Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Paul Zellmer" <zellmer AT digitelone.com>]

Jane Harper wrote:

<snip>

> Now, I've been running around like a decapitated chicken this summer
trying NOT to forget all the
> rules I learned, how to conjugate I-nun verbs in Hiphil, what happens
to hollow verbs in pi'el,
> the whole megillah of multiple prepositions and how they change in
meaning .. you get the picture.
> So, to the many experienced teachers on this list I have to ask:  how
much of that stuff do you
> REALLY expect someone to remember at the beginning of the second year?
And how big is it
> realistic to expect someone's vocabulary to be at the end of the first
year, in terms of sight
> reading without a lexicon?
>
Hey, Jane!

I can't really speak for those teaching in the academic settings, and I
certainly cannot know what are the expectations of the instructors at
your school, but I basically expect my first year students to be able to
find the paradigm for the form under the correct root (in the cases of
strong roots) and, if the root is weak, to have two or three places to
start looking.   While we do touch on the formation of verb and noun
forms, and the sight recognition of some of the more common irregular
nouns is expected, basically my goal is to get the student to the point
that he is not dependent on a translated text for clues as to where to
start.

Vocabulary?  I never counted it, but I would say my expectations would
be the sight-identification (that's different from an accurate sight
reading) of about 100 root forms.  I get a sense of accomplishment if
the student can translate 70-80% of a passage without having to look
into a lexicon, and can find the remaining 20-30% in the helps.  Of
course, by the end of the intermediate level training, I expect the
student to only hit the lexicons to research questions and determine the
meanings of roots with very few occurrences.  And even those meanings
the student will should have already guessed at by the context (whether
or not those guesses are accurate).

> Second question: how do people EVER learn to read Hebrew without the
pointing?  In so many cases
> it seems that the difference between one binyan and another is
entirely in the vowels ... how can
> context help in that instance?
>
I believe it can only be done with the tutorage of a speaker of the
language.  To learn the language from an unpointed text definitely
requires more input than the simple observance of the text on the
page--there needs be an accurate pronouncing of the text.  After that,
the student should be able to pick up on contextual clues.  To show how
those clues would work, take an English sentence and remove the vowels.
Try, "Lts g swmmng n th lk."  You probably can pretty well figure out
what is being said here, and you don't even have the bigger context for
the sentence.

HTH,

Paul