How I Learned Hebrew
I first had interest in learning Hebrew in about 1990 when planning to go to Israel. Due to the Desert Storm and the Gulf War, the trip was postponed (I finally made it in 1996). So in the late 1980s, how does one go about learning Hebrew in the middle of Oklahoma?
There wasn't any internet yet. I ordered the famous, or infamous, FSI course. FSI stands for the Foreign Service Institute. These are courses created by the US government, supposedly used to teach military and/or diplomats.
Although the FSI course came with about 24 tapes, I still have never completed it. The type-style is ugly, and the course was clearly not made for self-study, but instead was made to be taught in a classroom environment.
Back then, Borders was building it's first huge book stores in large cities. On a business trip, I visited one, and found a small selection of Hebrew books not normally found in other bookstores. The book that helped me master the alphabet was a "reader" that was full of practice exercises of reading short two to four letter syllables or words.
Attending synagogue and learning some of the Hebrew prayers really accelerated my understanding of Hebrew. The music, along with the weekly repetition, clearly helps with the learning the words and phrases. Each week, I would pick a favorite tune, and go home and break down the words of that particular prayer.
Mansoor's book "Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step" was a good introduction to the Hebrew of the scriptures. Later, a group of us studied Weingreen's "Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew", which took us about two years doing one or two lessons per week.
To really know Hebrew, one must study both Biblical and Modern. I remember using two short courses that were books that came with 3 or 4 cassette tapes: "Hugo Language Course: Hebrew in Three Months" and also Eliezar Tirkel's "Every Hebrew". I found that I liked the Hugo course slightly better, but learned something from each.
A few years ago, I signed-up for two semesters of an online Hebrew course offered by Boston's Hebrew College. The textbook was "Hebrew From Scratch - Part II" (with 5 CDs available). There was a lot of homework required, and we met with our teacher online each week for practicing conversation. Later, I took classes in Aggadic Literature and Talmud, which introduced Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic.
Unfortunately, I still can't speak Hebrew as well as I would like. My journey is still continuing. By creating software, and teaching others, I continue to learn each and every day.
There wasn't any internet yet. I ordered the famous, or infamous, FSI course. FSI stands for the Foreign Service Institute. These are courses created by the US government, supposedly used to teach military and/or diplomats.
Although the FSI course came with about 24 tapes, I still have never completed it. The type-style is ugly, and the course was clearly not made for self-study, but instead was made to be taught in a classroom environment.
Back then, Borders was building it's first huge book stores in large cities. On a business trip, I visited one, and found a small selection of Hebrew books not normally found in other bookstores. The book that helped me master the alphabet was a "reader" that was full of practice exercises of reading short two to four letter syllables or words.
Attending synagogue and learning some of the Hebrew prayers really accelerated my understanding of Hebrew. The music, along with the weekly repetition, clearly helps with the learning the words and phrases. Each week, I would pick a favorite tune, and go home and break down the words of that particular prayer.
Mansoor's book "Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step" was a good introduction to the Hebrew of the scriptures. Later, a group of us studied Weingreen's "Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew", which took us about two years doing one or two lessons per week.
To really know Hebrew, one must study both Biblical and Modern. I remember using two short courses that were books that came with 3 or 4 cassette tapes: "Hugo Language Course: Hebrew in Three Months" and also Eliezar Tirkel's "Every Hebrew". I found that I liked the Hugo course slightly better, but learned something from each.
A few years ago, I signed-up for two semesters of an online Hebrew course offered by Boston's Hebrew College. The textbook was "Hebrew From Scratch - Part II" (with 5 CDs available). There was a lot of homework required, and we met with our teacher online each week for practicing conversation. Later, I took classes in Aggadic Literature and Talmud, which introduced Medieval Hebrew and Aramaic.
Unfortunately, I still can't speak Hebrew as well as I would like. My journey is still continuing. By creating software, and teaching others, I continue to learn each and every day.
About the Author:
Who else wants to learn Hebrew the fast and easy way with the multimedia Hebrew courses created by Neal Walters? You can see video demos of his courses at http://HebrewResources.com.
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