63 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Introduction to a Beautiful Language [Updated: May 2007], May 28, 2005
This review is from: Colloquial Hebrew (Colloquial Series) (Audio CD)
Walla! Ze sefer tov meod!
I purchased Esther Raizen's
Modern Hebrew for Beginners and was very, very pleased with the online multimedia supplement to the course, the workbook style of the text, and the relative ease with which Raizen's course helped me to learn Hebrew. However, there were a couple (and only a couple) of weaknesses to Raizen's workbook that led me to search for another source on Amazon that could help with learning verbs and that contained an answer key, something that is vital to language reinforcement. Raizen's text (2000 edition) does not contain an answer key, and she jumps into past tense way too early without really giving a very good explanation about how to conjugate the past tense.
In the midst of my frustration, I found Wang and Littleton's Colloquial Hebrew: The Complete Course for Beginners (Multimedia). Though afraid that this would be just another traveler's phrasebook with minimal grammatical explanation, I decided to ignore my skepticism and heed the "Complete Course" part of the title. Upon receipt of this course, I was very excited to see that it is cram-packed with dialogues (in un-vocalized Hebrew, or Hebrew without its vowel marks), transliterations, grammatical and syntactical explanations, verb tables (past, present, & future), cultural notes about Judaism and Israel, and best of all, an answer key! This course is targeted to those who are learning Hebrew on their own.
The first chapter "Reading and Writing Hebrew" teaches the Hebrew Aleph Bet, both its block and script forms. The table provided seems a little intimidating at first, but if you listen to the audio CD provided, you will hear a very clear pronunciation of each letter and its sound. In this chapter, you also learn how to read vocalized and un-vocalized Hebrew words and how to write the Aleph Bet with the aid of arrows that show how to write the Hebrew letters, block and script.
The student dives into unvocalized Hebrew dialogues in subsequent chapters, aided by the two audio CDs and transliterations. Wordlists, grammatical explanations, exercises, and verb tables help to reinforce what is learned in the dialogues. The verb tables in each chapter correspond to the verbs used in the dialogues in that chapter, and the verb patterns of each verb are pointed out by bolding the nuances that indicate the differences in pattern. I'll use the verb "to learn" in present tense as an example. The top of the table will have the Hebrew root, the English translation of the infinitive--"To Learn"--followed by the transliteration--"lilmod"--and then the Hebrew. The table has four rows listed according to the following:
1. First, second, and third person singular (masculine form)
2. First, second, and third person singular (feminine form)
3. First, second, and third person plural (masculine)
4. First, second, and third person plural (feminine)
Each column contains:
1. The conjugations in English transliteration
2. The conjugations in the Hebrew alphabet
3. The pronouns (I, you, he, she, we, they) in Hebrew corresponding with their respective verbs
In this way, you learn the verbs by patternization, a critical approach to learning another verb system, especially the Hebrew verb system which is ruled by a root system. Page 47 of the text states:
"The Hebrew verb (po'al) is formed from a root (shoresh) consisting in most cases of three letters (although some have four). This root gives the basic idea of the verb, which is given more specific meaning when vowels, prefixes and suffixes are added. These additions follow a number of patterns expressing tense, mood, and voice."
Using patterns to learn Hebrew helps tremendously in learning past and future tenses, and even adjectives.
Some other strong points of this course are the following:
1. Colloquial Hebrew contains a quick grammar reference in the back of the book! I love this because if you need to remember a basic grammatical point such as, say, how to use adverbs properly, you can just turn to the quick grammar guide instead of flipping through the book's 300+ pages.
2. The audio for the dialogues are clear, though the speakers talk very rapidly. Although this might appear to be a weakness, the more you read the dialogue yourself, and the more you read along with the audio, the more you will pick up on the rapidity of the spoken language, and the better prepared you will be to listen to the daily spoken language in Israel and on the radio (see below).
3. The back of the book contains a verb table, something that will not be very useful until you complete the course. It contains different forms of the verbs used in the course, but it is not very user-friendly to the beginner.
4. There is a very useful Hebrew-English dictionary in the back of the book. I wish there were an English-Hebrew dictionary as well, like in Esther Raizen's course, but it is not that big of a problem.
5. The main dialogues in the course do not tell different stories, but instead, the book as a whole tells one story about a visiting journalist's experiences in Israel. The student is with Peter Green the journalist from the time he enters Israel and converses with a cab driver (nehag monit) at Ben-Gurion International Airport until his Israeli counterparts throw him a going-away party. The student follows Peter's journey through Israel as he meets Israelis, makes phone calls, eats in restaurants, navigates the country, works at a kibbutz, visits the doctor, etc. Thus, the student is able to follow a story and experience Israel and Israeli culture as he or she learns the Hebrew language!
6. The transliterations are so clear that you do not necessarily have to have the CDs to help with correct pronunciation, although the CDs are good for listening comprehension.
Colloquial Hebrew is a very strong (but not perfect--there are some typos throughout the text as well as other minor problems) introduction to the Hebrew language but does not go beyond introduction. Although I say I purchased this course because of a couple of flaws in Esther Raizen's
Modern Hebrew for Beginners, I am very happy that I own both courses because each complements the other. Therefore, I highly recommend buying these two courses together. They both have their own strong points that can add to your learning experience. After finishing these two texts, I would suggest purchasing Raizen's
Modern Hebrew for Intermediate Students, which will bring you to upper intermediate level. Those who want to gain proficiency should apply to an Ulpan (intensive Hebrew program in Israel) after completing Raizen's intermediate course.
The following are online sources that I highly recommend if you have little exposure to native Hebrew speakers:
91FM[dot]CO[dot]IL
91 FM (Radio Lev Hamedina) is a GREAT music station out of Israel. This website allows you to listen to the top 25 current music hits out of Israel. You can also listen to live radio broadcast 24 hours a day! A great way to hear Hebrew as it is spoken every day in Israel, and a great way to be exposed to Israeli pop culture.
israelradio[dot]ourtoolbar[dot]com
Download the Israel radio toolbar so that you can listen to over 50 Israeli radio stations online. I have this one and it provides easy access to radio stations, including 91FM. System requirements: Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater, Firefox 1.0.1 or greater.
KIKAR-ISRAEL[dot]COM
This is an all-English site that contains news about the music celebrities in Israel and allows you to watch Israeli music videos. A great taste of pop culture.
ISRAEL-MUSIC[dot]COM
I have bought music from this Israeli company (out of Ra'ana, Israel) four times and they have been very reliable. So far, they have the best SELECTION (albeit not the best prices) of Israeli music that you can get online, and you can hear the samples from each album. However, their customer service is questionable because I have emailed them a few times for general questions and they have never responded. They also have "live help" but I can never get any help. But they are very good at getting the products to the customer within a reasonable amount of time. Since their prices are not the best, you can find music on eshop-israel[dot]com (also out of Israel) for a cheaper price (most of the time). Israel-music also sells Israeli movies.
ORLYSBOOKSTORE[dot]COM
This is a good site that I have found that is based in the United States (California). They contain books, movies, music, software, etc. in Hebrew, and you can sample the albums. Their prices are not better than Israel-Music, but if you do not want to buy from out of the country, I would buy from Orly's.
HEBREWSONGS[dot]COM
Based in Australia, Hebrew Songs gives the translations/transliterations of your favorite Hebrew music, religious and secular. You can find your old favorites or the latest hits out of Israel on this site. There are also links to the songs in Hebrew as well. Even better, you can send in a request to have a song transliterated/translated into English. This is a great site to help with learning Hebrew! And it's FREE!
If you wanna talk like a Sabra, you're gonna have to learn how to sing like one!
Listening to Israeli music is the best way to help with pronouncing and remembering Hebrew words. Some great Israeli singers that I would suggest are the following:...
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