Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Hebrew Profile

  Tags: Hebrew
 Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing Post Reply
29 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4  Next >>
AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6584 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 29
19 March 2006 at 2:25pm | IP Logged 
I would like to write a Hebrew language profile. Is this okay, Francois?
Hopefully others will make suggestions once you post it.

Edited by Fasulye on 22 April 2011 at 7:01pm

1 person has voted this message useful



administrator
Hexaglot
Forum Admin
Switzerland
FXcuisine.com
Joined 7135 days ago

3094 posts - 2987 votes 
12 sounds
Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 2 of 29
19 March 2006 at 2:32pm | IP Logged 
Yes, you are most welcome to do it, and welcome to the forum by the way!
1 person has voted this message useful



AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6584 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 29
19 March 2006 at 3:36pm | IP Logged 
Should I just post it when I am finished, or should I email it to you?
1 person has voted this message useful



administrator
Hexaglot
Forum Admin
Switzerland
FXcuisine.com
Joined 7135 days ago

3094 posts - 2987 votes 
12 sounds
Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 4 of 29
19 March 2006 at 3:58pm | IP Logged 
Take the French profile as an example and post it in the Collaborative Writing Room.
1 person has voted this message useful



AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6584 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 29
19 March 2006 at 5:52pm | IP Logged 
Hebrew language profile:

Difficulty ****
Popularity **
Transparency
GDP $163 billion
Countries 1
Speakers 7 million

USEFULNESS
Israelis are highly educated, and many speak English. However, because
of a high immigration rate to Israel, many Israelis speak only their native
tongue in addition to Hebrew. As a result, a firm grasp of Hebrew is
really useful when visiting Israel. Also, knowledge of modern Hebrew will
allow you to start understanding the Hebrew Bible (ancient Hebrew) in it’s
original, unadulterated form.

CHIC FACTOR
Hebrew is not an easy language to learn, so if you teach yourself Hebrew
you will likely be seen as a very intelligent person. Hebrew can be
considered chic due to difficulty alone. It is very popular among jews and
people visiting or moving to Israel.

Here is an example of a friend’s knowledge of Hebrew becoming public
knowledge. A friend of mine was partially raised in Israel and is fluent in
Hebrew. She was by herself one day in a bookstore, reading and minding
her own business when suddenly she heard two other girls talking about
her – in Hebrew! They obviously “knew” that she had no idea what they
were saying until she turned to them and said “I speak Hebrew” in
Hebrew. They were shocked and started asking her a million questions.

It is my opinion that printed Hebrew looks very beautiful and is a pleasure
to able to read.

COUNTRIES
Hebrew is an officially language only in Israel, but it is spoken in
synagogues and jewish communities around the world. Many Hebrew
words survive in the Yiddish language.

SPEAKERS
Roughly 7 million people speak Hebrew in Israel, the West Bank, and the
United States.

ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
Israel is on the cutting edge of high technology and is often referred to as
a second Silicon Valley, largely due to Israel’s strong emphasis on
education and desire to get the most benefit out of limited resources.
Anyone interested in the venture capital field would do well by learning
Hebrew.

Hebrew-speaking Israel is an important contributor of basic science,
computer, and medical research. Large companies such as Microsoft and
Intel developed some of their most important products in Israel.   

TRAVEL
Israel is of great importance to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There
are many incredible places to visit, including all of Israel’s UNESCO sites,
countless biblical sites and cities, Muslim mosques, Christian Orthodox
churches, museums for art and history, many wineries, unique
architecture, the Dead Sea and other interesting geography.

Israel has a lot of great food due to fresh produce constantly arriving
from local kibbutzes.

VARIATIONS
There aren’t really any Hebrew dialects, only different accents.

CULTURE
Hebrew television is essentially non-existent outside of Israel. Israel does
produce many movies and a lot of popular music, the majority of which is
in Hebrew. Movies and music can be obtained online with minimal effort.

Besides Wikipedia in Hebrew, there is plenty to read in Hebrew online.
Just do a Google search for “Hebrew news”.

DIFFICULTY
I rate this language as ****. The alphabet can be learned in one day.
There are no vowel letters in Hebrew, only little dots and dashes, called
nikkud, under the consonants. Reading can be difficult for beginners
without the nikkud. However, it is recommended that you learn to
pronounce Hebrew words through transliteration rather than the nikkud
so that you can read unpointed Hebrew as quickly as possible.

PRONUNCIATION
Hebrew is not very difficult to pronounce. All sounds in Hebrew are also
common in English except for the ‘kh” sound, where ‘kh’ = Bach
(guttural).

Guttural ‘r’.

GRAMMAR
Kind of easy and kind of hard. Overall, I don’t think it’s any harder than
German grammar, just different.

Easy-
Like English, word order is SVO (subject-verb-object). Only one way to
say ‘the’.

Hard-
Two genders (masc. and fem.). Only three major tenses but seven
different forms of conjugation. Verbs conjugated by both gender and
number.


VOCABULARY
Aside from borrowed words, Hebrew words are very different that what
Europeans and Americans are used to seeing.

TRANSPARENCY
Hebrew does not look anything like Germanic, Romance, or Slavic
languages. Perhaps Hebrew will be easier if you already know Aramaic.

SPELLING
Hebrew is not too hard to spell since you don’t have to write the vowels.
Just listen for the consonants and write them down. There are some
tricky parts to spelling though. For example, several letters are written
differently if they are at the end of a word. Four letters have two
different, though similar, sounds. And there are two different letter for
‘t’. All in all, it’s pretty easy.

TIME NEEDED
With constant study, fluency can be reached within a year or two.

BOOKS
The best series of books I have seen are
-Hebrew: A Language Course - primer
-Hebrew: A Language Course - level one
-Hebrew: A Language Course - level two
-Hebrew: A Language Course - level three

Other good books are
-Colloquial Hebrew (Colloquial Series + audio CD)
-A Textbook of Israeli Hebrew
-Lonely Planet Hebrew Phrasebook (has a good grammar summary)

And of course, Pimsleur Hebrew I

Edited by AML on 20 March 2006 at 4:11pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



administrator
Hexaglot
Forum Admin
Switzerland
FXcuisine.com
Joined 7135 days ago

3094 posts - 2987 votes 
12 sounds
Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 6 of 29
20 March 2006 at 12:19am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the profile! I have some questions:

AML wrote:
CULTURE
Hebrew television is essentially non-existent outside of Israel. Israel does
produce many movies and a lot of popular music, the majority of which is
in Hebrew. Movies and music can be obtained online with minimal effort.

Besides Wikipedia in Hebrew, there is plenty to read in Hebrew online.
Just do a Google search for “Hebrew news”.


Apart from TV and Internet, are there many movies short in Hebrew? How about Hebrew language music, I remember there were a couple singers, is there much choice? Is there much you can do with Modern Hebrew if you are jewish in the world of religion, or is it a different language altogether? How about books, are there many books published in Hebrew, can one buy them from abroad?


AML wrote:
TRANSPARENCY
Hebrew does not look anything like Germanic, Romance, or Slavic
languages. Perhaps Hebrew will be easier if you already know Aramaic.

Yes it's not close to Romance languages, but does Hebrew have any resemblance to Arabic or other Semitic languages? How much of a headstart does it give you if you are fluent in Hebrew and wish to start Arabic?

Thanks

1 person has voted this message useful



AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6584 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 7 of 29
20 March 2006 at 1:08am | IP Logged 
You're right. There are many words in Hebrew that are kind of similar to
Arabic words. For example,

hebrew/arabic

'no' = lo/la
'day' = yom/youm
'father' = aba/ab
'peace' = shalom/salaam

and many others. So yes, knowing Hebrew would make learning Arabic a
little bit easier in terms of vocabulary. I can't give a percentage though,
because I would only be guessing.

My impression is that there is a lot of music in hebrew. Here's a website I
found:
On the left are links for all kinds of
music in Hebrew. I don't really listen to it yet, so I'm not familar with
particular artists
.

There are many similarities to modern and ancient hebrew. Afterall,
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda adapted many modern Hebrew words from the
Classical Hebrew found in the bible. The alphabet is the same, so reading
the Hebrew Bible in the original is possible. However, understanding it
will be only partially possible. Again, I can't give a percentage.

Here is a great website for
books, CDs, and DVDs in Hebrew
.

Edited by AML on 20 March 2006 at 1:09am

1 person has voted this message useful



AML
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6584 days ago

323 posts - 426 votes 
2 sounds
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, German, Spanish

 
 Message 8 of 29
15 April 2006 at 1:51am | IP Logged 
ok, looks good to post.


1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 29 messages over 4 pages: 2 3 4  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3633 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.