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What material is recommended for Hebrew? | ||
Tags: Hebrew | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 1 of 15 29 April 2012 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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After I finish doing some more French and Russian, I feel like the Hebrew language might be the follow-up to start. I have not purchased anything yet, but I've browsed around a little bit and tried to find good starting material for Hebrew. I've seen the following books and courses that piqued my interest (note: there is no Pimsleur or MT on this list since I always want to do both written and spoken language).
Colloquial Hebrew (seems to be a fairly good course overall from the reviews) FSI Hebrew (looks VERY thorough and I would enjoy working through this but they assume familiarity with the alphabet... uh... that I don't have) Teach Yourself Modern Complete Hebrew (I think this one is pretty crap) Esther Raizen's Modern Hebrew for Beginners (also rumoured to be pretty good). There's also Assimil's French base course which I might use but then my French would have to substantially improve. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| krotox Diglot Newbie Poland Joined 5054 days ago 14 posts - 28 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2 Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 15 29 April 2012 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know anything about good starting material for Hebrew, however as you have mentioned Assimil I can let you know that I asked them (e-mail) 5 weeks ago about their future releases for French and English speakers and their answer was something like:
'We have just published a Russian course for English speakers and we are preparing courses for Hebrew and Yiddish. We will also release several courses for French speakers as Perfectionnement Allemand, Arabe & Italien' So I thnik there is a big chance that Assimil's English base course for Hebrew will be available in 2012. Edited by krotox on 29 April 2012 at 1:56pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| HenryMW Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5175 days ago 125 posts - 179 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 15 29 April 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been using FSI. My progress has been slow, but that has been mostly for other
reasons. I would say the course is solid, but it leaves you with a relatively small vocabulary. My suspicion is that you would not be fluent at the end because of the limited vocabulary (about 900 words), but it's free so I would say it's definitely worth it. I was already able to read Hebrew when I started, but I couldn't write it. I used a book I got from Amazon for $10 that was great. It teaches reading too. It's designed for children and has a lot of religious themes, but it works. http://www.amazon.com/The-Hebrew-Primer-Pearl-Tarnor/dp/0874 416779/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1335709136&sr=8-1 After I'm done with FSI, I'm not sure what I'll do. I get the impression that I'll be left with a strong command of the grammar and a medium vocabulary. Hope this helps, and good luck. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 4 of 15 29 April 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||
One factor that pushed me to try Assimil French is that Hebrew (and Yiddish) were only available as French base. I'm liking Assimil and liking learning French, but that's pretty exciting to hear that I may have that option soon! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mistermark21 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4613 days ago 23 posts - 26 votes Studies: Swedish* Studies: French, German, Spanish, Polish | Message 5 of 15 29 April 2012 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Pimsleur have a good course, i learned quite a lot from it. As for the reading/writing i wouldnt know.
Whatever you do, stay away from "Hebrew For Dummies"... it was a terrible book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 15 29 April 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have no doubt Pimsleur make good courses but they are expensive and completely not what I am looking for.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| csjc Tetraglot Newbie IcelandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5601 days ago 20 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English*, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Dutch Studies: Norwegian, French, Japanese | Message 7 of 15 30 April 2012 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Colloquial Hebrew is fairly good. So is the Routledge Introductory Course in Modern Hebrew. I've never used
Raizen's books but they have a very good reputation. I took Hebrew for years in school and we used Ora Band's "Hebrew: A Language Course", which I found to be really well structured. The Assimil course looks decent but I haven't spent enough time looking through it to pass judgement. Edited by csjc on 30 April 2012 at 2:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tarshish Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4696 days ago 13 posts - 34 votes Speaks: English*, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 15 06 May 2012 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I did a post on this a little while back:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=30851&PN=1&TPN=1#354325 What I would add now: I have the new Assimil Hebrew (L'hebreu) and am curious how to see the English version will turn out: Pros: Does not assume you know the alphabet/also teaches Hebrew cursive script early on in the course Gives a lot of cultural information which is especially important if you are unfamiliar with Jewish/Israeli culture Very good translation (translated word for word and paraphrased on separate lines) Overall pretty thorough and organized Cons: Uses niqqud throughout (see linked post above for my thoughts on that) Expected the audio to be more genuine. It didn't sound authentic (very "introductory course" style) and was unrealistically slow throughout as opposed to the best Assimil courses which present more authentic sounding audio. If you know the alphabet (which I recommend knowing cold before even starting the language itself) the first 28 lessons are almost a total waste which leaves only 57 lessons. Your French must be pretty good by the looks of things Overall I don't think it is as good as the Routledge Course which in comparison has better audio, similar number of dialogues (if not more), is cheaper ($55 on Amazon), has more and better exercises and other readings, tons of online content and of course is in English. The Routledge is truly the best intro book/audio package I have seen. The Glinert Essential Grammar is something I would recommed after one did the Routledge. As for FSI, I have looked at that as well and found it to be somewhat old-fashioned (which is a big deal in Modern Hebrew- a mid 1960's course doesn't do a great job of teaching the language as spoken today) and the audio is poor quality and structured in a somewhat frustrating way. In all the two best books I have seen are Routledge for absolute beginners (who pretty much know the alphabet) and Glinert Essential grammar for more advanced. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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