Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>]

Hi Karl (and anybody else interested in contributing),

This is one of those things I've wanted to do for a 
long time but never really got round to doing anything 
about it. My basic ideas are as follows:

Licensing:

I'm not a complete expert on licensing or on which 
license would best suit our needs but my basic feelings 
are that whatever license we choose it should preserve 
the following principles:

i) Make the course available to all with an interest 
in learning hebrew
ii) Make it impossible to make a profit on our work 
with the exception of where there is a guarantee that 
any profit returned will only be invested in furthering 
the cause (e.g. printing and distributing bibles, 
improving the course etc.)

Are your feelings similar? Anything you would like to 
add?

Methodology:

The courses aim should be to bring the student to be 
able to read and understand as much authentic (non-
doctored) hebrew text as possible in as short a time 
as possible. The course should therefore be semantically 
oriented and not grammar oriented. My feelings are that 
if we use the most popular occuring n-grams as shown in 
my frequency tables 
(http://www.lamie.org/hebrew/frequency.php) that a 
student can quickly arrive at a point where substantial 
amounts of authentic text are readable without the 
drudgery of traditional grammar bashings.

My experience as a CELTA qualified english teacher has 
shown me that students get a better grasp of grammar 
when they learn it through it experience rather than 
being presented with it with no stimulus to learn it. 
A student exposed to enough examples of third person 
singular verbs can notice the similarities in prefixes 
and suffixes and eventually work out the identifying 
morphemes for themselves. This is the natural way of 
learning grammar and linguistic research shows that 
this is the best way for learning to be permanent 
rather than your classic 'oh dear I've got a hebrew 
exam tomorrow I'd best learn this conjugation quickly 
so I can pass the exam tomorrow and forget it by the 
day after tomorrow'.

Any thoughts?

James Christian Read
BSc Computer Science (thesis: concept driven machine translation using the 
Aleppo codex)
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew 









-----Original Message-----
From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:14:20 -0700
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Sam 17:16

Dear James:

On 8/7/07, JAMES CHRISTIAN READ <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hi Karl,
>
> …
> This brings us on to another point worthy of discussion
> on this list. I personally, am against pointed text,
> for the reason which you have amply illustrated with
> this example. I have thought about compiling a beginners
> course in biblical hebrew which teaches the reader, from
> the very outset, to read unpointed text in the hopes that
> students will be raised with good instincts and the
> ability to rely on them rather than a pointed text.
> Would that be a project you be interested in participating
> in Karl?
>
> James Christian Read
> BSc Computer Science (thesis: concept driven machine translation using the 
> Aleppo codex)
> http://www.lamie.org/hebrew

Uri Hurvitz sent me (I thought he sent it to the list) a reference to
an article http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleId=675 from someone
who is teaching students to read Hebrew without points as well as with
points. However, when I wrote the author, I got no response (it's
possible he never got my letter). I'd rather start with someone else's
efforts than "reinvent the wheel", giving him credit.

I was afraid that I would have to compile a beginners course on my
own, I would far rather do so as a collaborative effort. As for
licensing, how about open source or something similar?

My dictionary was written with the goal of helping the student, rather
than satisfying the scholar. Wherever I noticed that a form could have
come from two or more sources, I list it pointing to the sources.
Because of this emphasis on the student, it is only natural that I be
interested in a course for beginners, based on the unpointed text.

Thanks for the idea.

Yours, Karl W. Randolph.
rg/Article.aspx?ArticleId=675 from someone
who is teaching students to read Hebrew without points as well as