Learning Very Basic Hebrew

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LEARNING VERY BASIC HEBREW LANGUAGE is a workshop designed to help Christians bridge the gap between their state of mind now (not knowing where to start) and their attempt to learn Biblical Hebrew at a local seminary.

Designed to whet the appetite of both seminary and non-seminary students, learning very Basic Hebrew will allow you to familiarise youself with the 22 alphabet, and the more difficult Nikud (dots and dashes) which can be quite confusing to people who only seek to memorise them.

Within two weeks, a number of Christians learning it online during the pandemic, are now able to read Hebrew on their own. This is because the workshop is designed in such a way that you can alost certainly remember the function of each nikud. Let me illustrate:

1. Think of the nikud as the vowels in Hebrew. In Hebrew, the 22 letters are all consonants. They did not have vowels. So if you want to write this sentence, "I like to play football," in Hebrew, you only use the consonants - " lke t ply ftbll." It may not make sense for us, but this is how ancient Hebrew was written, until the Nikud system was invented around 900 AD.

2. Nikuds are in the form of dots and dashes. This is what you will learn:

   (a) the a-vowel has at least a dash. If you see a nikud that has at least a dash, know that it is an a-vowel. Is that difficult to remember?

3. (b) the e-vowel is one with more than two dots. In English we say there are long e-vowels, short e-vowels, and silent e-vowels. For example, breathe. You don't pronounce the last e-vowel in the word; otherwise it will sound like "brea-there." Gosh, if you pronounce it that way, people know that you are not an English native speaker right away. Yet, this was how we learn to pronounce the word breathe, correct? In Hebrew, the nikud for a silent e-vowel is known by a special name. You will learn this.

4. (c) Now, you have only 3 more vowels to go: i, o, u. Does this sound familiar? Look at the dot on the English alphabet - the letter i. Where is the dot? It's on top, correct? In Hebrew, it's like a mirror image of the English alphabet. The dot for their i-vowel is at the bottom. Not difficult to remember, correct?

   (d) Now, imagine that you pick up a pingpong ball from the floor and you say "I". Then you toss it up in a hyperbolic trajection. As soon as the pingpong reaches the top you say 'O' (so high). Well, pat yourself, you have just learnt the Hebrew vowel, 'o.' If you see a dot on top of a Hebrew consonant, you know it's an O-vowel.

   
   

   (e) Your CG member then catches it and brings it to her waist. As he stands straight in front of you, where do you see the pingpoing now? It's somewhere near her waist, correct? That's U-vowel, for your information. If you see a dot in the middle of a Hebrew consonant, what vowel is that? U-vowel, of course!

   (f) Using I.O.U game, it's to make it easier for you to remember the nikud. No seminaries would teach you that way, but it's a sure way for you to remember each nikud that you won't forget that easily. After you have mastered all 22 consonants (the b, c, d, f, g, h, etc) in Hebrew, and the few Nikuds, then you are ready to put them together to read the Hebrew word. This reminds you how you once learnt Malay in school based on syllables or sukukata. You read "Su" su, "Ku" ku -- suku and then the teacher asks you, "How do you read Ka?" you reply: "It's Ka, teacher." And "ta" has to be "ta." The entire word is formed Su-ku-ka-ta. This is exactly how Hebrew works. You put the consonants together with the Nikud to help you form words that you can read aloug easily.

   Over 2 years when this course was taught online, many of the students eventually "graduated" and able to read Hebrew on their own within just two weeks! Some of them join Biblical Hebrew 101 and were recruited to teach Very Basic Hebrew. I also provide you a book which I wrote some years ago. Since it is out of print, for those who attend the classes, you can get the link to the book on PDF.