makes the offer. The single noun does not contain his name or the whole action.
The same spelling appears in Exodus 16:4, where Hashem promises bread from heaven for the people in the wilderness. You can recognize the word in a different setting without treating the two scenes as the same event.
Which word would you look for in that verse: שָׁלוֹם, לֶחֶם, or יוֹם?
לֶחֶם, LE-chem, bread. Locate that word if you open the source. The rest of the verse includes letters and patterns not yet taught; this is word recognition, not a request to decode the full verse.
Mix old and new
Read each item independently and give its meaning. Then identify the word with segol and the word with tsere.
- יוֹם
- לֶחֶם
- בֵּן
- תּוֹרָה
- יָם
Check your readings, vowels, and stronger beats
yom, day; LE-chem, bread; ben, son; to-RA, Torah, teaching or instruction; yam, sea.
Lechem has two segol signs; ben has tsere. Both vowel signs give our e sound. Lechem and Torah each have two syllables, but their stronger beats fall in different places.
Carry one word away
Close the answers and look away. Say the Hebrew for bread. Name its three letters, describe its two vowel signs, and say which syllable has the stronger beat. Write the word if you can.
Check your remembered spelling and reading
לֶחֶם: lamed, het, final mem. Segol appears below lamed and het. Read LE-chem, with the stronger beat first.
If you drew he instead of het, repair the upper-left connection. If you wrote tsere, repair the vowel's shape without changing its e sound.
Tomorrow, recall bread before reopening this page. Then read it beside shalom and Torah, noticing where each word's stronger beat falls. Finally, explain how the same bread word appears in two different source settings.
Explore the sources
Hebrew consonants, University of Texas at Austin (PDF) · Hebrew vowels, University of Texas at Austin (PDF) · Lechem, Academy of the Hebrew Language · Genesis 18 · Exodus 16