Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Hi Peter,

PB: In short, it is my opinion that if you are reading unpointed text,  
but not coming up with some sort of pronunciation, and instead moving  
directly to English, you are not really reading but ad-hoc  
translating. The goal of reading unpointed text is to be able to read  
lexically without being slowed down by moving through all of the  
vowel points phonetically. And of course there are all sorts of  
exceptions and nuances to be made to my distinction between "reading"  
and "ad-hoc translating" so take it as a general statement.

JCR: I agree, in principle, with what you are saying 
and would not suggest for a minute that associating 
English words with Hebrew consonant clusters is the 
'right' way to learn to read Hebrew. I was just 
stating why I didn't find his suggestions to be 
ludicrous but plausible.

I agree with learning Hebrew pronunciations for 
Hebrew words, no matter how approximate those 
pronunciations may be, because with the exception of 
concrete nouns (e.g. names of specific animals) and 
a few commonly used verbs (e.g. eat, drink, sleep) 
there is rarely a 100% 1:1 mapping between words in 
one language and words in another. Having a Hebrew 
phonetic label to attach to a Hebrew concept allows 
the reader to create his own unique, cognitive 
understanding of the Hebrew concept without all the 
baggage of being limited by limitations of expression 
that exist in their first language.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science 
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew       -  thesis1: concept driven machine 
translation using the Aleppo codex 
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc  -  thesis2: language acquisition simulation
http://www.lamie.org/ngelta





















































































o create his own unique, cognitive 
understanding of the Hebrew concept without all the 
baggage of being limited by limitations of expression
that exist in their first language.

James Christian Read - BSc Computer Science
http://www.lamie.org/hebrew       -  thesis1: concept driven machine 
translation using the Aleppo codex
http://www.lamie.org/lad-sim.doc  -  thesis2: language acquisition simulation
http://www.lamie.org/ngelta