Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>For someone who has a basic understanding of Hebrew, what would
> be a good work to take him to the next level?  I would appreciate
> your help.  Cordially, Mark Trzasko

In Jerusalem one frequently hears advice being given to those wanting
to learn to speak modern Hebrew. A good rule of thumb is to pay more
attention to those who have actually succeeded. Everyone will give them
advice, but the advice is not of equal weight or validity. (In fact, it is
probably advantageous not to follow the footsteps/advice of those who
have not succeeded.)

A public e-list is a little different, because there is no 'reality check'. 
You
cannot hear or see if the advisor has the success or expertise being
claimed. Which would apply to this piece, as well.

On one plane:
A respondent advised learning 'a little modern Hebrew'. I'm not sure what
value 'a little' modern Hebrew has. On the other hand, those interested in
BH who have also learned the modern language to a level where they
can interact in the language fluently and rapidly are unanimous in
recommending its value. The reason is that the morphology of the language
becomes subconscious and allows cognitive energy to focus on the
meaning and context of any text. That level of automaticity, or thinking in
a language, does not happen from reading only. Twenty to forty years and
a PhD cannot change human psychology. Many grad students never
consider that and after getting a PhD they figure that whatever level they
have is what they should have, but it is significantly below the level of a
language that they (may) have learned to speak fluently.

On another plane:
I would recommend a beginning student to go through something like
the Living Biblical Hebrew, Vol. 1, (1000 pictures). It starts at the
beginning but it does something for students whether they have had a
background or not. The students discover what it is like to relate directly
with the language, in the language itself, and they get a glimpse of what
it would mean to develop an ability to think in and with the language.
Talking about the language cannot replace this experience.

Ultimately, of course, you will want to do much, much, reading. But
in order to develop an adult, second-language fluency, that reading
must build on top of and in parallel with a core fluency. When doing
that reading, you can do some occasional checking by listening to
extended texts read at a reasonable reading speed. If you can follow
the text at that speed, good, you are learning correctly. If not, then it
is a wake-up call that something needs to change.
An excellent little book with recordings and 'listening drills' to prepare
students to follow chapter long readings is Selected Readings (Living
Biblical Hebrew, v. 3). It also has a linguistically up-to-date syntax of
the Hebrew verb, and annotations to the readings.

yatsliHexa ha-shem be-darxexa. יצליחך השם בדרכך

Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life