Baal teshuva here! Thank you!

You're so good at explaining thinks, a dank! :)

Thank you Rabbi, you are a light in a world full of darkness.

Thank you. Zei Gesund.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this. I'm considering converting since much of my family is historically Jewish and I'd like the chance to reconnect to Judaism.

Thank you!!

Crystal clear. Thank you Rabbi

Great presentation! Thank you!

wow you explained this really good! B'H

Thank very much for your effort. I am just starting and this video was really helpful for someone like me with absolute no connection to Jews or to Judaism. I am someone to whom everything is very extremely new. I want to learn more. I'd love to learn more.

After six months this video is in my inbox again and it is welcome revision . I'm learning the basics, for me its about HaShem so He can understand a guy with many accents and pronunciations, I will keep on practising by recording myself, but I cringe when I listen to the playback. I will keep going. Thank you Rabbi.

Hello dear man, I thank you for the interesting and important video At the same time, allow me to illuminate and comment on a number of things First, most of Spain's Jews after the deportation in 1492 arrived in the Netherlands! It was not until the 16th century that some moved to Turkey when the Ottoman Sultan invited them to establish his economic empire. Another part also arrived in Italy (mainly Florence and Genoa), also following the invitation of the princes of these city rulers. As mentioned, most of the Spanish Jews deported rolled and most of them found themselves rolling to Poland (most Galician Jews are of Spanish origin) and then to Russia. A very small minority of Spanish deportees came to North Africa ruled by pirates until the 18th century (restore the Marine anthem and learn that they liberated North Africa from the pirates), so there was no point in going from bad place to even worse place! The development of Yiddish from Dutch (close to German) is accompanied by Hebrew - one must not forget that the Ladino, which developed after the expulsion of Spain, is mixed in Spanish, which is itself an Indo-European language close to German! (It must not be forgotten that most of the inhabitants of Spain are of German tribal origin). (During the Islamic period of Spain, the Jews spoke Hebrew and Jewish Arabic - Maimonides wrote his books in Arabic-Jewish) The accent of Ashkenazi Jews comes from the European language that they speak that, as is well known, European languages ​​are not guttural! Therefore, Hebrew had to be adapted to the non-throaty language! To this day, the Jews of Europe in Israel speak non-lethal Hebrew compared to the Eastern Jews who emphasize the throaty consonants! Thank you again for everything successfully

Great video! I'm converting right now, and in my synagogue, it's overwhelmingly in the Sephardic pronunciation. Thanks for helping me to learn!

Todah rabah

While the video somewhat explains that Yiddish, as a European (Germanic) language, is responsible for the non-Semitic pronunciation of Ashkenazi Hebrew (a liturgical language), it still doesn’t quite go into detail of why it does so. Yes, Ashkenazi Hebrew follows the stress patterns of Germanic languages rather than Semitic languages, but the reason why ת versus תּ are pronounced differently is also because of the influence of Yiddish. The same applies to other Hebrew consonant letters which have diverged in Ashkenazi Hebrew. But let me concentrate on the Taw with and without daggesh. In Ancient Hebrew, the ת has a /t/ sound (like the T in time), but the תּ had a /θ/ sound (like the TH in three). So a word like תלמודית would be pronounced Talmudith (meaning of or relating to the Talmud), the two Taws are pronounced differently in Ancient Hebrew. In Sephardic Hebrew, the ת also has a /t/ sound (like the T in time), but the תּ has lost its original Ancient Hebrew /θ/ sound value and it assimilated into the /t/ sound because at that time there was no /θ/ in the vernacular languages spoken by the Sephardim in Iberia (Old Spanish, Portuguese, Ladino, although now modern Castilian Spanish in Spain, except for the south of Spain and also nowhere in Latin America, has evolved a /θ/ sound for words with a “z” and a “c” before “e” and “i”). But in Old Spanish and consequently in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) there never was a /θ/ sound, so Jewish persons who spoke those languages didn’t have the sound inventory to use it in their Sephardic Hebrew either. So what did they do? They merged it into the /t/, and the distinction was lost, both ת and תּ came to be pronounced the same, because Romance-speaking (Ladino, Portuguese, Old Spanish) Jews couldn’t pronounce the /θ/ sound which doesn’t exist in Ladino, Old Spanish, Portuguese. Compare to the way Irish people can’t pronounce the /θ/ because it doesn’t exist in Gaelic and the Irish instead pronounce it as /t/, therefore a Hiberno-English speaker (whose community historically adopted English as a second language in Ireland, with Gaelic as their primary tongue) will even today not say “I have three things to say” but instead say “I have tree tings to say”. In Ashkenazi Hebrew, conversely, while the ת also has a /t/ sound (like the T in time) in the same way as Ancient Hebrew and Sephardic Hebrew, nevertheless the תּ lost its /θ/ sound and was replaced by an /s/ sound because the Germanic (Yiddish) speaking Jews couldn’t pronounce the /θ/ sound which doesn’t exist in Yiddish or German or any of their other historical vernacular languages. But instead of converting it into an /t/ sound and merging the two into one sound like Sephardim did, the Ashkenazim merged the /θ/ with the /s/. Compare this to the way French people can’t pronounce the /θ/ because it doesn’t exist in French, and they instead pronounce it as /s/, therefore a second language English speaker whose first language is French will not say “I have three things to say” and instead they will say “I have sree sings to say”. Now let’s get to Mizrahi pronunciation. Mizrahim follow Sephardic pronunciation in some respects, but in other respects follow Ancient Hebrew pronunciations the same as other modern Semitic languages (like Arabic, Aramaic, etc). This is because true Sephardim are those actually descended from the Jewish exiles of Spain and Portugal, while Mizrahim are not true Sephardim although they are broadly called “Sephardim” for historical reasons. Mizrahim are those descended from the pre-existing Jews of Arab countries (except Yemen) who were distinct from true Sephardim but became heavily influenced by the Sephardi refugees following their arrival into Mizrahi communities during the exile from Spain and Portugal in 1492. During this time Sephardim became significant minorities in Mizrahi regions, and in some cases like Morocco even became the majority. Whether they did or didn’t merge together initially, true Sephardim who arrived as refugees did merge eventually with the pre-existing Mustaarabi Jews (Arabic speaking Jews) many generations later, sometimes just a few generations before they moved back to Israel after its modern founding. Through this merging, most Mizrahim came to be at least partially descended from Sephardim, but even in places where the mixing was minimal because the number of Sephardic refugees wasn’t that big compared to the pre-existing Arabic-speaking Jewish population, the liturgy and Hebrew pronunciation of the Sephardic immigrants did eventually overwhelm the old Jewish customs of the pre-existing Jews. The pronunciation of Sephardim was seen as more prestigious for whatever reason because they were Jews from Spain, that is, Jews from Europe. And so Mizrahi Hebrew is a mixture of Sephardic pronunciation with the earlier Mustaarabi Jewish pronunciation. Finally, Teimani (Yemenite) Jewish pronunciation is the closest to Ancient Hebrew pronunciation. They retain the distinction between the two Taws. However, they also aren’t pure Ancient Hebrew, because like all Jewish communities, their community vernacular language has influenced their Hebrew. Therefore some Yemenite Arabic sounds are also used for Yemenite Hebrew which most likely were not the original Hebrew either, such as the pronunciation of the Tsadi. That’s my two cents.

that book looks like L’Shoni, the beginner’s book

it is good. Good job, but Why didn't you mention the Yemenite Hebrew Pronunciation?

I would like to hear the pronunciation on the letter r and z

When I was new to Judaism, I asked a Jewish man, and he opined that if Tav said an 's' noise, then there would be THREE letters for the 's' sound (Shin, Samech, and Tav), but no ways to make a 'th' sound, (as in 'beth', as in Bethlehem).

Where can I find out how to learn the galitzianer pronunciation of lushn kodesh?

Sephardic Tav with a dot (dagesh) is hard T sound, without dagesh = th sound. (Like with Yemenite) Same with Gimmel. Gimmel with dagesh = hard g sound, without davesh = sound like "y in yellow" kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q5xxdqRimtaWopc.html

all of the B a G a D C a F a T letters have 2 pronunciation in original Hebrew. one soft one hard. the Beth is B or V, the Gimmel is G or Gh, the Daleth is D or Th (as in Them), the Chaf is K or Kh, the Pey is P or F, the Tav is T or Th (as in Thanks). therefore neither the Sefaradi nor the Ashkenazi pronunciation is correct.

Шалом увраха. Как жаль что нет перевода на русский язык...

The Sephardic pronunciation is the correct one. Ashkenazim really distort the pronunciation.