Customer Reviews

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

 

 

After a couple of months I knew how to speak hebrew: Not fluently, but understanding and it's improving all the time.The course is very well put and it makes it easy and fun to learn. I can now, already, communicate with the natives and that's thanks to this book. I save the fifth star though, for the lack of exercise tasks.

I've looked at and tried just about every Hebrew course available, and this is by far the best. I was at the "ulpan" at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and wanted something to refresh and consolidate my knowlege of the structure and re-accustom my ear to the sounds of the spoken language. This course was EXACTLY what I was looking for.

An amazing amount of material is covered in a compact space, with a wonderfully clear explanation of how the language works, including the complex verb system. Unvowelled reading is introduced gradually and naturally, as each word becomes more familiar.

Very importantly, the FOUR cassettes are recorded at a realistic pace in the latter part. There is nothing worse than studying from tapes that are unnaturally slow and clear, only to be blown right out of the water the first time you hear someone speaking at a natural speed.

Best of all, there's a good number of exercises, with an ANSWER KEY at the back. I've written to three or four publishers asking why they didn't offer a key for their books for those studying alone. They responded with lame excuses about not wanting people in classrooms to be able to cheat -- but I don't want to practice making mistakes when I don't have a teacher to correct my work.

Please ignore the one bad review by someone who apparently has this book confused with Dorling Kindersley's Hebrew phrase book, which this course is not! And please order this course from Amazon and wait for it to be shipped from England, rather than order it from the marketplace. One of the sellers lists it at more than TRIPLE the Amazon price, and another has it for nearly QUADRUPLE their price! (Can someone explain to me how anyone can justify that kind of a mark-up in good conscience?)

This is probably the best book you can get if you want to learn how to speak Hebrew quickly. You should get the tapes that come with it also, and you should order the book and tapes from your local bookstore. Amazo n is a bad place to buy books...