Biblical Hebrew GCSE

Biblical Hebrew does count as a Classical subject, I presume? If so, then this thread can be used as a discussion thread for it.

There are 4 Classical langagues for which GCSEs are available: Classical Arabic, Ancient Greek, Latin and Biblical Hebrew. I have attained what I consider to be fluency in all of these besides Biblical Hebrew. While I am not taking a GCSE in Biblical Hebrew (I am doing two Classical languages: Ancient Greek and Latin), I enjoy learning new languages. Could anyone suggest to me some resources to help me learn Biblical Hebrew (from scratch)? I have some rudimentary knowledge of modern Hebrew, but not much.

Reply 1

Coda

16

Does Rosetta Stone have a course on this?

Reply 2

Noémie

17

as i assume i am (probably) the only one on tsr who does classical hebrew as a subject (more than as a mini barmitzvah fake learning), i recommend:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Biblical-Hebrew-Grammar-Pratico/dp/0310237602
together with this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Biblical-Hebrew-Workbook-Pratico/dp/0310270227/ref=pd_sim_b_1

thsi is what i use at uni. don texpect to do it all in one year, and leave out the weak verbs (you'll understand what that is once you start learning) until youve finished the strong verbs.

Reply 3

GameGod

OP

2

Coda

Does Rosetta Stone have a course on this?

I'm afraid I've never heard of Rosetta Stone. Can you please elaborate?

Noémie

as i assume i am (probably) the only one on tsr who does classical hebrew as a subject (more than as a mini barmitzvah fake learning), i recommend:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Biblical-Hebrew-Grammar-Pratico/dp/0310237602
together with this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basics-Biblical-Hebrew-Workbook-Pratico/dp/0310270227/ref=pd_sim_b_1

thsi is what i use at uni. don texpect to do it all in one year, and leave out the weak verbs (you'll understand what that is once you start learning) until youve finished the strong verbs.

Well, although I don't intend to study Biblical Hebrew for exams, I wish to attain a low degree of fluency (like I have in the other Classical languages offered at GCSE).

Thank you for the workbook links! Can you provide links to books or mini-courses, or webpages, I can use to further my knowledge once I have learnt the basics? Thanks in advance.

I'm quite a fast learner of languages, so don't worry about my pace. I'll do it as fast as I can thoroughly. But thanks for the advice. I'll follow it to the best of my ability.

By the way, I don't think I would need workbooks necessarily. If someone could find webpages explaining the grammar and any special cases, I'm sure I could kick-start my learning from there.

Reply 4

Noémie

17

yeah.
google hebrewsyntax
that's a website that is the textbook, but online, and much condensed.
tbh you can't really self teach biblical hebrew. good luck trying. i self taught classical greek gcse. bibilical hebrew is nout like it.

Reply 5

GameGod

OP

2

Noémie

yeah.
google hebrewsyntax
that's a website that is the textbook, but online, and much condensed.
tbh you can't really self teach biblical hebrew. good luck trying. i self taught classical greek gcse. bibilical hebrew is nout like it.

Thanks for the website. I'll try and learn as much Biblical Hebrew as I can, with an aim to eventually becoming fluent. Of course, I am aware that there is a possibility that there may not be enough words known to modern society from Biblical Hebrew for fluency to even be possible; what would you have to say on that?

I also self-taught Ancient Greek and Classical Arabic. Is there a reason that Biblical Hebrew should be harder to self-teach than those? I will do my best to handle any grammatical rules which are not like the ones in English (I am fairly good at moulding to new grammatical rules, as I have learnt several languages that work totally differently, such as Mandarin, Hindi and English).

Reply 6

Toto to

Talk to rabbi mendy chisk from golders green he teaches it in pardes house

Reply 7

zackmocton

I know the writer of the GCSE and I intend in taking the GCSE. It is a very hard subject to study if u cannot read Hebrew or in the process of learning modern hebrew. As modern Hebrew has different rules. I know two rabbis personally - one who rites the gcse the other with a degree in Oxford in biblical Hebrew - and u can tell how hard, but yet how valuable the subject is