Eight Steps for the Beginning Hebrew Student

by Neal Walters The first goal for a beginning Hebrew student is to learn how to read and pronounce Hebrew words and sentences, even if the the student doesn’t understand the meaning. Hebrew does not use the Latin alphabet used by most of the western world. The student must learn how to recognoize and pronounce 22 Hebrew letters and several vowel points, which are written above or below the consonants. Believe it or not, students don’t learn Hebrew for the same reasons, and you, too, should examine your goals. Is your goal to learn to read the Hebrew scriptures, or is it to talk to your cousin in Israel? Or maybe you are trying to learn to pray the traditional prayers in Hebrew. One tool for beginning to learn Biblical Hebrew is to learn the basic vocabulary. You can get list of Hebrew words and their frequency of use, so it makes sense to learn the most popular words first. We offer the “Top 400 Words of the Hebrew Bible” as an audio-product on 4 CDs, or it’s also included within our beginner software tutorial. If you learn how to conjugate Hebrew verbs, it will help you with both Biblical and Modern Hebrew. Even though there are minor differences, the verb conjugation is basically the same. While many nouns overlap between the two, the subjet matter is quite different. Hebrew words with various silent or interchangeable letters may confuse beginning students. In Hebrew, there are two silent letters “ALEPH” and “AYIN” that students often mix up. Further, there are two letters “SHIN” and “SAMECH” that have the “S” sound, and two letters “TAV” and “TET” that have the “T” sound. Hebrew numbers come in two forms, masculine and feminine. So you basically have to learn to count to 10 two different ways. Learning to tell time and doing simple math problems are great ways to enforce the learning of numbers. Games certainly make learning fun, especially for children. It is common for Hebrew study to begin at age 3 for Jewish children. So if you are wondering if your child can learn Hebrew, the answer is a resounding YES! Most students of modern Hebrew must also learn the cursive letters. This is almost like learning a second Hebrew alphabet, because they are quite different from their printed counterparts. The time-tested method of writing the letters over-and-over on lined paper works today as well as it did years ago. See “At Home with Hebrew” to view videos of the above features at our Learn Hebrew Alphabet website. This article is available as a unique content article with free reprint rights.