How to Play a Hebrew Word-Explaining Party Game
The whole genre in one page: what the Alias and Taboo family of games is, the rules of Ali written out, how to explain a Hebrew word to someone who has none, house rules you can read aloud, and a fair way to play with paper.
The Genre
A word-explaining game gives one player a word and a timer and asks them to make their team say it without saying it. Alias, Taboo and a dozen living-room variants are all the same idea with different penalties: Taboo bans a list of related words, Alias bans the word and its parts and lets the other teams catch you. If you have played either, you know the shape. What changes in Hebrew is not the rules but the table: half of it may read the word fluently and the other half may need the transliteration, and the explainer may be fluent in a language the guessers are not.
Ali, the game inside the free baba app, is that genre built for the mixed table. The rules below are Ali's, written out in full, and they work just as well with a printed list and a kitchen timer.
Setup
Teams
Two to six teams, two to six people each, so four players minimum. Bigger teams mean more shouting and fewer turns each; three or four per team is the sweet spot.
One phone per team
The host starts a game and gets a four-letter code. Every other team joins on its own phone by code, by scanning the QR, or from a link shared on WhatsApp.
The language rule
Before the first turn the host decides: explain in Hebrew, in English, or in both. Both is the default and the right call for a mixed table.
A Turn
One player on the team is the explainer. The hourglass starts, sixty seconds, and the phone shows one card: the Hebrew word with nikud, the transliteration, and the English. The explainer talks, gestures, hums, whatever gets the team to say the Hebrew word. When they say it, the explainer taps Got It, the team's pin moves one space forward, and the next card appears. If the word is hopeless, Skip drops it and the pin moves one space back.
Meanwhile the other teams are watching the same card on their own phones. That is the point of one phone per team: they are the referees. If the explainer says the word, any part of it, a word that rhymes with it, or starts spelling it, a referee calls a foul. The card is lost and the pin moves one space back.
When the sand runs out a beep sounds, and the last word on the card is open to every team at the table. The first team to say it takes the space. Then the next team's explainer picks up the phone.
The Board and the Special Spaces
The board is a thirty-space road up a map of Israel, from Eilat at the bottom to Jerusalem at the top. Every phone shows it with every team's pin, so nobody keeps score. Three kinds of space change what happens on the next turn.
Hebrew Only
The next turn is explained in Hebrew alone, whatever the table's language rule says. The team's Hebrew speakers do the talking and the rest do the guessing.
Slang
Every card on the next turn is Israeli slang: סבבה, חבל על הזמן, יאללה, and the rest of the 108 slang cards in the pool.
Everyone Plays
All teams guess at once, and each word goes to whoever says it first. One explainer, a whole table of guessers.
Explaining a Hebrew Word to Someone with No Hebrew
Start from the English
The card has it. "The thing you eat in summer, cold, in a cone" gets you to ice cream; then the team has to find the Hebrew in its own memory, which is the learning. Giving the first letter counts as spelling, so leave that out.
Use the cognates
Hebrew borrowed a lot: טלפון, אוניברסיטה, מוזיקה, פיצה, בנק. For those, "it sounds like the English word" is a legal, fast clue. It fails on false friends, so know that גן is a garden, not a gun.
Gesture and sound
Miming is allowed and works across languages. A yawn for לישון, a phone at the ear for לדבר, a shiver for קר. Humming the tune of a song the word appears in is a classic Israeli move.
Point at the room
Half of everyday vocabulary is on the table or in the room: כוס, שולחן, חלון, מפתח. "This, in Hebrew" with a finger on it is legal, and the guessers have to remember the word, which is the whole game.
Explaining an English Word to an Israeli
The word they want is the Hebrew one
An Israeli explainer has the opposite problem: they know the word and the team does not. Explain the meaning in Hebrew, and let the English speakers on the team read the guess off the transliteration once someone says it.
Opposites and pairs
"The opposite of חם" for קר, "אבא ו..." for אמא, "לא גדול" for קטן. Pairs are the fastest clues in any language and they teach the second word for free.
When a Hebrew Only space bites
On a Hebrew Only turn, an English-speaking team with one Israeli on it does fine; a team with none has to guess from gestures and the words they already know. Skip generously, keep the pin moving, and take the sudden-death word at the end of the turn.
Slang is a story, not a definition
You cannot define סבבה. You can say "what you answer when someone asks how it's going and it's fine." On a Slang turn, explain the situation the word lives in, not the word.
House Rules, Ready to Read Aloud
- Four players minimum, in teams of two or more. A team shares one phone or one stack of cards.
- One explainer per turn, sixty seconds, one word at a time. The explainer may talk in Hebrew, English or both unless the table has locked a language.
- The team must say the Hebrew word. Saying the English is a nice try, not a point.
- A guessed word moves the team one space forward. A skipped word moves it one space back. Skipping is allowed and sometimes wise.
- The other teams referee. Saying the word, any part of it, a rhyme, or spelling it is a foul: the card is lost and the pin goes one space back.
- Gestures, sounds, "it sounds like", "it rhymes with" and "the opposite of" are all fair. Translating the word straight out is not.
- When the time runs out, the last word is open to everyone. The first team to say it takes the space.
- Hebrew Only space: the next turn is explained in Hebrew alone. Slang space: the next turn is all slang. Everyone Plays: every team guesses at once, each word to whoever says it first.
- A dispute goes to the referees, majority wins, and the sand keeps running while they argue.
- First team to the last space wins. Ties are broken by one sudden-death word, open to everyone.
Playing with Paper Instead of the App
The genre does not need a phone, and a paper game is a fair way to play it with any word list. Take the 300-word list on this site, or any list with the Hebrew, a transliteration and the English on each line, and cut it into slips. Shuffle them face down in a bowl.
Draw a row of thirty boxes on a sheet of paper, mark the first as Eilat and the last as Jerusalem, and give each team a coin as its pin. Circle six boxes at random and label two of them Hebrew Only, two Slang and two Everyone Plays. Set a kitchen timer or a phone timer to sixty seconds.
Play exactly as above: one explainer, one slip at a time, guessed slips in one pile and skipped slips in another, the other teams reading over the explainer's shoulder as referees. At the end of the turn count the piles, move the coin, and pass the bowl. For a Slang turn, keep the slang slips in a second bowl and draw from that one.
What you lose is the parts the app does for you: the random draw with no repeats, the hourglass on every phone, the referees seeing the card without leaning over, and the board that keeps itself. What you keep is the game.
Play It
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you play Alias in Hebrew?
You play the same genre with Hebrew cards: teams, one explainer per turn, a timer, and a word the team has to say in Hebrew. Ali, the game inside the baba app, is built for that: every card shows the Hebrew with nikud, a transliteration and the English, and the other teams referee from their own phones. Ali is its own game and is not connected to the makers of Alias.
What are the rules of a word-explaining game?
One player explains words to their team against a timer without saying the word, part of it, a rhyme, or spelling it. Each guessed word is a point or a space forward, each skip costs one, and the other teams watch for fouls. The full list on this page is a complete, playable set.
Can English speakers play with Israelis?
Yes, if the cards carry the Hebrew, a transliteration and the English, and explaining is allowed in either language. The team still has to say the Hebrew word, so the English speakers learn it as they go. Ali is built around exactly this, and a paper game works the same way with the word list on this site.
What is a Hebrew Only space?
A space on the board that forces the next turn to be explained in Hebrew alone. It is the one moment English is off the table, and it is where a mixed team finds out how much Hebrew it actually has.
Can we play without the app?
Yes. The "Playing with paper" section on this page explains how, with a printed word list, a kitchen timer and a sheet of paper as the board. You lose the automatic refereeing and the random draw, and you keep the game.
How many words do we need for one game?
A turn burns eight to fifteen cards, and a game of four teams runs six to ten rounds, so about 250 to 400 cards keeps a game from repeating. The 300 words on the list on this site are enough for one evening; the app plays from about 1,300.
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