Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Steve Westfall" <steve.westfall AT comcast.net>]

Martin,

Since you asked the same question on both the b-hebrew and b-greek lists,
I'm replying once and copying it to both lists.

Dave Washburn is absolutely right.  Reading, even if it's only a couple of
verses a day, is the best thing for you.  Over time you'll probably find
that you are able to read a greater amount of text in the same amount of
time.  It's better to read just a little bit than to be overly ambitious,
get frustrated and give up because you don't have time to read an entire
chapter a day.

At some point, it would be good to drag out the introductory grammar that
you originally learned the language from and start reviewing it.  (Or
perhaps start working your way through a different introductory grammar.
I'm doing that now with Funk's Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic
Greek.)  The reason for this is that even if you recognize vocabulary and
most sentence structure, you will have forgotten some of the grammatical
distinctions that you probably originally learned, and in your reading of
the text you will be missing some important things without being aware of it
(e.g. case usage in Greek).

I may provoke a few negative comments by saying this, but I also think it's
important not to get bogged down and spend most of your time looking up
vocabulary in the lexicon.  If you have to, it would be better at first to
"cheat" by glancing from time to time at a translation.  The point of the
exercise initially is actually to read some sentences in Greek or Hebrew,
not do a word study.  Over time this crutch will become less necessary, and
you can rely on the lexicon without it consuming all your time.

Good luck in a noble cause!

Steve Westfall
Naperville, Illinois

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Dave Washburn
Sent: Mon, February 23, 2004 5:05 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew "brush-up" tools


On Monday 23 February 2004 15:04, Martin Egerup wrote:
> Hi,
>
> After a few semesters of not working with biblical hebrew, Im trying to
> brush up on the language again. It is amazing how much you forget in that
> time ;-) When I started I found good help in learning from Greek Tutor and
> Hebrew Tutor, and would like to use such a tool to brush up on the two
> languages. But since a few years have passed since I used these tools, I
> wondered if something better has become available.
>
> My question is, what would you recommend for this application?
>
> Yours,
>
> Martin Egerup

Martin,
I can sum up my recommendation in one word: READ.  Grab your BHS or whatever
text you use, a decent lexicon such as Holladay's, and read a few lines
every
day.  You might also see if you can pick up an old copy of Heinrich Bitzer's
"Light on the Path" which has daily readings in Hebrew and Greek.  There's a
second volume, "More Light on the Path" by David Baker, but I found it very
poorly done.  Bitzer's book is out of print, but there are copies floating
around here and there.  In the meantime, just pick a book - I like Samuel
and
Kings, myself - and start reading.  That's the best brush-up there is.

--
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Learning about Christianity from a non-Christian
is like getting a kiss over the telephone.

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