# מגיעה



## I see you

Hi,

Is there an audible difference between אני מגיעה and אני מגיע ("I am arriving")? I know that the former contains an extra letter, but it is not pronounced, so there seems to be no difference between how the two words are pronounced in Modern Israeli Hebrew.

P.S. I think the ה was pronounced in Classical Hebrew but I'm not sure.


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## whenu

Although this does not answer your question, I think I should add that a final ה is almost always silent in modern Hebrew. One exception is בה bah, which means "in it/her".


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## slus

The audible difference comes from which syllable you stress. 
מגיע - is pronounced ma-GEE-a
מגיעה - is pronounced ma-gee-A


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## oopqoo

whenu said:


> Although this does not answer your question, I think I should add that a final ה is almost always silent in modern Hebrew. One exception is בה bah, which means "in it/her".


I've never heard anyone pronounce בה any way other than "ba". The ה is silent. 

Actually, even when ה is not silent it is not pronounced in natural speech in the same way that "h" is pronounced - this is true for most people. If one were to enunciate their words they would pronounce it as "h", though. It's hard for me to explain in words what a natural ה should sound like - it's like a glottal stop that isn't fully-realized. Example for how I would transcribe this in English letters despite the fact that it might not represent the real sound:
להיות = liiyot


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## utopia

In modern Hebrew there's no difference in pronouncing bah or ba:

בה: בא - they are both pronounced "ba"

I don't hear any enhanced H sound in bah.

Sorry!


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## shalom00

בה has a dagesh (dot) in the ה , which distinguishes it from the un-dageshed ה.


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## I see you

shalom00 said:


> בה has a dagesh (dot) in the ה , which distinguishes it from the un-dageshed ה.



Does that affect the pronunciation?


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## whenu

utopia said:


> In modern Hebrew there's no difference in pronouncing bah or ba:
> 
> בה: בא - they are both pronounced "ba"
> 
> I don't hear any enhanced H sound in bah.
> 
> Sorry!



So there is no audible difference between "in it/her" and "coming" (as in "He is coming.")?


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## shalom00

If you pronounce it, it does.
Consider in English the difference between saying "Boo" regularly and "Boo!" to scare someone.
That is roughly the difference, although much less exaggerated then Boo!

When reading the weekly portion of the Torah in Shabbat morning services, a good reader will make the difference audible.


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## Drink

מגיעה has a silent ה.
בה has a theoretically pronounced ה, but it is generally still not pronounced in Modern Hebrew. When it is pronounced, it is just an ordinary "h" sound just at the end of the word. People who find it difficult to pronounce "h" at the end of the word end up overpronouncing the whole syllable, which leads to what shalom00 was saying, but that is not the proper way to pronounce it.

And to reiterate, the difference in pronunciation between מגיע and מגיעה (for those who don't pronounce the ע) is the stress: מגיע is ma-GI-a‘ and מגיעה is ma-gi-‘A (not also that the position of the ע sound marked with ‘ is different).


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## Drink

I forgot to mention that in the past tense, הגיע is hi-GI-a‘ and הגיעה is hi-GI-‘a. So if you don't pronounce the ע, they are sound the same, but if you do, they are different.


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