Everyday Hebrew
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Everyday Hebrew Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Enjoyable, but could be more effective
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I really enjoyed using this book! Just looking at the cover in the photo is bringing back a lot of fond memories. This was the book that made me love Hebrew, and love studying languages in general. Because it was so motivating for me, I give it 4 stars despite its flaws.
This book introduces grammar and vocabulary in a very logical succession that helps you build a very good knowledge base for future study. At every point in this book I felt I was learning something useful, and I remember everything being very well explained and very clear. I always felt that I was consistently progressing and never hit a sticking point. I also found the recurring characters and the story line entertaining, and was intrigued by all the elements of Jewish and Israeli culture that made their way into the stories. I remember sections about Jewish holidays, kibbutzim, and the Israeli Defense Forces, for example. Rather than simply learning how to get by in Hebrew, I felt that I was gaining an understanding of life in Israel and that was very motivating.
Even though the book did help me gain a solid understanding of basic Hebrew and was very enjoyable, in hindsight I think the book and accompanying audio could have been better designed to help build stronger listening and speaking skills. The main voice that appears on the cassettes is a very well known radio personality in Israel, and was presumably chosen because he speaks "beautiful" Hebrew that conforms to all the old pronunciation guidelines of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. For example, he speaks with the 'ayin sound, and he pronounces the Het sound as a strong 'H' as an Arabic speaker would, rather than the "kh" sound that is standard in Modern Hebrew, and he emphatically rolls his r's, which I rarely hear Israeli sabras do. The guy also has quite a high voice and pronounces everything beautifully, with a kind of fantastical intonation I've never heard in real life. Real Hebrew is not beautiful, it's gutteral and nasty and sometimes sounds like whining, and the speech on this course's audio cassettes did little to prepare me for that. Incidentally, I do remember a course with a much more authentic audio component: Hebrew in Three Months, published by Hugo.
Another thing about the audio was that it was mostly receptive, meaning that the listener wasn't required to take part in the conversations, only listen and write answers etc. Most courses these days require the listener to practice and then produce one of both parts of a conversational exchange. So I finished this course with my reading and writing skills being much stronger than my speaking and listening.
But despite the audio flaws, I still recommend this book since it provides a solid knowledge base in an entertaining way. It's the most effective course I know in teaching the basic structures of Modern Hebrew. If I were to do it all over again I would still use this course, but use another course such as Pimsleur as an audio supplement to build my lisening and speaking skills.
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Everyday Hebrew Books In Print, Audio Books.