Learning hieroglyphic writing

It is natural to wonder how to read ancient Egyptian writing and what was its sound.
Instead of our 26 characters, Egyptians used about 800 ones, each of them with a different meaning.
They could be monoconsonant (indicating an only consonant, like our alphabetic letters), bi- or triconsonant,  produce the sound of entire words (phonograms), represent ideas (ideograms), and finally determiners ( defining the word in question) and intensifiers

Observe the name of queen Nefertari, whose signs are enclosed in a cartouche, which usually surrounds the names of kings and queens.
To understand it we have to observe the direction which the ones picturing living beings (animals too) are facing.

	The vulture of goddess Mut   looks at its right, thus the writing has to be read from right to left.
	The vulture (whose utterance is “Mut” and next to which there is a hemispheric symbol which is normally pronounced  “t” but which in this case is only an intensifier) is in a high position just for being a divine symbol.
	We actually  read it at the end of the sentence. The sign resembling a musical instrument (but symbolizing a trachea) is pronounced “nefer”.
	The hemisphere ("t")
	the symbol of flourishing reed (whose pronounciation is “a”).
	Then comes a group made up of the symbol of a mouth (pronunciation “r”) and two lower bars whose pronounce is “y”
	Below there is another group of signs made up of a rectangle (whose pronunciation is “meri”) and surmounted by a long serpentine (pronounced “en”)
	The last “t” is the feminine ending and let us know that we are talking about a woman.
	The whole is read NEFER-T-A-R-Y MERI(T) EN MUT, literally, “The Beautiful (Nefertari) beloved (meri-t) by (en) Mut (the goddess, here symbolized by the vulture)

Egyptian Alphabet

Ideograms

Voiceless signs

Biliteral and triliteral signs

Double sounds

Masculine and feminine