TropeTrainer

Trope Symbols


Every word in the Torah and Haftarot has one or more Trope symbols.

Some biblical words are connected by a maqaf (~) which is treated like a hyphen in English.

The maqaf appears in printed books, but it is not written in Torah scrolls. Words connected by a maqaf are treated as one word for purposes of chanting words with Tropes.

Trope symbols tell you:

- what melody to use for every word

- where to stop singing (like a period in English)

- when to pause (like a comma or semi-colon in English)

- which words to connect

It is important for you to know that there are three types of Tropes:

The ones we color red tell you to stop chanting for a moment, just as a period tells you to stop speaking for a moment (these are ”separators”)

The ones we color orange tell you to pause for a moment, like a comma (these are also ”separators”, but not as strong)

The rest (colored green just tell you the melody -- you do not stop singing when you get to the end of the word with these Tropes, because any of these words will connect to the next word (these are ”joiners”)

This phrase shows you Tropes with all three colors: עַ֖ד אֵל֣ן מוֹרֶ֑ה

Remember: Red means stop. Orange means pause. Green means continue or go on.

There are 27 Tropes. Each of the lessons that follow teaches you small groups of these Tropes.

Each Trope has a different shape and name. 14 of these -- all of the red Tropes and most of the orange Tropes -- are used to end phrases.

The remaining 13 Tropes -- the rest of the orange Tropes and all of the green Tropes -- all are ”helper” Tropes used to complete the melodies of the phrases.

All the lessons to follow are organized around these 14 phrase-ending Tropes and their 13 helper Tropes. A combination of a green Trope and a red Trope, or a green Trope and an orange Trope, shows that those two words are closely related, such as a ”noun + adjective”, a ”verb + adverb”, or a ”verb + direct object”, and other such word-pairs.

Trope symbols also mark the syllable to be accented in each word. The Trope symbol is found above or below the accented syllable in most Biblical words. Where there are exceptions, in TropeTrainer we usually give a second (darker) Trope symbol on the accented syllable.