Yod

Yod

Luckily this one's pretty easy too, since also sounds like its name, with the Y sound of "you." And once again, it's because Y was originally derived from long ago!

So, how are we going to remember this one? Let's go with the word "Yo-Yo." Imagine that Yod is a hand swinging a Yo-Yo around:

Now let's try some reading practice again.

(yo-yo) - A well-known toy... Note that the horizontal line is just a dash, like in English. And yes, this is actually a word in Hebrew!

(yad) - Hand. In fact this is where the name of the letter came from; originally it was drawn as a hand.

(goy) - Nation, people, or gentile. Originally the word just meant "nation" but over time in the sense of "other nations" it came to also mean a person who wasn't Jewish.

(dai) - Enough! Pronounce it like the word "die" but a bit sharper to emphasize the "eee" sound at the end. This can get confusing because if you frustrate an Israeli, often they'll tell you to cool it by saying dai... which could be easily misinterpreted by an English speaker! And they say many of the world's conflicts come from communication problems...

(chai) - Alive, living, exists. Many Jews wear this word on necklaces, symbolizing a love for life itself.

Now let's look at yet another vowel that we can make from our old friend ...