Hebrew Nuggets, Lesson 18: vav (Part 2)

Hebrew Nuggets is an article series that introduces beginners to Hebrew letters, Hebrew vocabulary and spiritual insights from the Hebrew tradition.

Revised: 1-Oct.-2015

In our previous lesson we focused on vav’s primary meaning of “and.” However, as we will now see, “and” is not always the correct translation of the Hebrew word vav. Vav is used to convey other meanings, as well.

Although the literal English translation of vav is “and,” it leads a more varied life than its English counterpart. While in English “and” can mean “also,” or can be used like a comma to connect words, phrases and sentences, vav can do the work of “but,” “or,” “so,” “then,” “with,” “when,” “who,” “that,” “on the contrary,” and much more. Hebrew frequently uses a vav where in English no word would be used at all, and in such cases the best translation is simply to drop the “and” entirely.

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To read the next lesson, click here. For the transliteration system used in this series, click here.