Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

[snip]
George,
> BTW -- I always encourage my students to pronounce waw as "w" because it is 
> more authentic and
> easier for learning vocab and avoiding confusion with veth (ie, beth 
> without dagesh). I also
> encourage them to pronounce `ayin, and to try to distinguish between kaph & 
> qoph, samekh & sin, tet
> & taw.

Do you have them distinguish all the begadkefat letters as well?  
e.g. non-dagesh Tau as "th," non-dagesh daleth as voiced "th" and 
so forth?  In college I had one prof who did and one who didn't; the 
one who didn't only distinguished beth, kaf and pe and kept the 
others "hard" all the time.  I've picked up that approach myself, but I 
sometimes wonder if I should have.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do 
with it.
                  -Emerson