How Hebrew Works
Learn to read signs, navigate daily conversations, and crack the three-letter root system that powers the entire language. Build practical speaking confidence and understand the elegant logic connecting Hebrew words.
Like Duolingo, but for How Hebrew Works. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Reading the Script and Speaking Fast and The Grammar Engine Under the Hood. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How Hebrew Works
- Hebrew text reads horizontally from right to left across the line
- Because text flows right-to-left, physical Hebrew books and newspapers open from what English speakers consider the back cover
- The 22 core Hebrew letters represent consonants
- Vowel dots and dashes (nikkud) are added mainly in children's books, poetry, and language-learning materials
- Fluent adult readers read unpointed Hebrew, relying on word shape, context, and helper letters rather than vowel dots
- Exactly five Hebrew letters change their shape at the end of a word: chaf, mem, nun, pey, and tzadi
- These final forms are called sofit letters and usually drop straight down below the baseline (except final mem, which becomes a closed square)
- The other 17 Hebrew letters keep the exact same shape regardless of where they sit in a word
- Hebrew regularly spells familiar international loanwords phonetically using its standard alphabet
- Sounding out Hebrew letters on signs and brand names lets you read real words immediately before building a Hebrew vocabulary
- Certain Hebrew consonants do double duty by standing in for vowels in everyday unpointed text
- Vav acts as an 'o' or 'u' sound (in addition to the consonant 'v')
- Yud acts as an 'ee' or 'ay' vowel sound (in addition to the consonant 'y')
- Hey placed at the end of a word typically signals an 'ah' vowel ending
- Words addressed to or describing people, like 'welcome' (baruch haba / bruchah haba'ah), change form based on gender
- Neutral greetings and phrases like 'boker tov' (good morning) and 'todah rabah' (thank you very much) stay the same regardless of who speaks or listens
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How Hebrew Works the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
You pick up a printed Hebrew newspaper on a bus. Where do you open it to start?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where How Hebrew Works takes you
- 1
Reading the Script and Speaking Fast
- Cracking the Hebrew Alphabet
- Everyday Exchanges and Social Cues
- 2
The Grammar Engine Under the Hood
- The Three-Letter Root System
- Putting Basic Sentences Together
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How Hebrew Works is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How Hebrew Works today.
Download Tomo, search How Hebrew Works, and play your first lesson in under a minute.