dagesh: turns the following soft consonants into hard ones. Note: as a rule these letters are soft when in the word and hard when at the beginning of a word.

• בּ  – b – bet – with a dot (hard), ב – v -vet without a dot (soft)
• כּ – k – kaf – with a dot (hard), כ – ch – chaf – without a dot (soft)
• פּ – p – pe – with a dot (hard), פ – f – fe – without a dot (soft)

a dot is used to discern a sh from an s:

• שׁ sh – shin with the dot on the right dent
• שׂ s – sin (voiceless as in stress) with the dot on the left dent. This letter is rare. Mostly the voiceless s appears in Hebrew as a samech ס.