החוט עובר דרך המחט.

A common pronunciation is:

ha-khut over dérekh ha-máchat

A more detailed breakdown:

• החוט = ha-khut
• עובר = over
• דרך = derekh
• המחט = ha-machat

A few pronunciation notes for English speakers:

• ח is the throaty sound heard in words like Chanukah or the German Bach. It is not an English h.
• ע in modern Hebrew is often very light or even silent in everyday speech, so עובר is usually just pronounced over.
• כ in החוט is also the same throaty kh sound here.

The prefix ה־ is the Hebrew definite article, equivalent to English the.

So:

• חוט = thread
• החוט = the thread
• מחט = needle
• המחט = the needle

Hebrew usually adds ה־ directly to the beginning of the noun instead of using a separate word like English the.

עובר is the present-tense masculine singular form of the verb לעבור, meaning to pass, to go through, or to cross depending on context.

It is עובר here because it agrees with החוט:

• החוט = the thread
• חוט is a masculine singular noun

So the verb must also be masculine singular in the present tense.

Very roughly:

• masculine singular: עובר
• feminine singular: עוברת
• masculine plural: עוברים
• feminine plural: עוברות

In Hebrew present tense, one form can often cover several English possibilities.

So עובר can mean things like:

• passes
• is passing
• goes through
• is going through

The exact English translation depends on context.

In this sentence, English might say:

• The thread passes through the needle
• The thread goes through the needle
• The thread is passing through the needle

All of these can match the Hebrew reasonably well.

Yes. דרך can be a noun meaning way, road, or path. But in this sentence it is being used as a preposition meaning through or by way of.

So here:

• דרך המחט = through the needle

This is very common in Hebrew: the same written word can serve different grammatical roles depending on context.

In החוט עובר דרך המחט, דרך is not the subject and not a noun phrase by itself. It introduces the route or passage.

Because דרך itself is already doing the job of through.

English uses a separate preposition:

• through the needle

Hebrew here uses:

• דרך המחט

So you do not need another word before דרך.

Because in this sentence דרך is functioning as a preposition, not as a noun.

When it means through, it normally appears just as דרך.

Compare:

• דרך המחט = through the needle
  Here דרך is a preposition.

But as a noun you could have something like:

• הדרך = the way / the road

So whether it gets ה־ depends on whether it is being used as a noun or not.

• חוט is masculine
• מחט is feminine

This matters because Hebrew often shows agreement in verbs and adjectives.

In this sentence, the gender of חוט matters directly because the verb is agreeing with it:

• החוט עובר = masculine singular subject + masculine singular present verb

The gender of מחט matters less here because it is inside the prepositional phrase דרך המחט, so there is no adjective or verb here that has to agree with it.

It is fairly similar here:

• החוט = subject
• עובר = verb
• דרך המחט = prepositional phrase

So the structure is basically:

Subject + Verb + Prepositional Phrase

That said, Hebrew word order is often more flexible than English, especially outside very basic sentences. But this sentence uses a very normal and straightforward order.

Yes, depending on context.

For example, Hebrew might sometimes use a slightly different structure or verb if the emphasis changes. But החוט עובר דרך המחט is a natural, simple sentence.

A learner should mainly notice that Hebrew is expressing the idea with:

• a definite subject
• a present-tense verb
• the preposition דרך

That is the core pattern here.

Historically and grammatically, Hebrew present tense forms are based on the participle. So עובר is often described as a participle form that functions as the present tense.

For learners, the practical point is this:

• In everyday modern Hebrew, עובר is how you say passes / is passing / goes through in the present.

So technically there is a participle background, but functionally you can treat it as the present tense form.

Yes. Hebrew, like English, can use needle to refer to the whole object even when the thread physically goes through the hole in it.

So דרך המחט is perfectly normal in context. You do not need a more anatomically precise phrase unless the context specifically requires it.

The basic noun is מַחַט in pointed Hebrew, pronounced máchat.

When you add the definite article ה־, you get:

• המחט = ha-machat

So the vowel pattern belongs to the noun itself. In unpointed Hebrew script, learners have to know or learn the pronunciation from vocabulary knowledge, because the vowels are not written in normal text.