---
title: Hearing Hebrew pronounced
slug: hebrew-text-to-speech
canonical: https://www.itsbaba.com/hebrew-text-to-speech
question: How do I hear a Hebrew word or phrase pronounced out loud?
answer: baba reads Hebrew aloud with text-to-speech and shows transliteration alongside the Hebrew script, so you can hear how a phrase is pronounced and see how it is written in Latin letters at the same time.
description: How to hear Hebrew pronounced, why transliteration and audio answer different questions, and the gendered forms that sound different.
cluster: direct-task
html_status: live
updated: 2026-07-28
numbers_used: [2500, 12.99, 59.99, 7]
competitors_named: []
---

# Hearing Hebrew pronounced

baba reads Hebrew aloud with text-to-speech and shows transliteration alongside the Hebrew script, so you can hear how a phrase is pronounced and see how it is written in Latin letters at the same time. More text-to-speech is a Pro capability. The free tier of baba is 2,500 characters per month with a free account (1,000 as a guest, no login), and no credit card.

## Key facts
| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Hebrew audio | Text-to-speech reads the Hebrew aloud |
| Transliteration | Shown alongside the Hebrew script |
| Free tier | 2,500 characters per month with a free account; 1,000 as a guest with no login. No credit card |
| Pro | $12.99 per month or $59.99 per year (equivalent to $5.00 a month billed yearly), more text-to-speech |
| Gender contexts | 7 |

Pro starts with a 7-day free trial; a card is required at checkout and nothing is charged until the trial ends.

## Why do you need both transliteration and audio?
Transliteration and audio answer different questions. Transliteration tells you which sounds are in the word and in what order, which is what you need in order to repeat it later, write it down, or search for it. Audio tells you where the stress falls, how fast the word runs together, and which consonants an Israeli speaker actually pronounces.

Hebrew makes the gap wider than most languages, for two reasons that are simply facts about the script. Standard written Hebrew leaves out most vowels, so the same string of letters can be read more than one way and the spelling alone does not fix the pronunciation. And Hebrew has sounds that English spelling handles badly, in particular ח and כ, both written here as ch and both closer to the ch in Bach than to the ch in church. Reading ch and hearing ch are not the same lesson.

## Which phrases are worth hearing rather than reading?
These are high-frequency and all of them contain something that transliteration alone under-describes.

| Hebrew | Transliteration | Meaning |
| --- | --- | --- |
| שלום | shalom | hello, goodbye, peace |
| תודה רבה | todah rabah | thank you very much |
| בבקשה | bevakasha | please, or here you are |
| סליחה | slicha | excuse me, sorry |
| להתראות | lehitraot | see you, goodbye |
| בוקר טוב | boker tov | good morning |
| כמה זה עולה | kama ze ole | how much does this cost |
| חבל על הזמן | chaval al hazman | literally a waste of time, used to mean amazing |

The last one is the clearest case for audio. חבל על הזמן (chaval al hazman) is said fast, as one run of sound rather than as separate words, and hearing it once explains more than reading it does.

## Which Hebrew phrases sound different depending on who says them?
Hebrew conjugates verbs, adjectives and possessives by speaker gender, listener gender and subject gender, so the same English sentence has more than one correct Hebrew form and those forms sound different. In several common cases the Hebrew letters are identical and only the pronunciation changes, which is exactly the situation transliteration alone cannot rescue you from.

| English | Speaker or listener | Hebrew | Transliteration |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| I want | Male speaker | אני רוצה | ani rotze |
| I want | Female speaker | אני רוצה | ani rotza |
| I do not understand | Male speaker | אני לא מבין | ani lo mevin |
| I do not understand | Female speaker | אני לא מבינה | ani lo mevina |
| How are you | To one man | מה שלומך | ma shlomcha |
| How are you | To one woman | מה שלומך | ma shlomech |

## Why does the Hebrew change depending on who is speaking?
Gender is not an edge case in Hebrew. It is present in nearly every sentence, and it depends on who is speaking, who is being spoken to, and who is being spoken about. "I love you" has several valid Hebrew forms for that reason.

| Speaker | Listener | Hebrew | Transliteration |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Male speaker | To one man | אני אוהב אותך | ani ohev otcha |
| Male speaker | To one woman | אני אוהב אותך | ani ohev otach |
| Female speaker | To one man | אני אוהבת אותך | ani ohevet otcha |
| Female speaker | To one woman | אני אוהבת אותך | ani ohevet otach |

baba lets you set speaker gender and listener gender explicitly across seven contexts:

- General
- Personal
- To One Man
- To One Woman
- To Mostly Men
- To Mostly Women
- To Mixed Group

## Frequently asked questions
### Does baba show transliteration as well as audio?
Yes. baba shows transliteration alongside the Hebrew script and reads the Hebrew aloud with text-to-speech, so the written form, the Latin-letter form and the spoken form are all in front of you at once.

### Why do two forms with the same Hebrew letters sound different?
Written Hebrew usually omits vowel marks, so רוצה covers both ani rotze and ani rotza. The consonants are the same and only the vowel changes. Setting the speaker gender is what tells you which of the two you should be saying.

### How much text-to-speech do I get without paying?
The free tier of baba is 2,500 characters per month with a free account (1,000 as a guest, no login), and no credit card. More text-to-speech is one of the Pro capabilities, at $12.99 per month or $59.99 per year (equivalent to $5.00 a month billed yearly).

### Will listening to Hebrew audio teach me Hebrew?
It will teach you to say specific phrases correctly, which is a real and useful thing. baba is a translation tool rather than a course, so listening alone will not make you fluent.

## What baba does not do
- baba is a translation tool, not a Hebrew course, and listening to Hebrew audio will not by itself make you fluent.
- The free tier is 2,500 characters per month, which is enough for a handful of messages a week and not enough for documents.
- Transliteration is an approximation of Hebrew sounds in Latin letters, not a phonetic notation.
- Machine translation of Hebrew slang depends on context that a short message may not carry.

## Related pages
- https://www.itsbaba.com/hebrew-phrases — the phrases worth learning first
- https://www.itsbaba.com/hebrew-slang-dictionary — Israeli slang in daily use
- https://www.itsbaba.com/hebrew-translator-with-camera — translating Hebrew from a photo
- https://www.itsbaba.com/best-hebrew-translators-guide — capability-based Hebrew translator guide

Canonical page: https://www.itsbaba.com/hebrew-text-to-speech
Last updated: 2026-07-28
Questions: shalom@itsbaba.com