Kosher AI in Hebrew - typing, dictation and read-aloud

Kosher AI in Hebrew comes down to a few practical questions. Can you ask in Hebrew and get an answer in Hebrew? Does the answer read right to left, or arrive as a jumble with the punctuation on the wrong side? Can you speak a question instead of typing it, and listen to the answer? And how far can you trust what comes back? This is how each of those works in Navōn, including the parts that work less well than you might hope.

Asking a Hebrew AI chatbot a question

Type in Hebrew the way you would write to anyone. The models behind Navōn read Hebrew and generally answer in the language you asked in, so a Hebrew question usually gets a Hebrew reply. If you want something else, say so: "answer in English", or "translate this sentence into Hebrew and explain the grammar", which is one of the suggestions on the Text screen.

The same checks run whatever language you write in. The request and the answer are both checked on Navōn's servers before you see anything, and the same goes for a Hebrew request to the Image tool.

One practical note for parents. A blocked topic in the Family Hub is matched against the words of the request, so a topic written in English will not necessarily catch the same question asked in Hebrew. If your child writes in Hebrew, add the Hebrew word to the list as well.

Answers that read right to left

A Hebrew answer is laid out right to left, aligned to the right, with bullet points on the side a Hebrew reader expects them. Each paragraph finds its own direction, so an answer that mixes the two languages, say an English explanation around a Hebrew posuk, puts each paragraph the right way round instead of forcing the whole reply one way.

Your own messages work the same way. A question typed in Hebrew sits right to left in the conversation.

Dictating in Hebrew

The microphone opens a dictation sheet with two languages to choose from: English and עברית. Pick Hebrew and speak; the words appear as you say them, and you can correct them before sending. Navōn remembers your choice on that device, so someone who usually dictates in Hebrew does not have to choose it every time. Switching language in the middle restarts the listening in the new one.

Dictation offers English and Hebrew only. There is no Yiddish option, because the speech engines built into today's browsers do not recognise Yiddish, and a button that transcribes nothing would be worse than no button. A question in Yiddish can still be typed.

Recognition is done by your browser's own speech engine, so it varies from device to device. If a device cannot recognise Hebrew, the sheet says so plainly rather than sitting silent, and you can switch to English or type instead.

Hearing answers read aloud

A reply can be read aloud. Navōn reads it in a natural-sounding voice, using a speech model that handles Hebrew, and you can pause and carry on from where you stopped rather than starting again. That helps a younger child who reads Hebrew slowly, an older person who finds small print tiring, or anyone who would rather listen while doing something else.

Formatting is stripped out first, so you hear the words rather than the symbols. If the natural voice cannot be reached, Navōn falls back to the voice built into your device. For Hebrew that only works if the device has a Hebrew voice installed, and if it does not, you are told so.

The limits of kosher AI in Hebrew

This is the part to read carefully, because a fluent Hebrew answer looks more authoritative than it is.

It can sound stilted

Language models learn from what is written online, and much of the Hebrew there is modern Israeli Hebrew. Replies can read like a translation: correct words in an order nobody would choose, idioms carried over from English, a register too formal for a note to a friend and too casual for a letter to a rosh yeshiva. For anything someone else will read, have a Hebrew speaker look it over.

Lashon hakodesh is not the same language

Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic follow different conventions from modern Hebrew, and a model tends to smooth them into the modern language it knows best. A translation of a line of Rashi or a Gemara can be fluent and still wrong: a term with a precise meaning given its everyday one, an abbreviation expanded incorrectly, a word read with the wrong vowels.

It cannot be relied on for meforshim or halacha

A model will quote a Ramban or a Mishnah Berurah that does not say what it claims, or that does not exist at all, in exactly the same confident tone it uses when it is right. Asking in Hebrew does not change that. If anything, an answer in lashon hakodesh can feel more trustworthy than one in English, which makes the mistake easier to miss.

Use it to help you read: to unpack a hard sentence, to suggest what a word might mean, to give you a rough translation that you then check in the sefer. Do not use it to tell you what a meforash says, and never to answer a sheilah. A question of halacha goes to your rav.

Navōn can be told which community your household follows, and on a question that communities answer differently it is asked to give that community's practice first, name its source, and say that others hold otherwise. That makes an answer more relevant to you. It does not make it a psak, and the source it names still has to be checked.