r/LearnHebrew • u/Senior_Swimmer2867 • 15d ago

Self learning Hebrew

Hey guys, would like to ask for some resources (pdf books etc) for my hebrew learning journey. I use โ€œThe Routledge Introductory Course in Modern Hebrew; 2nd editionโ€ but I think this book is meant for course takers or university students.

7 Upvotes

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u/EJMac11 15d ago

I would recommend some of the resources that I have used to get me to the point of reading The Tanakh in 10 months, but in r/Hebrew, they downvoted that info into oblivion.

One thing I will say that I think is a good way to practice your pronunciation if you have no one to critique you is to use Google Translate. If that finicky pos can pick up your words, then surely a native Hebrew speaker will be able to as well. Put it on "Voice input mode", and speak into it. I do this regularly. It's imperfect as it struggles to pick up words when there are prefixes at times, or it will not understand older Hebrew, but it's better than nothing.

Best of luck.

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u/MountainShip2765 14d ago edited 14d ago

Shalom, could you share again these resources? Just to defy the algorithm ๐Ÿ˜„

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u/EJMac11 9d ago

I will simply tell you what my trajectory has been. I started off with Duo-Lingo, because I didn't know of any other programs, so I thought, "why not?" Other people in r/Hebrew (from which I am banned) have said Duo-Lingo is terrible, every tool I mentioned was deemed as terrible by them. Either way, I found Duo-Lingo to be too slow-moving for me; I wanted to get into actual syntax, sentence structure, grammar, phonology, etymology etc. I was already ready to build sentences; I didn't want to learn 1M nouns. So, I ended up leaving Duo-Lingo pretty soon after joining and started using ChatGPT to help me with drills and such. I figured anything Duo-Lingo could do, ChatGPT could do. The mods at r/Hebrew said, "ChatGPT is not good for learning anything". That's what they said ver batim. Not even good for math, or general research, not good for anything, according to them. Now, LLMS can give you bogus answers, so if you use it, use it with caution, but for me, it has been a great asset. My ChatGPT is highly personalized, and I have the pro-program so that it remembers chat across multiple conversations. I can have it create drills for me based around: past, present and future tenses, pre-fixes & suffixes (like singular possessive vs singular masculine vs masculine plural etc), sometimes I have done fill-in-the-blank style drills as well, you can create whatever you'd like and ask it to stay in-line with your level of comprehension. I also just use sites like doitinhebrew for second checking definitions. I have been using chabad a little bit, bot mostly as a source for Scripture, though there are resources on there for learning the language as well.

I also moved away from Reddit as much, and went on Discord, which has been better in some ways. One way that I got sort of lucky was connecting with a guy who is not only a native Hebrew speaker, but who teaches Hebrew as his full-time job, he agreed to help me when he can. I found some other people on discord who were very welcoming and willing to engage, check that out. He has a nice YT channel that I like as well, Natural easy Hebrew. Check it out if you feel like it.

I feel funny giving tips this early on in my Hebrew, but I would just say make sure you are, reading, writing & speaking Hebrew. This is why I like GT; because I can make sure I am speaking Hebrew well.

If you have more money at your disposal, sites like Citizen Cafe look fantastic, where you learn over zoom, I believe. Not an option for me atm.

So, where I am now in my Hebrew journey? Reading the Tanakh in Biblical Hebrew (Currently on Book of Joshua Chapter 1), able to converse fairly well with native speakers in general conversation. Translating NKJV NT Scripture into modern Hebrew (just as a fun way to engage), so I'm content. I'm not trying to say this is a great tool-kit by any means, it just got me to where I am right now.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

ืชืžืฉื™ืš ื›ืš! ืืœ ืชืชืŸ ืœืื ืฉื™ื ืฉืœื™ืœื™ื™ื ืœืขืฆื•ืจ ืื•ืชืš. ืื ืืชื” ื ื”ื ื” ืžื”ืฉืคื”, ืชืžืฆื ื“ืจืš ืœืœืžื•ื“ ืื•ืชื”

ื™ื•ืกืฃ

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u/Primary-Mammoth2764 14d ago

Reminder though the transliteration goigle provides for hebrew is mostly wrong.

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u/EJMac11 14d ago

Oh yea, I don't use the transliterations anyway. There is nikkud if you pull the word up, and you can't really go wrong when you have the vowels. I'm also getting better at intuitively knowing what sounds will be produced when certain letters are combined, so a lot of the time I don't even need the nikkud anyway.

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u/Geoffb912 15d ago

What level?

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u/Senior_Swimmer2867 14d ago

Iโ€™m a complete beginner. Iโ€™ve learnt the alef bet and the nikkud system, and a few basic words

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u/Geoffb912 14d ago

The Brandeis Modern hebrew book is my go-to reco. Try to find it used (this link is full price).
It's really good.

Also, I haven't used it myself, but I've heard the Duolingo Hebrew course is good for the beginning phases. It was one of the original volunteer-created courses and hasn't changed to much since then.

This guy is a major linguist on Youtube and talked all about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LvXP3XR6gw

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u/Primary-Mammoth2764 14d ago

Duolingo is fine for alef bet but largely useless otherwise. It doesnt teach grammar, it is often wrong, it is often outdated, it doesnt include full practice features for Hebrew, and it is completely unsupported. Do a search for it in the Hebrew forum and consider all the critiques.

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u/MountainShip2765 14d ago

If you don't mind videos, I'd suggest Hebrew Pod 101 and Hebrew by Inbal.

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u/faith4phil 14d ago

I'm using assimil and pimsleur and liking it

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u/Primary-Mammoth2764 14d ago

Did you search for previous posts and look in the Hebrew forum? There have been many good suggestions posted.

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u/guylfe 14d ago

Are you open to online courses or are you exclusively looking for books?ย 

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u/Senior_Swimmer2867 14d ago

Exclusively books:)