Learn Hebrew with Pictures and Audio

March 30, 2009 4:45 PM

Learn Hebrew with Pictures and Audio.
posted by Effigy2000 (20 comments total)

ראשון!
posted by mullingitover at 4:52 PM on March 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

They shouldn't add the vowel points, which aren't used in normal printed Hebrew and get the student into the bad habit of depending on them; it's especially pointless because they give a transliteration that provides the vowels anyway.
posted by languagehat at 5:00 PM on March 30, 2009

Languagehat: My siddur (Artscroll Complete) has vowel points, and that will be my main use of Hebrew.

Thanks! I'll add this to my list of home pages (my mail account, facebook, metafilter, other social sites, and another Learn Hebrew site, Learn the Hebrew Alphabet. I just just JUST started learning, so this will be really helpful.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 5:33 PM on March 30, 2009

haha when we went to israel i was learning hebrew thru books on tape. the only thing i remember is "aifo kikau rabin?" (where is rabin square?)
posted by jcruelty at 5:35 PM on March 30, 2009

also i thought it was funny that the israel guidebook we had contained arabic & hebrew phrases in the back, and one of the arabic phrases was "hamoot" ("i feel like i'm about to die")

pretty sure i'm not making that up... came in handy on the cab ride into egypt
posted by jcruelty at 5:36 PM on March 30, 2009

"Lagamal sheli yesh shilshul" is clearly the only phrase you are likely to need.
posted by Krrrlson at 6:19 PM on March 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

About ten years ago in the East Village, my buddy and I returned to his car to find two police officers sitting in it. "Some people broke into your car, but we got them." The only thing in the car at the time of the break-in was a set of Yiddish language instruction tapes. I like to imagine the thieves sitting in their jail cell complaining: "Man! Now we'll NEVER learn Yiddish!"
posted by haricotvert at 8:20 PM on March 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

Learning a list of 425 isolated words without any context is of limited value to the aspiring speaker. That is not to say it is without value. I think it'd be very handy to learn these in order to cement the Hebrew alefbet in your mind (ie: it gives you something concrete to associate the letters to), though as my good friend Mr. Hat notes ... don't really need the nikkud. Just don't fall into the trap of imagining that a language is merely a string of disparate words. You might have a great vocabulary, but if you lack the grammar to put that vocabulary to good use, you really don't have much.

And looking them up piecemeal in a dictionary format is probably not very efficient either. I'd probably wanna ANKI-fy the data myself.

There really aren't very many online resources for the Modern Hebrew learner yet. What's out there are a few podcasts that are little more than audio phrasebooks; no real methodical approach to the grammar. A couple robust sites are aimed at ultra-serious olim making aliyah; they cost hundreds of dollars and involve a lot of Skyping and/or teleconferencing.
posted by RavinDave at 10:07 PM on March 30, 2009

Pdoccasts in this instance are worthless, your best bet is to get Rosetta Stone Hebrew Levels 1 & 2. No lying it truly helped learn Hebrew, and being a frequent traveler to Israel, I could say I've helped up some very good conversations. It is a bit costly, but torrents exist....
posted by Eugenek at 11:50 PM on March 30, 2009

I can't find much value in Rosetta Stone. Beyond the crushing tedium of the process, it ultimately boils down to a guessing game. In far too many cases, you don't even need to understand a given sentence at all -- you just have to be adept at picking out key words. "Oh, I heard the word 'kelev', better click on the picture with the dog in it."

I don't mean to mock it. Obviously you found it useful -- which is great. And they certainly sell a lot of copies. I just can't see what the fuss is.
posted by RavinDave at 11:58 PM on March 30, 2009

אם אתה יודע לקרוא את זה אתה כנראה לא זקוק לאתר!

בלי קשר, אני מסכימה עם אחרים שאמרו שללמוד מלא מילים בלי קשר למשפטים ולחוקי דקדוק זה כמעט חסר-ערך.

עכשיו אני מרגישה כמו בשיחה על שפת מרוס שכולם כתבו בנקודות וקווים... רק עם שפה שאני לא צריכה מתרגם כדי להבין!
posted by alon at 1:25 AM on March 31, 2009

Nikud is fairly standard in early learning Hebrew materials, languagehat. All my Hebrew language childrens books use them throughout, and there is (or was) in Israel an easy Hebrew weekly newspaper aimed at adults, Sha'ar LeMatchil, which uses nikud extensively. Having said which, nikud was dropped at a very early stage in my ulpan class - they are essentially linguistic training wheels, and in my experience were taught as such. The point is, I think, that you eventually need to know what the vowels which aren't there are, and there are subtle issues of grammar - words or word combinations where the vowels are not what you would expect - which would become extremely hard to teach without teaching the vowels first.
posted by motty at 2:56 AM on March 31, 2009

RavinDave: except I choose to look at this as exercises to practice my pronunciation on words I honestly don't know yet.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 4:11 AM on March 31, 2009

your best bet is to get Rosetta Stone Hebrew Levels 1 & 2. No lying it truly helped learn Hebrew...

Eugenek:I thought your comment was some really crappy advertising from the Rosetta Stone people, and was about to huffily contact a mod, until I noticed the end of your comment: It is a bit costly, but torrents exist..... Yeah, you definitely don't work for them.

My Dad actually started learning Hebrew recently. He uses a webcam and joins a virtual classroom with a few people, and they all learn from a teacher based in Jerusalem. He is really fascinated by Hebrew, and sits me down now to bore me all about it. 'The teacher says her family has lived in Israel for 9 generations, isn't that fascinating, son?' (He really calls me son). 'Next time I speak to her, I am going to tell her my family have lived in Israel for 45 generations!' My Dad is Palestinian, and a smart ass.
posted by marmaduke_yaverland at 4:53 AM on March 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

Is this how you join the secret conspiracy to rule the world? Sign me up. Oy.
posted by MuffinMan at 6:44 AM on March 31, 2009

I've been looking for a good online site to send my students to, for practicing Hebrew letter recognition and pronunciation. Does anyone know of a site that's a little more spiffy (flash-based, etc) than languagehat's nice reference?
posted by ericbop at 6:54 AM on March 31, 2009

Nikud is fairly standard in early learning Hebrew materials, languagehat.

I know that; I studied Hebrew using such materials. I just think it's a lousy idea.

The point is, I think, that you eventually need to know what the vowels which aren't there are, and there are subtle issues of grammar - words or word combinations where the vowels are not what you would expect - which would become extremely hard to teach without teaching the vowels first.

Yes, of course, but the way to teach the vowels is through transcription and/or audio. You don't need the vowel points, they're distracting and they make it harder to recognize the words when you take off the training wheels. I've been there, I know.
posted by languagehat at 1:32 PM on March 31, 2009

Nice start, but how do I say 'thank you?'
posted by iamays at 9:55 PM on March 31, 2009

iamys:

תודה רבה

"toda raba" /toe-DAH roh-BAH/ (or just simply: "toda" )
posted by RavinDave at 10:49 PM on March 31, 2009

Quick note: Just got an email that Hebrew Foundation Stone software just updated.

Yeah, it's free.
posted by RavinDave at 2:49 PM on April 2, 2009