Customer Reviews

Let's Learn Hebrew Picture Dictionary

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very fun dictionary for kids (and adult kids)! The illustrations by Marlene Goodman are colorful and help reinforce learning the words for common nouns. Each entry is illustrated, with the Hebrew word (including vowels), the English word and a phonetic translation. The book is divided by sections ("At the Supermarket," "In the City," etc.) to facilitate learning the vocabulary for a specific topic. It includes an index in phonetic Hebrew and in English. I would definitely recommend it for both children and adults.

(3/12/2004)
My earlier glowing review was done some months ago. I have since downgraded my opinion from 4 stars to 3 stars. The dictionary is too basic and insufficient - will not really teach you what you need to learn. If you are looking for a dictionary, then Shlomo Zilberman is very good. If you want to increase your vocabulary of people, places, things, then this is good. However if your goal is to learn conversational Hebrew, then it won't help.

Since then, I have tried to learn at a synagogue from a teacher using an excellent book with comic cartoon stories and cassette tapes and have learnt much more. The book is "Haveyeth Ushma" ("Express and Learn") by Judith Case and Paul Anokh but unfortunatlely is published in Israel - the copy my teacher has is in Russian and Hebrew. Is there an English edition? I wish some publisher here would publish it. Even so, we are able to learn with a little translation from our teacher because the cartoons are rich with clues. You learn the different verb forms almost subconsciously and the level of conversation is much higher than with other products. It is both visual and aural. The conversations in the book are also witty, warm and authentic (exactly the way real people speak, not 'staged'). It is better than Pimsleur.
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(Oct 2003)
I bought this book together with the Hebrew Picture Word Book by Steadman/Cirker. This book is fast learning if you are a visually oriented person and is a very good way to learn nouns quickly. However I feel that the book is unsufficient for really learning Hebrew. Nouns/Verbs are not everything.
1) The pictures here are colorful but the other book actually lets you paint or crayon in the pictures. for me, Cirker/Steadman is great fun! Straight from the post office, I went to [the store] and bought a cheap watercolor paint set. I am an adult but this was fun - mixing colors, painting and learning the hebrew word. I am using this painting not only to learn hebrew, but also to relieve stress from work :)

2) When the hebrew word is transliterated, one tends to remember the english word and forget the hebrew word because it is easier to look at. When I look at a picture and try to recall the hebrew name - in my mind's eye, I tend to see the english transliteration only. It would have been better if they had printed the transliterated words on another page or upside down.

Both books have one drawback in that abstract words, expressions are not covered - but then, this is not their goal.

I bought this book together with the Hebrew Picture Word Book by Steadman/Cirker.
However I rate that book better. reasons:

1) The pictures here are colorful but the other book actually lets you paint or crayon in the pictures. for me, Cirker/Steadman is great fun! Straight from the post office, I went to [the store] and bought a cheap watercolor paint set. I am an adult but this was fun - mixing colors, painting and learning the hebrew word. I am using this painting not only to learn hebrew, but also to relieve stress from work :)

2) When the hebrew word is transliterated, one tends to remember the english word and forget the hebrew word because it is easier to look at. It would have been better if they had printed the transliterated words on another page or upside down.

My wife and I wanted to teach our children Hebrew, so they can communicate with their grandparents and other family members in Israel. We thought this book would help them gain a foundational vocabulary, and indeed it delivers in this area. I loved the individual pictures with the words in English, transliteration, and block text, right next to a "Where's Waldo" style large scene illustrating the use of the words. But as I began reading and looking at the book with my children, I realized that on most of the pages, the scenes showed unruly children and frustrated, flustered parents. Children are portrayed as disobedient, unhelpful, mischievous, and self-absorbed. Would it have been that difficult to create scenes wherein children were modeling good behavior instead of bad? If you do decide to buy this book, I would read it with your child and consider making the pictures into a game of finding "what not to do".

I agree with Anil in that I'm not so crazy about the transliterations. The Usborne "First Thousand Words in Hebrew" also has the transliterations but not the english. There, you are expected to figure out that a 'kolnoa' is a movie theater from the picture which not everyone will get. I guess you could look the translation up in the back but that's too advanced for kids. The Steadman/Cirker version also has no English with the picture and even worse there's no color-a big big minus to me!
The Artscroll "My Hebrew Picture Dictionary" avoids these problems plus it includes words that are specific to Judaism such as 'Menorah' and 'Shul.' I'd start with the Artscroll dictionary but nevertheless you really can't beat over 1,500 words so this book would be my next choice.

This is a great beginner's book for children and adults alike. We are having a lot of family fun with this one. My 7-year-old and 6-year-old learned how to count to 100 (in Hebrew) in just a few weeks. If you and your family are learning Hebrew, add this book to your collection.

A lot like the Usborne series: Various "scenes" are shown (inside the house, on the farm. All the items in the scene are displayed along the side of the picture,and labeled with the Hebrew spelling, the pronounciation and the English translation. In addition to the English-Hebrew Glossary and Index, there also is a really nice feature: a TRANSLITERATED Hebrew-English Glossary and Index, so if you are looking for words that begin with a particular Hebrew sound, you can look up the word (and page number) that way.

This bilingual dictionary, like the others in the series, is an excellent learning tool for both children and adults. I speak Modern Hebrew quite fluently, but I use this as a fun and easy way to review both everyday and specialized vocabulary before I take a trip to Israel. I especially like the fact that it provides transliterations of each word in addition to the English and Hebrew words themselves, that it groups the vocabulary by theme (which facilitates retention), and that it has indexes to the words in both languages. Two disadvantages: it's super-heavy on nouns, with only a relatively few verbs and adjectives; and the illustrations are clearly based on US models, so there is no content (and no vocabulary) that is specifically Israeli or Jewish. For a child, this could be a fun and useful supplement to materials used in Hebrew school or a Jewish day school.

I feel this is more advanced for children. It is a great addition to any Hebrew learning library. Pictures are a good way to improve comprehension in any language learning activity.

I have never had anyone to speak hebrew with, this book is a good starting point (I hope).