Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

I'd like to reassure people that it is possible to go

from a read-only language to actually speaking.

I just got back from 12 days in Israel and was quite pleased

to realize that I could get by with my 2500 year old vocabulary

and grammar (with some English additions). Once tho I told

the waiter that I wanted tay Ham taHat ha Soda (that I had

originally ordered). He brought me both the tea and the soda. I

learned only later that taHat does not mean "instead of" in

Modern Hebrew.

I had a lot of fun tho. People answered me in ENglish, but

I continued with my BH.

Liz

 

 -----Original Message-----
From: Bearpecs AT aol.com [mailto:Bearpecs AT aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2001 11:23 AM
To: Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: reading hebrew

> In a message dated 6/10/01 10:00:23 AM 
>   Eastern Daylight Time, 
> kfleming AT wctel.net writes: 
> > How do most of you all whose 
> > original language is not Hebrew 
> >     read the Hebrew?
>
>
> I think this is an extremely important 
>   question, and worth our discussing.  I 
> came to Biblical Hebrew after 
>   beginning to learn Modern Hebrew, so I was 
> already speaking and hearing 
>   the language.  That, however, also has its 
> downside:  First, 
>   it's easy to mistakenly apply MH concepts to BH, such as 
> thinking as if 
>   the prefixed verb form indicates future tense (MH) versus 
> imperfective 
>   aspect (BH).  Second, MH conflates sounds, so the distinction 
> between 
>   kaph and qof may be lost (unless your MH teacher is from an 
>   
> Arabic-speaking Sephardic/Oriental community).  (I had the advantage 
>   of some 
> prior linguistics study, so it was easier to understand the MH/BH 
>   
> differences.) 
>
> I'm sure that mentally translating from the second 
>   language into English is 
> an inevitable step in language learning.  (I 
>   remember the first time someone 
> spoke to me in Hebrew and I *didn't* need 
>   to translate before answering.)   
> But I imagine that it must be more 
>   difficult to get beyond that if you are 
> only reading and not speaking and 
>   hearing the language.  Do others agree?  Is 
> anyone familiar with 
>   language-acquisition studies that would answer the 
> question? 
>
> I do 
>   have one small suggestion.  Move as quickly as possible from using 
>   
> vocabulary lists and textbook glossaries to real translations using BDB 
>   and 
> other lexicons.  Also make use of multiple English translations, 
>   including 
> modern and classical, Jewish and Christian.  (I think it's 
>   a significant 
> lacuna that many Christians studying bible don't use the New 
>   JPS 
> translation.)  The danger, of course, is that "wayommer" does NOT 
>   always mean 
> "and ___ said".  It could be "[then] he said", or "but he 
>   will say", etc.   
> Getting in the habit of translating it as "and ___ 
>   said" therefore leads to 
> errors. 
>
> I admit I've never really 
>   mastered a language that is only read, so I'm 
> particularly interested in 
>   hearing from others about that experience. 
>
> ---
> You are 
>   currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [lizfried AT umich.edu]
> To unsubscribe, 
>   forward this message to $subst('Email.Unsub')
> To 
>   subscribe, send an email to 
> join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.