2.9 The Dagesh Forte Doubles the Consonant

Dagesh Forte Syllabification

Figure 2.8: Dagesh Forte Syllabification

The Dagesh Forte is Dagesh Lene’s bigger, more powerful brother

  • Notice the dot in the שּׁ in הַשָּׁמַיִם:
    • The dot is called a Dagesh FORTE
    • Since שׁ is not a בגד כפת letter, we know this cannot be a Dagesh Lene
  • The letter with the Dagesh Forte both ends one syllable and begins the next syllable - in fact, a way to think of the Dagesh Forte is to call it the “doubling Dagesh”
  • In הַשָּׁמַיִם: is pronounced: hash-sha-mayim36
  • A similar word in English might be better = bet | ter
    • If we were to transliterate better into Hebrew hypothetically, it might look like: בֶּטֶּר*37
  • Notice the syllable breaks in these words that have a Dagesh Forte:

  1. Mayim is one syllable as we will learn in Lesson 3. הַשָּׁמַיִם means “the heavens.” From now on, we won’t always provide a translation for every new word you encounter. It’s more important that you focus on the concepts. You will have PLENTY of vocabulary work in Anki!↩︎

  2. The * means this is not a real Hebrew word, but we show it in this form for illustration.↩︎