Hebrew Courses

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Steisi
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Postby Steisi » 2007-04-15, 13:48

Kuba wrote:I hope I understood your question right and could help you. If not, than please elucidate even further... ;)


You understood me perfectly, well done ;) I wasn't as clear as I'd wanted to be. I had previously never heard of the mater lectionis thing though. I guess there's no way to tell when yod/vav is posing as a mater lectionis and when it's actually being a consonant without lots of learning?
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Postby Babelfish » 2007-04-15, 19:35

Like Kuba said, consonant vav and yod are often doubled in unvocalized text. You'd be able to tell the difference rather easily in some other cases, for instance, and initial vav/yod is never a mater lectionis (for yod this doesn't mean much, but for vav it does :)). But in general, yes... you have to be familiar with the words you read for that - but this is true for knowing the vowels anyway... :roll:

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Postby MiOB » 2007-04-16, 6:54

It's funny, "Original" Hebrew didn't have any diphthongs at all, that is, you'd say:
"Elat" and not "Eilat" (אילת), "En" and not "Ein" (אין), "Ekh" and not "Eykh" (איך), "Betsa" and not "Beytsa" (ביצה), and even in construct state, you'd say "Binyane Ha'ir" and not "Binyaney Ha'ir" (בנייני העיר), and so on...

Now, isn't it wonderful you don't have to worry about it? :D

But, if you're in an Ashkenazi-Hebrew speaking environment, do worry... :haha:

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Hebrew courses

Postby sfr » 2007-05-03, 3:44

Hello,

I'm definitely interested in learning more Hebrew. I've been in a college level Hebrew class since September of last year so I'm really still at the beginning level. I've learned present and past tenses and I have many books. Of course, I still have a long way to go before I'm completely comfortable with my Hebrew. I'd appreciate any help I can get. And I'm going to figure out how to edit pages and add some things that have helped me so I can help others as well.

Who in this community speaks fluent Hebrew?

sfr

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Postby MiOB » 2007-05-03, 9:59

:welcome:

It's surely great to read that you've already learned the past and present tenses of the Hebrew language, since I guess that leaves you with only the future one. :D

It'd also be easier for us to help you, if you gave us a list of spicifc topics. That way, I (and others) will be able to make exercises for you. :D

You could also go through Unilang's Wiki and see if you find something new for you to learn. :D

As for our native members, we've got Talia (Siegel), Uriah (Babelfish), NulNukm, Jaya and myself. :) There's also Jakob (Kuba), who has a great amount of knowledge of Hebrew and will be just as helpful as a native, and then we also have Luis (Luís) and Ego, whose Hebrew is really really good, but sadly I don't see them around anymore. Hope I didn't forget anyone. :D

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Hebrew Courses

Postby sfr » 2007-05-04, 5:35

I started taking a Hebrew class in college last September. We're using a textbook called Hebrew from Scratch covering present tense and past tense. It's taken all this time to get through the book. Our professor really is easy on us as all our tests are open book and we can look at any books and notes we may have in order to help us remember what we've learned. As I understand it, taking four years of Hebrew here is like taking 2 years of Hebrew in Israel. So, I've probably actually learned approoximately 3 to 4 months worth of beginning Hebrew. I think if I were to fly there tomorrow I'd be able to ask some general questions to find food, stores, a library, museum, hospital, hotel, theatre. If I'm spoken to in Hebrew the person has to speak very slowly. So I still have a lot of studying and learning to do. :newbie:

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Postby sfr » 2007-05-04, 5:53

I'm sorry. I just realized that I basically repeated myself!!! :oops: Anyway, some topics for practice might be the weather, landscapes (describing basic, general geographic features), art, animals, and music. Movies, too. Actually, anything that could be general topics of conversation. Perhaps you could offer some paragraphs for us to read and attempt to translate and/or ask questions about what we read.

I imagine everone in this forum is at different levels of their abilities in Hebrew. Maybe you can write three paragraphs with levelled questions.

I'll take a look at the link you suggested.

Thanks! :)

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Postby AlexandreMsx » 2007-07-04, 17:46

Hello,
anybody knows a good method to learn the hebrew alphabet? Once i saw a webpage (i forgot the adress :roll: ) that it used to have korean and russian alphabets easily. I can read russian (but not understand :twisted: ) My objective is learning the actual language spoke in Israel. I have a question too. If i know the modern hebrew can i read biblical hebrew and vice-versa? uh... that's it... :)

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Postby AlexandreMsx » 2007-07-13, 3:21

http://langintro.com/
This is the webpage i told you about.

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Postby kman1 » 2008-01-04, 17:14

Everyone who is a beginner in Hebrew should check out this website. It is absolutely great! It focuses on Biblical Hebrew but nevertheless it is a great resource and i think it will aid learning a lot. it sure has helped me understand Hebrew verbs A TON!!

www.animatedhebrew.com

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Postby Æxylis » 2008-01-12, 0:23

hello... I am interested in studying biblical hebrew, aramaic, and 'phoenician' ... do you know how close modern hebrew is to biblical hebrew?

and for that matter... how close biblical hebrew is to aramaic and 'phoenician' ?

Also... somebody asked about the letters all looking the same... I thought so too, and this had prevented me from being able to be able to read it for a while... although arabic was no difficulty... but recently I found something which helped me learn it almost instantly...
I looked at the ancient 'phoenician' and early aramaic scripts and compared them to their hebrew counterparts... it's amazing to see just how similar they actually are to their older forms :D

here's some links if you want to check it out 8)
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/phoenician.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/aramaic.htm

and here's another interesting one I've found, which helped me out a bit:
http://www.historian.net/hxwrite.htm

go to the section labeled archaic and aramaic square scripts
the ones that I compared were the 'early aramaic' and the 'great isaiah scroll' ... then the hebrew

hope this helps... it helped me out a bit :D
and thanks in advance... and I'll check out that animated hebrew link... thanx in advance for the help
:)
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Postby Babelfish » 2008-01-12, 19:49

I can only try to answer your first question... I myself hardly think of Biblical and Modern Hebrew as separate languages. It's a bit like Greeks think of Ancient and Modern Greek as different stages of the same language; in Hebrew they're even closer, since grammar rules and word forms are basically the same in both. Some forms used in Biblical Hebrew aren't used in Modern Hebrew (and even less in speech than in writing, as usual...) but wherever I saw descriptions of Hebrew grammar (in Hebrew at least) there was no ancient/modern distinction. The reason is obviously that Hebrew went out of everyday use for more than a millennium, and then reconstructed based on quite ancient texts (although it did undergo a few changes). The main differences would therefore be in vocabulary and style. They should be quite mutually intelligible; I even had short e-mail exchange with a Christian man from Finland who wrote in Biblical style, that was kinda funny :)

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Postby Æxylis » 2008-01-13, 6:01

thanx :D I was kind of hoping as much
I've always thought it was a kewl language, and I've always respected the culture behind it 8)
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Postby NulNuk » 2008-01-13, 10:29

I still remember an US emigrant at the army asking my officer when does he get hes "zayin". :lmao:

we couldn't stop laughing during the entire "boot camp" :0P
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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby Pauro » 2008-12-11, 18:05

שלום everybody!

I've passed through the posts but couldn't find any link nor info.
I need to find a manual of Hebrew for beginners which could be downloaded from the net. A language course could also do but not an online one - I need to have it printed.
Believe it or not but there's no decent publication of this kind in my country... :(

I'll appreciate any links or help in other ways ASAP. :please!?:

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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby BezierCurve » 2008-12-12, 19:04

Believe it or not but there's no decent publication of this kind in my country


Yes, that's sad. The only thing I've found so far was "Samouczek Jezyka Hebrajskiego" with a CD. But I find "Colloquial Hebrew" way better and more interesting, also better explaining things.

I know there are more and more people interested with Hebrew in Poland. Maybe it's time for some real good book... Any volunteers? I can try to do the Polish part and a few illustrations :D

As for the online materials...

Dictionary:
http://www.morfix.co.il/Default.aspx
Some nice course:
http://foundationstone.com.au/HtmlSuppo ... Frame.html
Some grammar: (note, this is not a perfect site for learning, but still informative)
http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Grammar/
Thousands of songs (lyrics):
http://www.shiron.net/
... and a bit less, but with transliteration/translation:
http://www.hebrewsongs.com/
Hebrew site on Polskie Radio:
http://www.polskieradio.pl/zagranica/il/

Hope that some of them are new to you.
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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby Pauro » 2008-12-12, 19:51

That's great! Most of them are new to me. Thank you :thanks:
How come you know Polish editions? Did you get 'Samouczek' ? I don't think it's good though.

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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby BezierCurve » 2008-12-12, 22:05

How come you know Polish editions? Did you get 'Samouczek' ?


Cos I'm Polish too :P
I bought that book some time ago when I visited my family.
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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby chatul » 2008-12-25, 23:08

Did you get 'Samouczek' ? I don't think it's good though

it's crap... i mean it would have been a nice book after all, but as for a self-learn book it has TONS of mistakes. mainly spelling, but not only. like they 'forget' to tell you that when you make plural forms of ילד and ילדה there's a change in nikud. and i just 'explode' inside when i see אישה written as אשה.and it's written like that most of the time...
fortunatelly i learn hebrew on a course (from a different book), otherwise i'd be totaly lost with that book...

http://www.iwrit.pl <--- this site is nice, i use the dictionary very often.
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Re: Hebrew Courses

Postby BezierCurve » 2008-12-26, 1:46

Hi Chatul :)

like they 'forget' to tell you that when you make plural forms of ילד and ילדה there's a change in nikud.


True, there are many things that you have to find out by yourself, like one you've mentioned.

However, אישה written as אשה is not a mistake.There are many words with different spelling where yod is omitted just like here. As for the dictionary I think that Morfix is the best one so far. Although I admit that ivrit.pl has a very nice accent/gender implementation and also I like the idea of sample sentences for each word.
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