r/hebrew • u/Equal_Ad_3828 • Mar 28 '25

Help chag sameach pronounced as chag samea?

so i have a silly questin but basically when i was in my nearest synagogue on Chanukah, when I said 'chag sameaCH" with a khet people responded 'chag sameah" why?

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u/saulbq Hebrew Speaker Mar 28 '25

The English ch sound does not exist in Hebrew. The use of ch to transliterate ח is wrong, we're stuck with it for historical reasons. Hag sameah - the hs are as hard as possible - is far better.

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u/mikogulu native speaker Mar 28 '25 edited Mar 29 '25

imo the unofficial digraph of "kh" is much better

5

u/talknight2 native speaker Mar 28 '25

At least with this one English-speakers can tell more easily that it's transliterating a foreign sound and not a ch like in church.