Hebrew Keyboard

How to type in Hebrew with this keyboard

Pick the input mode that suits you with the tabs on the keyboard:

• Standard (Israeli): the layout printed on keyboards in Israel. Each key on your keyboard types the Hebrew letter that sits on it there: A is ⁨ש⁩, K is ⁨ל⁩, T is ⁨א⁩. Use this if you already know it or want to learn it.
• Phonetic (best for learners): each English key types the Hebrew letter with a similar sound. B types ⁨ב⁩, M types ⁨מ⁩, W types ⁨ש⁩ (sh) and X types ⁨ח⁩ (ch). Final letters are added for you at the end of each word.
• Alphabet: all 22 letters in order, plus final forms and dotted letters, to click one by one.

The buttons above the keyboard give the Hebrew punctuation (⁨׳⁩ ⁨״⁩ ⁨־⁩) and the shekel sign ₪. To add a vowel, open Vowels (nikud), type the letter and then click a vowel; the mark attaches to the letter before it. Press Esc to switch between Hebrew and normal English typing at any time, for example to add an English name in the middle of a Hebrew sentence.

When you're done, press Copy and paste the text into WhatsApp, an email, a document or a search box. It stays right to left wherever you paste it.

Hebrew keyboard layout

This is the standard Israeli keyboard layout (SI-1452), the one on every computer sold in Israel and the "Hebrew" keyboard on Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android. The small letter on each key is the English key it shares, so you can see where every Hebrew letter sits on a normal keyboard.

The layout is not alphabetical, but it has a logic worth knowing:

• The home row holds the most common letters: ⁨ש⁩ ⁨ד⁩ ⁨ג⁩ ⁨כ⁩ ⁨ע⁩ ⁨י⁩ ⁨ח⁩ ⁨ל⁩ on A to K, then the finals ⁨ך⁩ and ⁨ף⁩ on L and ;.
• The top row has ⁨ק⁩ ⁨ר⁩ ⁨א⁩ ⁨ט⁩ ⁨ו⁩ on E to U, with the finals ⁨ן⁩ and ⁨ם⁩ on I and O and ⁨פ⁩ on P. The Q and W keys type / and the apostrophe, which Israelis use as a geresh.
• The bottom row runs ⁨ז⁩ ⁨ס⁩ ⁨ב⁩ ⁨ה⁩ ⁨נ⁩ ⁨מ⁩ ⁨צ⁩ ⁨ת⁩ from Z to ,, then ⁨ץ⁩ on the full stop key. The full stop itself moves to /.
• Hebrew has no capital letters, so Shift only changes the punctuation keys, which give the English symbols in their usual places. The comma sits on ' and the colon on Shift+;. Note that ( and ) are swapped on the number row, so they look right in right-to-left text.

Windows offers two Hebrew layouts. Hebrew is the older one, with nikud hidden behind Caps Lock. Hebrew (Standard) follows the 2013 revision of SI-1452: the letters are in the same places, and the vowel marks move to AltGr combinations. Either works with this page.

Phonetic Hebrew layout: which key types each letter

The phonetic layout puts letters where English speakers expect them, by sound. It matches the "Hebrew-QWERTY" keyboard on a Mac closely, and it is the fastest way to type a few words if you don't touch-type Hebrew.

A few keys need explaining, because Hebrew and English sounds don't line up one to one:

• W is ⁨ש⁩ (shin, the "sh" sound) because S is taken by ⁨ס⁩ (samekh). Shift+W gives ⁨שׁ⁩ with its dot and Shift+S gives ⁨שׂ⁩ (sin).
• X is ⁨ח⁩ (chet) and Shift+H is the same letter, so both the "kh" and "ch" spellings work. H alone is ⁨ה⁩ (he).
• T is ⁨ת⁩ (tav) and J is ⁨ט⁩ (tet). Both sound like t today; ⁨ט⁩ is the one in ⁨טוב⁩ (tov) and ⁨טלפון⁩ (telefon).
• K is ⁨כ⁩ (kaf) and Q is ⁨ק⁩ (qof). Both sound like k; ⁨ק⁩ is the one in ⁨קפה⁩ (kafe) and ⁨שוק⁩ (shuk).
• O, U and V all type ⁨ו⁩ (vav), which stands for v, o or u. I and Y both type ⁨י⁩ (yod). A is ⁨א⁩ and E is ⁨ע⁩, the two silent letters.
• C is ⁨צ⁩ (tsadi, "ts"), F and P are both ⁨פ⁩ (pe, which reads p or f).

Here is every letter with its key in both modes:

Hebrew alphabet chart

The 22 letters in order with their names, the five final forms and the dotted letters, as a picture to print or share.

Download the hebrew alphabet chart (PNG)

The Hebrew alphabet

Hebrew has 22 letters, all consonants, written right to left. Five letters have a different shape at the end of a word, and every letter also has a number value (used in gematria and for Hebrew dates). The vowels are usually left out: readers know from context that ⁨מלך⁩ is melekh.

Letters with two sounds

Three letters change sound with a dot (dagesh) inside them: ⁨בּ⁩ is b and ⁨ב⁩ is v; ⁨כּ⁩ is k and ⁨כ⁩ is kh; ⁨פּ⁩ is p and ⁨פ⁩ is f. In normal writing the dot is left out, and you know the sound from the word. ⁨ש⁩ is sh with the dot on the right (⁨שׁ⁩) and s with the dot on the left (⁨שׂ⁩), as in ⁨ישראל⁩ (Yisrael). The Alphabet tab and the Vowels panel give you all the dotted forms.

Letters that look alike

Several letters differ only in a corner or a foot. These are the pairs learners mix up most:

Final letters (otiyot sofiyot)

Five letters take a different shape when they come last in a word. The sound doesn't change, only the form, and the final forms are as old as the alphabet itself. Four of them (⁨ך⁩ ⁨ן⁩ ⁨ף⁩ ⁨ץ⁩) simply extend below the line; ⁨ם⁩ closes into a square.

In Phonetic mode you never have to think about them: type ⁨שלום⁩ as w l o m and the ⁨ם⁩ appears when you press space. In Standard mode the finals have their own keys, exactly as in Israel: ⁨ך⁩ on L, ⁨ם⁩ on O, ⁨ן⁩ on I, ⁨ף⁩ on ; and ⁨ץ⁩ on the full stop key.

Hebrew vowels (nikud)

Everyday Hebrew is usually written without vowels, but they're used in children's books, poetry, prayer books, dictionaries and for learners. The marks sit under, inside or above the consonant they follow. Here's what each vowel button makes:

Modern Hebrew has five vowel sounds, so several marks share one sound: patach and kamatz are both "a", tzere and segol are both "e". The full spellings also use ⁨ו⁩ for o and u (holam male ⁨וֹ⁩, shuruk ⁨וּ⁩) and ⁨י⁩ for i (hiriq male ⁨ִי⁩). A shva is either a very short "e" or silent, depending on where it falls in the word.

To type nikud here: type the consonant, then click the mark. Add a dagesh (⁨בּ⁩) or a shin or sin dot the same way. Vowels are stored as separate characters after the letter, so a wrong mark can be removed with Backspace without deleting the letter.

Hebrew punctuation and symbols

Hebrew uses the same full stop, comma and question mark as English, but it has a few marks of its own, all on the buttons above the keyboard:

Sounds Hebrew borrows: j, ch and zh

Hebrew has no letters for these sounds, so loanwords and foreign names add a geresh (⁨׳⁩) to the nearest letter. Type the letter, then click ⁨׳⁩:

Common Hebrew words and how to type them

Each word with its transliteration and the keys to press in Phonetic mode. Final letters are added when you press space, so you type the regular letter.

Print and cursive Hebrew

The letters on this page are print (square) Hebrew, the style used in books, on signs and on every screen. Israelis write by hand in cursive (ktav), a rounder style where several letters look quite different: cursive ⁨ל⁩ is a tall loop and cursive ⁨ס⁩ is a circle. If you're learning Hebrew in a class, you probably learned cursive first. Keyboards, phones and websites always produce print, so anything you type here will look like a book, not a notebook. To see your text and the keys in cursive, tick Cursive letters (handwriting) in the tips above the keyboard. The letters themselves don't change, only the way they're drawn, so the text you copy is the same.

Writing right to left, with numbers and English mixed in

Hebrew runs right to left, but numbers and Latin words inside a Hebrew sentence keep their own direction. Your device sorts this out with the Unicode bidirectional algorithm, so 2024 stays 2024 and an English name reads left to right within the Hebrew line. A few tips:

• Type a sentence in the order you say it. The cursor jumps around at the boundaries between Hebrew and English; that's normal.
• Put punctuation after the Hebrew word it belongs to, as usual. In a right-to-left box it appears on the left, which is correct.
• If pasted text looks scrambled, the target app is treating it as left to right. Set the paragraph direction to right to left (in Word: the Right-to-left text direction button; in Google Docs: Format → Paragraph direction).
• Press Esc here to type English in the middle of Hebrew, then Esc again to go back.

How to add a Hebrew keyboard to your device

For occasional Hebrew this page is enough. If you type Hebrew every day, add it to your device so it works in every app. All of these use the standard Israeli layout shown above.

Frequently asked questions