Learning Hebrew

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Greg

Puritan Board Sophomore
What books, or other resources (websites, etc...), are recommended for learning biblical Hebrew? I have no prior instruction, so I would be starting right from the beginning. Thanks.
 
I cannot recommend highly enough: "Living Biblical Hebrew" by Dr. Randall Buth:
http://biblicalulpan.org/

From the left-side menu go to courses->Hebrew Materials->Hebrew self-study.

If you really want to _learn_ Hebrew as opposed to just getting enough familiarity to "use the Tools" accurately with a knowledge of the Alphabet, Basic Grammar, etc. then in my opinion Buth's course is the way to go to get your foundation. After that An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax by Bruce K. Waltke and M. O´Connor is a great standard text in the Grammar.
 
Miles Van Pelt and Gary Pratico, Basics of Biblical Hebrew.
That's what I'm using right now. It uses a similar method as Mounce for greek. I like it. Of course, I don't have any experience in anything else to compare it too.
 
I am in Patrick's class, it is really good to not learn many paradigms as any other hebrew books. It shows you how the language actually works so you can understand it and not just memorize paridigmns so you can read it. Since you will learn how the language works, you won't have to learn all the paradigms, because you can see what has happened to the word, w/o learning those paradigms.
 
I started about 6 weeks ago with this website:

http://hebrew4christians.com/

It helped with learning the alphabet (alefbeth), and got me started. I purchased a Grammar by Harris, which got me through the basics, but I think it is a bit old fashioned. I made my own flash cards from the vocabulary found in the Harris text, I've almost memorized two thirds of it.

It takes systematic work. I already am familiar with Arabic, French, Greek, and Spanish, so I think I might be moving faster simply because I have learned how to learn languages. But I'm quit happy that after less than two months I can read most of Genesis and many of the Psalms.

If you've never studied a language before, an interactive approach is definitely the best. Self study is very difficult if you don't have the encouragement and feedback of an instructor. I have a friend who enrolled in a Hebrew class at a local synagogue. He's a red-haired gentile fireman, but he sat in the class with all the young Jewish students wearing his yarmaluke. He is now almost a veritable Hebrew scholar.

Vic
 
Thanks everyone! Has anyone heard of, or used "Hebrew Tutor" by Parsons? How is it?
 
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