I first wanted to learn some introductory Hebrew for a tourist trip to Israel. The trip got postponed from 1990 to 1996 due to Desert Storm and the Gulf War. There weren't many resources available in the late 1980s to a young man living in Oklahoma.
There wasn't any internet yet. I ordered the famous, or infamous, FSI course. FSI stands for the Foreign Service Institute. These are courses created by the US government, supposedly used to teach military and/or diplomats.
The cassette tapes that came with FSI were useful, but the book lacked a lot. It was designed by the government for an instructor to use in a classroom environment, NOT for an individual to use for self study. Even today, I have never gone back to complete that book.
Back then, Borders was building it's first huge book stores in large cities. On a business trip, I visited one, and found a small selection of Hebrew books not normally found in other bookstores. The book that helped me master the alphabet was a "reader" that was full of practice exercises of reading short two to four letter syllables or words.
I started going to synagogue, where I learned some of the Hebrew prayers. As a musical person, I really got into some of the melodies, and would often go home and practice the tunes and words from some of my favorites. The weekly repetition added to the learning experience.
Mansoor's book "Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step" was a good introduction to the Hebrew of the scriptures. Later, a group of us studied Weingreen's "Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew", which took us about two years doing one or two lessons per week.
To really know Hebrew, one must study both Biblical and Modern. I remember using two short courses that were books that came with 3 or 4 cassette tapes: "Hugo Language Course: Hebrew in Three Months" and also Eliezar Tirkel's "Every Hebrew". I found that I liked the Hugo course slightly better, but learned something from each.
In 2005, I registered for Hebrew IV and V via an online course offered by Hebrew College in Boston. It used the text "Hebrew From Scratch - Part II" (with 5 CDs available). Even though I audited the course, it was required to submit homework weekly, and meet with our teacher online for about 45 minutes per week. Later, I went on to take other classes, which include an introduction to Aramaic via the Talmud, and classes that required reading Medieval Hebrew (such as aggadic literature).
Unfortunately, I still can't speak Hebrew as well as I would like. My journey is still continuing. By creating software, and teaching others, I continue to learn each and every day. - 20785
There wasn't any internet yet. I ordered the famous, or infamous, FSI course. FSI stands for the Foreign Service Institute. These are courses created by the US government, supposedly used to teach military and/or diplomats.
The cassette tapes that came with FSI were useful, but the book lacked a lot. It was designed by the government for an instructor to use in a classroom environment, NOT for an individual to use for self study. Even today, I have never gone back to complete that book.
Back then, Borders was building it's first huge book stores in large cities. On a business trip, I visited one, and found a small selection of Hebrew books not normally found in other bookstores. The book that helped me master the alphabet was a "reader" that was full of practice exercises of reading short two to four letter syllables or words.
I started going to synagogue, where I learned some of the Hebrew prayers. As a musical person, I really got into some of the melodies, and would often go home and practice the tunes and words from some of my favorites. The weekly repetition added to the learning experience.
Mansoor's book "Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step" was a good introduction to the Hebrew of the scriptures. Later, a group of us studied Weingreen's "Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew", which took us about two years doing one or two lessons per week.
To really know Hebrew, one must study both Biblical and Modern. I remember using two short courses that were books that came with 3 or 4 cassette tapes: "Hugo Language Course: Hebrew in Three Months" and also Eliezar Tirkel's "Every Hebrew". I found that I liked the Hugo course slightly better, but learned something from each.
In 2005, I registered for Hebrew IV and V via an online course offered by Hebrew College in Boston. It used the text "Hebrew From Scratch - Part II" (with 5 CDs available). Even though I audited the course, it was required to submit homework weekly, and meet with our teacher online for about 45 minutes per week. Later, I went on to take other classes, which include an introduction to Aramaic via the Talmud, and classes that required reading Medieval Hebrew (such as aggadic literature).
Unfortunately, I still can't speak Hebrew as well as I would like. My journey is still continuing. By creating software, and teaching others, I continue to learn each and every day. - 20785
About the Author:
Neal Walters started creating his own interactive Hebrew tutorials to make learning Hebrew faster and easier. You can see video demos of his courses at http://HebrewResources.com.
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