Hebrew Audio Pronunciation

[Ιακοβ]

I now have the Hebrew audio module, yay!  Im looking forward to learning to listen and speak what I am reading. Apart from the really annoying echo it seems great so far. 

 

The very first verse I randomly pulled up to test it, Ezekiel 3:1 appears to have odd pronunciation. I want to work out if this is odd due to the rules of pronunciation being different to what I have taught, or if it is a mistake. In Ezekiel 3:1

 

• אֲשֶׁר is pronounced with an L sound at the end instead of an R, 
• in contrast, דַּבֵּ֖ר is pronounced with an R sound at the end as I would have expected.

Can someone help me understand this? Thanks!

 

 

 

[Helen Brown]

I hear an R at the end of both words. I think you just need to get used to the voice,

[Ιακοβ]

i know R is pronounced stronger in the US. To an Australian ear it's a perfect r. So it's not clear to me now if the pronunciation is correct from a Hebrew perspective.

[Ιακοβ]

That was me typing on the train this morning. Now that I am back on my computer, just to be clear. It really does sound like an R to me. This makes me wonder if it is a mistake, or there is a concept of a 'modern Hebrew accent' which complicates how we read things out loud.

 

Should I hear this lack of r/l distinction as an americanism, or a hebrewism, or just a mistake?

[Houthakker]

Perhaps you were originally expecting an Anglo-Saxon R/L contrast ?

 

There's a clear and audible Hebrew R/L contrast in that recording –

I'm sure you have found your way to tuning into it by now.

[Houthakker]

For listening practice – there's a compact nesting of a Hebrew R sound between two nearby Hebrew L sounds in the final clause of Gen. 12-20 (E: 'and all that he possessed')

 

וְאֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לֽוֹ

 

ve'et kol asher lo