How to Learn Hebrew as an Adult
I learned Hebrew to be able to understand my husband's phone conversations (sort of kidding, sort of not). I dabbled in studying it for about a decade; five years ago, I made a concerted effort to learn Hebrew and in the span of about 8 months went from being a low-intermediate speaker to being fluent.
- For general language learning, if you haven't read the book "Fluent Forever", I highly recommend it. It's a short book and has a lot of wonderful tips that I either had already found useful or have since integrated into my language learning.
- As suggested in that book, spend a little time early on practicing the accent. They have some techniques for getting better at accents in there and you don't need to be perfect by any stretch, but you'll be amazed at how much Israelis appreciate even a better-than-average American accent (people *always* comment on it when I speak).
- If you're not comfortable with the alphabet yet, I don't have concrete advice but I think there are probably more resources for that than anything else Hebrew-related on the internet.
- If/once you're comfortable with the alphabet, use Duolingo. Every. Day. It will be really painful at first -- you'll hate typing and you'll curse at the app and probably at me for recommending it -- but, as much as I hate to admit it, spelling really matters in Hebrew for reasons that you only internalize a bit later on. Duolingo doesn't use vowels -- that's a good thing. Other than in American siddurim and children's books (and, weirdly, poetry) Hebrew really isn't written with vowels. Practicing reading the way you'll have to read in Israel is the only way to get better at it.
- Flashcards. I use my Hebrew flashcards every day, and over the last year and a half have learned 2.5k new Hebrew words that way. Flashcards are important and I have specific recommendations for how to structure Hebrew cards if you start making them. (I use the app Anki, which the guy who wrote Fluent Forever also recommends)
- Buy a copy of 501 Hebrew Verbs. I *love* this book and when I make a flashcard and think I'm going to have difficulty with the conjugation, I literally take a photo of the page in the book and add it to the flashcard.
- Speaking of Hebrew verbs ... if you haven't learned about the verb system yet, that's going to be the thing that will blow your mind. It blew mine very hard for a period of about six months until I finally wrapped my head around its completely new and wonderful logic. Spend some time either learning about the verb system from a book (I used "Modern Hebrew for Beginners") or in a class, but give yourself time to really grasp it. It takes a while but it's at the root (pun intended!) of what makes the whole language so beautiful.
- Classes are great if they're good. I haven't found a weeknight class in SF that I've been impressed by, but I'm asking around some folks in the Easy Bay to see what they have. There are a bunch of good ones on the Peninsula -- more Israelis, I guess.
- Speaking of classes, I found that there is a big gap/plateau in classes. There are classes that will basically get you to doing 2 or maybe 3 of the verb forms in present and past tense, but if you want to learn more of those forms and the future tense? That, you have to do on your own, and you just need to power through. A lot of places will have essentially four levels of classes – the 3rd level will be for people to learn past tense, and the 4th level is "everyone who already knows past tense" which, unless it's very small or you get very lucky, is a really broad group, including people who don't yet know the future tense and also people who are fluent and just looking to practice and expand their vocabulary.
- If you're ever able to, USF Ulpan is just phenomenal. It's 3 weeks in July for 5 hours a day, so it's a real commitment. It's not feasible for everyone, but if you can swing it your Hebrew will improve so fast.
- Lastly, because I always have to recommend it -- if it's possible, getting into a relationship with an Israeli is excellent supplemental education :)
Online resources:
- pealim.com: good for online verb conjugations. It's a great site if sometimes hard to use. I have occasionally found mistakes but not many.
- morfix.co.il: best online Hebrew-English dictionary. It does not have any conjugations though, so as soon as you are comfortable enough in Hebrew you can switch over to
- milog.co.il: this is a super comprehensive Hebrew-Hebrew dictionary with every form of every word that you might ever need. I discovered it like 5 months ago and I'm not sure how I lived without it.
Streetwise Hebrew is a fun podcast that talks you through different usages of words in Hebrew and can be a good way to have a little bit of the language in your ears on a regular basis.
And of course, music! The most fun way to get a sense of the culture and learn some new words. I talked about Static & Ben-El, so here are some of my faves:
Two of their summer hits:Tudo Bom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkhCZp6t7t4 Kvish hahof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2fakms1QWo My current favorite because it is their most recent and because it's them at their ridiculous best (they're FISH! FISH!!!):Gumigam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aFz_aLuFhIZahav is an Israeli take on the 1950s in white suburban America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRGrIn2VHTEHakol l'tova is a ballad about childhood with a strange video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOYQ94ylTGY
Other artists I recommend are Idan Raichel (I learned a lot of Hebrew from his songs) and Shlomo Artzi. I can recommend specific songs if you aren't familiar with them and want to catch some of their hits.