Isn Hebrew phonetic? If so, why are there alternate choices given whenever transliterating from Hebrew to English?
Hebrew is certainly much more phonetic than English. But even in Hebrew there are cases where a letter can have more than one pronunciation. Specifically the letter BET is sometimes pronounced B and sometimes V. Similarly KAF is sometimes K and sometimes KH, and PEH is sometimes P and sometimes F. In elementary texts, the ambiguity is resolved by placing a dot in the middle of the letter to differentiate between the hard-consonant sound and the soft-consonant sound. But in normal published Hebrew these dots are omitted. Another ambiguity has to do with the letter VAV. Sometimes it is pronounced as as consonant (V), and sometimes as a vowel (either OH or OO). Again the ambiguity is resolved in elementary texts with the use of dots — a dot on top of the VAV makes it an OH, in the middle makes it an OO, and no dot makes it a V. But the dots are not present in normal published Hebrew. And finally there’s the issue of vowels. A few vowels are explicitly represented by letters in the alphab
