Hebrew is a sacred language that comes from the Semitic family of languages. Ancient Hebrew is still used in prayer and study. It dates roughly from the time of Babylonian exile, i.e. the 6th century B.C.E., while modern Hebrew is spoken by most of Israel's 7 million Jews and approximately 200,000 Jews living in the U.S. Learning to speak this language is like learning to speak any other language - it can be difficult, but it is also extraordinarily rewarding. Follow these tips to learn Hebrew quickly.
1. Setting aside time every day to tend to your studies is crucial. As little as half an hour every day is enough to give you the practice and immersion you need to stick with and absorb a new vocabulary. Any more is even better, and if you're going to skip a lesson, make sure it doesn't become habitual.
2. Take a class. Jewish community centers like the Chai Center NY offer classes to help you learn to speak and read Hebrew. This forces you to keep a schedule of learning, and it's encouraging to work with others who are at your level. And lastly, having a teacher, like those on Jewish Long Isalnd, is especially helpful.
3. Immersion in the language is what it takes to be comfortable with it. In this case, you can go to Brooklyn, NY or parts of Jewish Long Island, but if you want to visit the Land of Milk and Honey, you will really get a taste for Hebrew and you will meet plenty of people who can help you practice.
4. Buying kids books can help you read basic stories in Hebrew. You also might want to look for bi-lingual editions of short stories or even Biblical texts.
5. Pronunciation can be difficult, but practice and recognizing the way you hold the muscles in your throat can help immensely. In English, we tend to keep our throats relatively tight, in comparison to French or Italian, but less tight than the Germans. Hebrew is closer to the Germanic tongues, and pronouncing a khet from the back of your throat will help you understand this.
6. Nailing verbs conjugations and gendering of nouns can be tricky. Of course, you'll have the irregulars that must be memorized, which takes time. Remember though, you reap what you sow when it comes to a language, and if you get bored or stuck, don't be afraid to take a break and come back to it. It takes the human brain 7 repetitions to remember something and store it, so write down rules and vocabulary. Don't be afraid to waste paper writing down Hebrew-it all counts as studying.
7. Say it out loud as you write. This way the reinforcement occurs on more than one level. If you stick with it for a year, or even six months, you'll be a lot better than where you started, and you'll be able to have a good idea of how the language works, retaining some basic vocabulary and sentence structure in the process. Mazal tov, you'll be speaking Hebrew in no time!
