Customer Reviews

Hebrew For Dummies

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

"Hebrew for Dummies" is a basic starting point for those who would like to learn Hebrew for travel purposes. For example, you will learn basic phrases (greetings, hotels, how to...) and plenty of nouns (animals, for example) - the usual. A useful and comprehensive pronounciation guide is also inlcuded at the beginning of the book. The author also provides little hints such as good Israeli DVDs and CDs to buy (and importantly, where to get them from!) - so you can practice hearing Hebrew and to learn a little about Israeli/Jewish culture.
Additionally, what I really liked was that there is a whole section on Biblical Hebrew (*BASIC* prayers - such as the Sh'ma) and a little biblical grammar.
Another great part of this book is the accompanying audio CD which compliments the book nicely . It contains pronounciation guides and conversations to repeat and practice.

The only downfall of this book is that there is NO HEBREW lettering - everything is transliterated (hence, the simplicity of "Dummies" books). The only place where Hebrew can be found is in the Biblical section in a small number of the prayers.

Overall, this is an excellent guide for beginners who want to start learning Hebrew - you'll get a lot out of it - but for those who already have some prior knowledge of Hebrew, I highly recommend "Hebrew: a Language Course (levels 1, 2 & 3)" by Band & Bergman, all of which can be purchased here at Amazon.

Usually, I would hesitate to recommend a "Dummies" book both for the misleading name and the absence of any "hoopla" over the author's name. In this case, I was totally wrong. Jacobs is an experienced teacher of Hebrew and has written a book that is easy-to-understand well organized and well integrated with the accompaning CD ROM. I recommend this book to everyone who is learning Hebrew for the first time or, perhaps, for those would like to improve their Sephardic pronunciation.

I am sending mine back. I want to learn authentic Hebrew with the authentic Hebrew alphabet. It doesn't use Hebrew lettering, but rather uses English lettering with phonetic spellings. I suppose that will work if all you want to do is speak Hebrew, but if you were to travel to Israel, you still wouldn't be able to read any of the signs, menus, etc.... The positive thing I have to say is, as with all of the "Dummies" series of books, I like the layout, very easy to read and follow.

I am perhaps unusual in that I'm interested in learning Hebrew although I'm not studying the Bible, nor am I planning to travel to Israel, nor am I Jewish, nor am I marrying into a Jewish family. I am interested in learning Hebrew for the sake of learning a rich and difficult language which will open up a huge amount of literature to me. In this respect, "Hebrew for Dummies" sucks. It assumes that the reader is a.) American, b.) Jewish (or at least closely related to someone Jewish) and c.) learning-impaired. I suppose the last one is kind of the point of the "For Dummies" series, which as a series I've never found very helpful.

Nevertheless, after struggling with this book's relentlessly silly approach I ended up selling it to a secondhand bookshop and acquiring a couple of books on Biblical Hebrew (by J. Weingreen and John Dobson), both of which were far more packed with information than this gee-whiz compendium of empty chit-chat. I noticed, too, that the conversations on the accompanying CD of my edition did not always correspond to the transcripts in the book; I am enough of a linguist to be able to tell when what I'm hearing is not what I'm reading. Perhaps this has been fixed in subsequent editions.

The final problem is that Jacobs does not solve the huge problem of teaching the student to read the Hebrew alphabet. The student of Hebrew who is not put to work straight away at deciphering the alphabet is, to put it bluntly, screwed. This book may teach you how to order a coffee in Jerusalem, but you will probably not learn how to read the menu in the coffee shop. I don't think that that's worth the money.

I am still keen to learn Modern Hebrew, but the only people I can recommend this book to are those who have never been exposed to any language other than American English. Even then, I think they would be better off taking lessons.

Bravo! Ms. Jacobs has done a superb job in teaching/brushing up on Hebrew. This book is fun, easy to follow and teaches practical Hebrew. I feel quite confident in my Hebrew speaking skills too. I highly recommend this book.

I have purchased a number of Dummy books and have found them quite useful. Then I bought this book without making a close examination of it. Big mistake. I have 2 major problems with it.

1 - In chapter one it briefly covers the Hebrew alphabet and the pronunciation of consonants and vowels. That's it! No more Hebrew in the rest of the book. Everything is transliterated. I can understand the use of transliterations for Japanese or Chinese since they have thousands of different kanji's. But, Hebrew has only 22 letters in its alphabet! This one factor made the book worthless to me.

2 - No where in the book does it say what is being said on the CD. I have no idea! Is he saying, "How are you?" Maybe, "Is it raining?"

On the plus side, the book has a lot of useful information about Israel, customs, etc. But as a language book I would never recommend it.

If you never learned Hebrew and are looking for a way to quickly learn some words and phrases before a trip to the Holy Land, this is the book/CD for you. Yes, although the description doesn't focus on this, an audio CD is included. I've reviewed several books and listened to several audio programs in an effort to learn Hebrew for my trips, and the most important thing I've learned is (parents take note!) that we must be exposed to foreign languages while we're young. No book or CD can make you fluent quickly, but you will learn enough Hebrew from this book/CD in a few hours over a few weeks to teach the words you need for simple retail transactions, and, more importantly, to demonstrate your willingness to try speaking Hebrew. The Israelis you meet will probably have more fluency in English than you do in Hebrew, but a few Hebrew phrases will go a long way.

This is a great starting point for a person who is just starting to learn Hebrew. This is the first book you should get if you don't know any Hebrew. The CD and examples are very good because it does help a lot with the pronunciation.

I'm glad I bought this book as my first book but I wish it taught more about reading Hebrew and learning the letters.

When i learn a language, i want to learn to write it at the same time i learn to speak it. It makes little sense to just learn to talk and not to read or write. One re-enforces the other. This book is completely based on phonetic spelling of Hebrew. Absolutely useless.

It's a good thing she doesn't use Hebrew writing. On the inside cover, she does for the shehecheyanu prayer, and makes six writing errors in it. She mispronounces often, and makes errors in meaning and word form (mistaking verbs for nouns, etc.). I've spent only a few minutes looking at the book, but found stunningly many and ghastly errors, in addition to very poor translations. Can you imagine, if you know Hebrew, accenting the word "koach" (strength) at the end, instead of the "ko" part. I could add a long list of such items, in spite of the fact that I've only looked at it for a few minutes.
It's not only "for" dummies, possibly, but also "of" and "by". I am giving it two stars based on the impression that it could be useful to some folks such as tourists. But don't trust it.