If you want to live in Israel or are going to visit it, then you cannot do without knowledge of Hebrew at least at the everyday level. And even more so if you like to feel like an independent person and are also planning to get a job in Israel. You understand that you need to learn Hebrew, but what is the best way to do this, where to start? Which method should I choose? Isn't it too late to start?

Many people believe that it is possible to learn a foreign language only in childhood or young age, since only at this age does memory work well. This is a completely erroneous opinion. According to our many years of experience, people who begin to learn Hebrew at 20, 40, 60, and even 70 years old successfully learn and reach high levels. So age does not matter, the most important thing is your desire to learn and willingness to engage.

Our main advice for those who are planning to move to Israel is to start learning Hebrew as early as possible before leaving. This is the most valuable luggage you can take with you. Many people hope that they will learn Hebrew in ulpan upon arrival, but later most people are disappointed in this idea. Firstly, the State of Israel only funds the development of one of the six levels of Hebrew, and this is completely insufficient for life in the country. And secondly, the teaching system and intensity of Hebrew learning in ulpans is not suitable for everyone. Therefore, having mastered Hebrew at least at the Aleph level before arriving in Israel, you will already have a language base and will be able to continue studying at a higher level.

How to choose the appropriate way to learn Hebrew? Let's look at the main ways of learning Hebrew, their advantages and disadvantages.

Learn Hebrew on your own.

There are many positives in this method: you can study at any convenient time and in any convenient way. There are many free resources on the Internet for learning Hebrew on your own: textbooks, audio lessons, films. To help self-taught students, we also constantly publish useful materials and simulators on various topics. You study at a time convenient for you and at a pace convenient for you. And of course, self-study is free and will save you significant amounts of money. But is this method of learning so ideal? Perhaps, not everything is so simple, because if you study on your own, there will be no one to correct your mistakes, and then it can be very difficult to relearn. And it often turns out to be difficult to motivate yourself to exercise regularly and fruitfully. Therefore, only if you are a truly purposeful person and are used to coping with all difficulties yourself, your studies will be successful. However, we are often lazy and cannot always force ourselves to study. The modern rhythm of life sometimes absorbs us so much that classes become irregular, and it’s simply difficult to competently organize the learning process yourself. Agree that not each of us can motivate ourselves to study fruitfully without a mentor who would constantly guide and control the process. Well, some still need the notorious spirit of competition, which can be felt in a group, while others need a competent teacher who will direct the learning process in the right direction. And yet, the main problem of self-taught people is that it is difficult to develop spoken language - after all, without company it is difficult to pronounce everything and use it in practice. And without active application, knowledge remains passive for many. This is precisely why it can be scary to start speaking. And this is logical - a person feels confident in what he is used to doing, and if he does not speak or participate in a conversation in Hebrew during his studies, then the well-known “language barrier” arises.

Learn Hebrew with a teacher individually

Many people consider this method of learning Hebrew to be one of the most effective. Here are its advantages: the teacher will take into account only your interests and pay full attention to you, you will be able to study at a pace convenient for you.

However, such a pleasure is not the cheapest if you want to learn from an experienced and good teacher. And finding a truly qualified specialist is not so easy. Not all Hebrew teachers speak the language at a sufficiently high level and have good methodological training. You can meet a teacher who works according to outdated methods and spends a lot of time in class doing exercises from the textbook, which you can do yourself at home so as not to waste valuable class time on this. It happens that even in individual lessons, students speak very little Hebrew, but mostly read texts and exercises. As a result, the effectiveness of such activities can be very low, despite the fact that the cost is high.

Learn Hebrewin a group on courses.

There are many courses and ulpans around the world. And until recently, this was perhaps the most popular way to learn Hebrew. There are the following advantages to studying on courses: classes follow a developed program, and you usually know in advance how long the course lasts. organize the educational process and discipline the student much better than individual lessons and, especially, self-study. While studying in a group, you will communicate a lot, and this will definitely help you to talk, as well as develop the skill of understanding Hebrew by ear. Of course, we are talking about small groups of 4-8 people. With this composition, the teacher manages to devote a lot of time to each student. By the way, competition in a group turns out to be very useful for many students; it pushes them to achieve better results and forces them to try harder. And what’s very nice is that a lesson in a Hebrew group, even from a good one, is cheaper than individual lessons.

However, this method of learning Hebrew has its drawbacks: in large cities, travel time can be significant. Traveling in public transport won't be much fun either. As a result, it may happen that you have to study tired, hungry and overwhelmed, which of course does not contribute to the effective absorption of the material.

Learn Hebrewonline in a group

Modern technologies make it possible to learn Hebrew in an even more convenient way - in an online group, without leaving home in a familiar and comfortable environment. This is a colossal saving of time that we usually spend on the road. But it can be directed in a much more useful direction - to watch it or have time to complete homework. In an online lesson (if you study on a modern platform), all the teacher’s explanations are accompanied by diagrams and images that help to better visualize what is being studied. The online lesson is held in the same way as a regular face-to-face lesson, and it is possible to view video excerpts and listen to audio recordings. A professional online platform allows the teacher to pair students for dialogues in separate rooms and enter these rooms to help when necessary. Another big advantage is that if you go on a business trip or vacation, you can view the recorded classes and work through everything yourself to keep up with the group. Thus, online Hebrew classes have even more options and convenience for successful learning. Everyone who has tried it talks about the extraordinary feeling of delight from the fact that after the lesson you don’t need to go anywhere - we just close the window with the online class on the computer and instantly “come home”.

So, let's summarize:

Learning Hebrew on your own is the most labor-intensive and slow process, requiring great willpower. Individual lessons with a teacher are very effective, but the cost of lessons from a good and experienced specialist is quite high.
The most effective and at the same time quite economical way is, and learning Hebrew in online courses allows you to save travel time and take advantage of modern Internet technologies.

At first, when the topic of Israel first arose in my life, and with it the need to study Hebrew, I was sure that it was impossible to learn this language on my own. The alphabet is not similar to either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet, words are written and read from right to left, vowels are not written at all, but are “guessed”... Let’s add to this the pronunciation as if from the worlds of Lovecraft, strange grammar and some kind of crazy word formation... oh, that’s it) ))

Social networks and forums did not add optimism - as if to confirm the first impression (hello, the law of synchronization), they were filled with statements in the spirit of “even if you are fluent in other languages, Hebrew will not be easy for you”, “the language is complex, requires lessons with a teacher from the very beginning, otherwise you won’t learn to read,” etc. I believed all these horror stories and mentally prepared myself to find a good (and probably not cheap) Hebrew teacher. So from the very beginning! So that everything is as it should be!))

Not really believing in the possibility of studying Hebrew on my own, I nevertheless felt a sincere interest in it. I liked the incomprehensible and unusual-sounding language, it really fascinated me. I wanted to learn to understand it, and I was just curious “how it works.” And Hebrew was also a kind of “piece of Israel” for me, an opportunity to “stay in touch” with the Country without being physically in it - because of this, I especially wanted to know the language at least at a basic level.

Ok, I thought, maybe you can’t learn Hebrew on your own... but you can try)) So I mastered the printed and written alphabet, slowly began to read and write simple words, completed the first and second lessons from the textbook with all the exercises... and after a couple of weeks It turned out that I’m actually learning Hebrew on my own, and I’m even getting some results.

In this article I will tell you how I did it and what results I came to. Perhaps my experience will be interesting and will encourage those who are at the beginning of their journey and do not believe that they can start learning Hebrew without a teacher)

Where to start learning Hebrew

As I already said, first I learned the alphabet, vowels and learned to write in Hebrew.

1. Textbook "She'at Hebrew" part 1.
2. Audio course of basic Hebrew in 3 parts “Pimsleur Hebrew 1-3”

There is also a good Hebrew course from scratch on the website ivrit.info - if for some reason the She'at Hebrew textbook is not suitable, I recommend mastering the basics of reading and grammar using it.

In addition to textbooks, mobile applications for learning Hebrew helped me a lot - the IRIS dictionary and virtual cards for writing words Anki.

Textbook "She'at Hebrew" for self-study of Hebrew

I was lucky to study using the rare “She’at Hebrew” first edition from 1990. The textbook, along with brochures about Herzl, Jabotinsky and other founding fathers of Israel, was given to me by my father, who was sorting through my grandfather’s papers after his death. Most likely, this textbook was issued at Hebrew courses at one of the first Jewish communities that appeared in our city in the 90s. When I began to leaf through the yellow pages, a piece of paper with exercises and words written in familiar handwriting fell out of the book...

It seemed right and in some ways even magical to me that I would learn Hebrew for moving to Israel using this little book, once printed in a printing house in Tel Aviv, brought by Sokhnut to Russia in the 90s and collecting dust on a distant shelf for 15-20 years. I simply couldn’t put such an artifact on the table - I love symbolic coincidences and strange interweaving of times) Besides, I’m an oldfag and I personally find it more convenient to study with a paper textbook than with an electronic course.

I read mixed reviews online about this Hebrew textbook. Some people praise “She’at Hebrew”, while others criticize it – they say that outdated realities are described in the texts, and the grammar is illogically constructed... What can I say? I didn’t study using other textbooks, so I don’t really have anything to compare it with. As for outdated realities, firstly, on the contrary, it’s interesting, and secondly, they are not so outdated)

The first part of She'at Hebrew consists of 20 lessons. Each lesson includes:

• dictionary;
• reading text with vocabulary from the lesson;
• text exercises (answers to questions, written retelling);
• grammar block - verb conjugation, other rules;
• exercises on grammar, short texts and answers to questions about them;
• translation task from Russian into Hebrew.

At the end of the textbook there are answer keys for all tasks. The keys are numbered in accordance with the numbers and points of the exercises and are divided into lessons.

At the beginning of the textbook, an analysis of the alphabet and exercises for practicing writing are given. This section also explains the rules for reading letters and vowels.

What, in my opinion, is good about this textbook for self-study:

1. The rules of reading are explained, the alphabet and the writing of letters are analyzed in detail.
2. Exercise assignments and grammar rules are given in Russian.
3. There is an audio application (Google and torrents help)
4. At the end of the textbook you can find the correct answers to the self-test exercises.

Where to get a textbook

The book and audio files can be downloaded online.

If, like me, you prefer paper books (the store is trusted, I ordered the second part of “She’at Hebrew” for myself from there).

Learning spoken Hebrew using the Pimsleur method

Pimsleur has a Hebrew audio course only for English speakers. It is suitable for those who know English at least at the Pre-Intermediate level.

The Pimsleur method is based on learning by spaced repetition (words and phrases are remembered better if you repeat what you have learned at certain intervals). The good thing about the course is that it encourages you to speak, that is, to translate new words from passive vocabulary into active ones. You start speaking at the very first lesson. As you learn new words and expressions, the speaker constantly asks you to construct phrases or answer questions with words from the current and past lessons.

For example: in lesson 1 we learned the word “Hebrew”, in lesson 2 we learn the word “speak”. After a new word has been memorized, the speaker asks you to remember the word from lesson 1, and then compose a phrase from two new words - “speak Hebrew.” Thus, already learned words are constantly repeated, and the total vocabulary is constantly increasing. Throughout the course, the student gains vocabulary and, most importantly, practices the language, constructing phrases and sentences from a relatively small set of words. Of course, the course is not enough for fluency in the language, but as a base or a tourist minimum, it’s just right.

If you study in parallel with the course and textbook, they seem to complement each other, increasing the effectiveness of learning. The audio course is easier to complete if you know how the words actually sound and are written (the speaker does not always pronounce the words clearly). It’s also easier to study using a textbook together with an audio course - you see a word in Hebrew and its translation in Russian and you know how to read it, because from the Pimsleur course you remember by ear how to pronounce it.

How I built independent Hebrew classes

I decided to approach independent learning from the perspective of improving the four skills at the core of language proficiency - reading, writing, listening comprehension and speaking. I will list what I did to develop each of them.

Reading:

• learned the alphabet and vowels;
• I read texts from the textbook and the Hebrew info course;
• watched films with Hebrew subtitles;
• I read jokes on Instagram in Hebrew (seriously, it works))

Letter:

• learned the written alphabet;
• wrote copybooks in Hebrew (2 pages for each letter) and words to study each letter;
• copied Hebrew texts by hand;
• did all the written exercises from the textbook;
• made short notes in Hebrew like “thinking out loud”
• made a shopping list in Hebrew;
• I installed the Hebrew alphabet layout on my phone and laptop and periodically typed in Hebrew.

Listening comprehension of Hebrew:

• I downloaded the audio supplement for the textbook and listened to all the texts;
• took the Pimsleur conversation course;
• listened to the radio in Hebrew;
• watched TV series and films in Hebrew;
• listened to and analyzed Israeli songs with translation;
• I watched short funny skits in Hebrew on Instagram and YouTube.

Conversational skills

• read texts aloud, repeating after the speaker;
• talked to herself, described her day, in general any topics that came to mind;
• selected and sang her favorite songs in Hebrew;
• I recorded audio and video on my phone in Hebrew - chatting on random topics.

Lexicon

I started by compiling my own minilex - a list of about 500 of the most useful and frequently used words in the language in everyday life. You can look for a standard Hebrew minilex on the Internet, or you can, as I did, assemble your own, guided only by common sense. My minilex includes numbers, common words and phrases, tenses, months, days of the week, vocabulary on family, food, clothing, shopping, home, transport, directions and travel.

Also, to expand my vocabulary, I:

• I wrote down new words in the dictionary for the lesson in a notebook - 1-2 lines each;
• When I heard a new word in a film or saw it in a text on social networks, I looked up the meaning in the dictionary and entered it into Anki. In her spare time she shuffled cards in Anki;
• Completed retelling tasks from the textbook;
• Copying and writing exercises also help you remember words;
• She immediately included a new word in her active vocabulary - she built sentences with it, looked for objects or phenomena in real life that correlated with the word, and repeated it to herself while looking at the object.

Grammar

In principle, any textbook for beginners will give you the basics of grammar - the same "She'at Hebrew" or an online course at ivrit.info

I also really like it - I recommend it! - how the basic principles of Hebrew grammar are explained on the website Speak-hebrew.ru - here you can find general information about binyans, roots and models.

My level of Hebrew after a year of classes from scratch

Self-studying Hebrew to the beginner level from scratch took about a year. Of this time, for six months I studied according to the textbook and courses, and for the second six months I watched more films, listened to songs, wrote down and learned new words through Anki, and everything else that I described above.

Testing your Hebrew level is not that easy. I came across either very simple tests, where you are diagnosed with “native-level knowledge of the language” for a level like “I know the alphabet, I can read a question without vowels,” or tests that are too serious for a beginner - for example, the official Yael test or paid level testing from teachers (from “Ivrika” costs about 6K rubles).

I searched for quite a long time for sane tests in Hebrew, and as a result I found only two options.

Firstly, this is a placement test for knowledge of Hebrew in the Tel Aviv Ulpan. Each test for the level of Aleph, Bet, Gimel offers 20 questions. In fact, this is, of course, only grammar and vocabulary without listening skills and without composing, but the test itself is the most adequate of everything I have seen.

This is what they told me based on the test result:

The result of testing for Hebrew level "alef"

Bet level test result

I also took a placement test in Hebrew on the website of teacher Vladimir Sapiro for 150 questions. Result: 25 out of 25 correct answers to Aleph, 17 out of 25 Aleph Plus, 14 out of 25 Bet, then, of course, it’s already very difficult, and I scored very few points (in total for the entire test I have 80 correct answers out of 150, but from -due to not knowing the words in Bet Plus and Gimel, I simply clicked places at random).

Now I rate my level as “alef”. According to the official definition, the following skills correspond to knowledge of Hebrew at the aleph level:

• listening comprehension of short stories and dialogues;
• maintaining conversations on simple everyday topics;
• reading simple short dialogues and simple texts in Hebrew without vowels;
• ability to write or verbally voice a short story about yourself or on a given topic (shopping, food, family, etc.)

In fact, I have these skills. Yes, I write with errors, I’m not very confident in using the future tense - but it seems that this is normal for many graduates of Ulpan Aleph in Israel. In fact, of course, my knowledge is uneven: as tests have shown, I may not know something from Aleph, but at the same time it’s good to answer some questions at the “beta” level.

Oral speech:

With the existing vocabulary, I can quite easily communicate on everyday topics, get acquainted and talk about myself, and clarify how to get somewhere. I know numbers and time notations in Hebrew, I use and recognize in text and by ear the past tense of verbs known to me. I'm familiar with jargon and set expressions (I've already picked this up from movies). I don’t know the future tense very well and sometimes I get confused with the plural smichut. Listening to the radio, I still don’t understand everything they say, but I can often understand what they’re talking about.

Listening comprehension:

Here is an educational video for those who continue (without subtitles) - I understand 95% of the percentage, minus some words:

Of course, conversations with video are easier to understand, since the picture suggests the meaning of what is happening.

To test pure listening, I completed the first 6 lessons included in this beta-level audio course - in principle, all the stories are clear to me, minus some words.

Conclusion

From my own experience, I was convinced that learning Hebrew at a basic level on my own is quite feasible. However, for the sake of objectivity, I consider it necessary to clarify with what input data I was able to do this.

Age: 30+

Other languages: English B1

Experience of independent language learning before Hebrew: There is

Relation to Hebrew: the language is interesting and easy to hear

Language abilities: There is

Leading channel of perception: auditory

Need for guidance and support: I don’t need it, I normally work alone.

I won’t draw any conclusions, let everyone draw their own. I would like to note only two important nuances for understanding:

1. To study independently, you must have a minimum sympathy and interest in the language and in Israel. If I didn’t like Hebrew, I either wouldn’t study it at all, or I’d structure my studies somehow differently.
2. My example does not mean that you can learn Hebrew on your own only with knowledge of English and a well-developed auditory canal. It only shows that you need to build classes based on individual characteristics and rely on your strengths.

That’s all, I’ll be glad to chat and answer questions about self-learning the language in the comments.

1. Find the right tools
If someone has already told you that Hebrew can only be learned in Israel, don’t believe it. In the end, not every native speaker can teach (although in the process of working on our textbook, we, of course, involved Hebrew-speaking consultants, the educational texts were read by native speakers, and the editor was also a Hebrew speaker). There is such a thing - language specificity. For example, Russian-speaking students do not need to explain what grammatical gender is (you already know this very well), but they need to know what an article is and where to put it. In Hebrew, by the way, there is only one article, the definite, always in the same form - very nice of him, right?

2. Get yourself a copybook
Often students are afraid of incomprehensible letters (and some even know that printed and handwritten Hebrew script are two very different things). Don't worry! Firstly, there are relatively few letters in the language, and secondly, we first teach the most difficult one - handwritten font. So you can read what the waiter wrote for you on a piece of paper in a cafe when you asked for the bill, and leave a note for your neighbors, and make out cute graffiti. Thirdly, we still start by writing and reading endless syllables and writing Russian words in Hebrew letters: we are specifically waiting for you to get so tired of doing meaningless nonsense that you yourself want normal words to begin.

3. Read everything you see
How to read words if they don't have vowels? It’s very simple: Hebrew has rules about this; not that any vowel can be inserted anywhere. We first teach how to write (and read) international, borrowed words without vowels, and then words from Hebrew. Do you know why? Because the most difficult thing that can be read in Hebrew without vowels is foreign borrowings. And suddenly bam - and you already know how to do it. After this, “native” words that obey the internal linguistic logic and are arranged according to understandable models, you will be able to click like nuts.

4. Listen to native speakers, learn to understand dialects and accents
Let’s say they told you about various tricky Jewish sounds and even frightened you with “Ainom,” a complex guttural sound - so don’t be upset, the Ashkenazim don’t pronounce this stuff, and you don’t need to either. And the sounds denoted by the letters “het”, “reish” and “hey” are described in detail in the textbook (and it’s not for nothing that we recorded an audio course with native speakers). By the way, remember this: unlike Russian, consonants in Hebrew are not stunned at the end of words, but are pronounced in all their glory.

By the way, we had a student who always strived to pronounce the sound [l] (“l”) firmly, although in Hebrew it is semi-soft. Israelis define this mannerism as an American accent; This student spoke “American” because he had only one experience of learning a non-native language (namely English), and he was convinced that all foreign languages ​​in general should be spoken this way.

5. Approach the same topic from different angles
In traditional textbooks, the text is usually given first, and after it - new words and rules that are introduced in this text. We do the opposite - first the words and rules (gently, one at a time), and then the text. Imagine: you just started learning a language, and suddenly you can read a two-page text and immediately understand everything there! Large texts in the textbook consist mainly of dialogues, and then we suggest reading the same thing in prose (by the way, an excellent exercise is reading against time, using a stopwatch) and retelling it from the perspective of different characters.

6. Don't be intimidated by repetition of material, but turn it into a game
Much of language learning is based on repetition of the same words and constructions. Performing endless identical exercises, a person usually feels like an idiot and becomes somewhat depressed (if you studied languages ​​at school, you know what we mean). Our textbook has a technique against this: cross-cutting heroes, some of whom are schmucks and bores. They do the same things all the time, repeat the same things, make mistakes and do them again. But the student, while reading all this, just manages to learn the required topic - and at the same time considers the hero to be an idiot, and not himself.

Hebrew has conjugation of prepositions (for example, “from you”, “from me”, etc. - forms of conjugation of the preposition of direction “from”). Instead of repeating endless conjugation tables, we suggest acting out an old baroque play about a wandering hero, whose (suddenly!) name is Kolobok. The idea, we think, is clear.

7. Be aware of differences in styles
You may have heard that there are “high” and “low” Hebrew. The story here is this: in Israel there is an Academy of the Hebrew Language, which issues rules, regulates conjugations and officially introduces new words. There is also an idea of ​​what “correct” literary Hebrew should look like (this is the language spoken, for example, in the news). The official modern language inherits from the Biblical and Talmudic - if some constructions were not there, they cannot be in literary Hebrew. Spoken language is very different from all this (including, for example, stress - in a literary language they usually fall on the last syllable, and in colloquial language - on the penultimate or even on the third from the end), but there is good news: you are with it and you already encounter this every day, because spoken Russian is also different from literary Russian.
Our textbook is the very first level of learning Hebrew, so it is quite conversational (don't worry, you won't sound archaic). Of course, you won’t be able to discuss philosophy or politics using his material, but for the first year of study this is probably a small loss. But you can buy peaches and pomegranates at any corner shop and calmly, without nerves, travel from Acre to Jerusalem (for some reason, stops are not announced in English on Israeli trains). In addition, we are preparing for publication the second part of the textbook, where phenomena characteristic of official Hebrew will be considered.

8. Use familiar cultural codes as a method of remembering rules and vocabulary
So that you don't get bored, we added cultural codes to the textbook that are familiar to every Russian person. For example, the verb “to do” is illustrated by Chernyshevsky’s book, and the preposition of direction “to” is illustrated by Chekhov’s three sisters (“To Moscow! To Moscow!”). The textbook contains Venichka, the cat Behemoth and Margarita, and other sudden surprises.

9.Tackle complex topics step by step
By the way, about verbs. We give the binyan system (which you’ve probably already been scared of, too) without theory at first, we just ask you to remember the verbs. Then we slowly and carefully add a handful of infinitives, then mix everything together and ask them to sort the verbs into groups. You do it like Cinderella with rice and lentils - and then we jump out of the bushes and say: “And this is just such and such a binyan! And you already know him by sight!”

10. Start watching movies and cartoons in Hebrew as early as possible
Let's be honest: after the first-level textbook, you will not be able to read Meir Shalev in the original. But you can watch Israeli movies and... And although this is a textbook for universities, and not a self-instruction manual in its purest form, it is quite possible to study it independently. Good luck!

Well, the most important thing. This textbook (like many other useful and interesting publications) can be purchased in the mobile application JKniga: for iPhone and iPad and for Android tablets.

This textbook is the first in the series “Publishing by the Kanevsky family,” but not the first in a series of books and textbooks created at the Department of Jewish Studies of the ISAA Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov and published with funds from the Kanevsky family. These books and textbooks include the collection of essays “Talmud, Plato and the Radiance of Glory” (2011) and the textbook “Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts” (2012).

1. You have to really want it

Yes, it's as simple as that: it all starts with a strong intention. Honestly, after moving to Israel I had no desire to learn Hebrew, because the first lessons in ulpan were some kind of torture. None of the teachers in local language schools speak Russian (and that’s good!), with rare exceptions they speak English, so immersion in the language at first is a bit harsh. I was lucky: six months before repatriation I was on I picked up the basics like the alphabet and basic phrases there. This is why I always insist that people repatriate after educational programs like Taglit and Masa, where they have the opportunity to calmly learn the language (in a special language school) and not have to worry about where to live and get money for food.

The desire to seriously take up Hebrew arose in me only after the first successes in the lessons, when I began to see at least some return from the educational process, and because of... envy. When I stood helplessly in a store or in a bank and could not reach the Israelis in English and at the same time saw my local friends tweeting fluently in Hebrew, I fiercely wanted to wake up one day and, like in the movies, have a program in my head with a complete vocabulary Hebrew stock. In addition, I understood that without language, career opportunities are significantly limited. A strong desire is actually half the battle.

2. You need to complete the free ulpan Aleph

After moving to Israel for permanent residence, every new repatriate has the right to receive more than 100 hours of Hebrew absolutely free, but not everyone takes advantage of this opportunity. Some people are stopped by their children (they need to be fed, and it’s difficult to live on one basket in Israel), others are simply lazy, others don’t see the point in this - there are different reasons. I was very lucky with a teacher who literally scolded me like a schoolgirl for absences and uncompleted assignments. I was angry, cried, threw textbooks, but in the end I passed all the exams with high scores. The intensive course was not in vain: I had a base with which to develop the language further. I wrote about other subsidized language programs in Israel.

3. It takes a lot of independent work.

I pestered everyone: in stores - to sellers, on the street - to passers-by (fortunately, Israelis are very open and always ready to help with the language), on the bus - to drivers. I practiced phrases I had learned in ulpan, and at home I took Israeli magazines, copied articles by hand, translated and wrote out unfamiliar phrases. This method was taught to me by a friend who came to Israel from Russia many years ago and successfully opened a beauty salon here. It is difficult to engage in such self-education alone, without the help of others: there are phrases that cannot be found in the dictionary. My neighbors, with whom I rented my first apartments, helped me a lot. At the same time, there must be iron discipline: I allocated at least an hour a day to Hebrew, without any excuses for laziness. If you stick to this regimen, you can achieve good results in a month or two.

4. Need a good volunteer mentor

If you don't have the money for a private teacher, look for service exchange sites. It often happens that those who want to learn Russian or need some service that you can provide remotely are ready to “repay” in return with their knowledge and help. There are entire websites dedicated to this topic, but, as always, Facebook saved me. I once wrote a lamentable post on my page that I was ready to give anything for the opportunity to practice Hebrew with someone, and one wonderful woman volunteered to help me completely free of charge. Once a week we called each other on Skype and chatted about various topics. Largely thanks to her, I now receive compliments almost every time I meet Israelis, who can hardly believe that after a year in the country it is possible to speak Hebrew so fluently.

5. We need to work with the Israelis

Firstly, with Israelis you will always have guaranteed earnings (Russians sometimes cheat on money), and secondly, you will quickly master basic Hebrew. I managed to work in a hotel, and in a kindergarten, and in a store, and in each of these places I learned some part of my current vocabulary. The Israelis simply have titanic patience with new repatriates, or I was simply lucky with my colleagues: they corrected me, they helped me, they listened to me.

6. You need to constantly meet native speakers

If you are not afraid of dating sites, you can find a lot of interlocutors there in the language you need. Correspondence on various topics does not oblige you to anything, but at the same time provides an opportunity to improve your written Hebrew. And if you suddenly fall mutually in love with a native speaker, consider the problem of the language barrier completely solved.

7. You need to watch Israeli TV channels

The easiest option is live broadcasts from some important events. Editors do not have time to prepare a serious text, so reporters express themselves in simple phrases that are not difficult to understand. Another feature of local television is subtitles in Hebrew. That is, you simultaneously hear and read the dialogues. Literally all language school teachers give advice to watch TV, but few students follow it, because at first it’s very boring to watch programs or news that you don’t understand anything about. It is very important here to overcome the first resistance, and every day your interest will grow, as you will begin to recognize words heard somewhere by chance on the street, and then included in the context of someone’s monologue on TV.

Dear friends! We are starting to publish Hebrew lessons for those who, for one reason or another, cannot attend the ICC ulpan.

Lesson #1 – Differences and similarities between Hebrew and Russian

Hebrew is written from right to left. The covers of books and magazines are on the reverse side for us. Page numbering goes from right to left. The exception is numbers and figures - they are written and read in the way that is familiar to us.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters and the Russian alphabet has 33. This is one of the reasons why Hebrew is an easier language to learn.

Hebrew does not have capital letters at the beginning of sentences or at the beginning of proper names. For this reason, it is a little harder to read the text at first - it is more difficult for the eye to catch on to the place where a new sentence begins, but you quickly get used to it.

The Hebrew alphabet has virtually no vowels. Vowel sounds are expressed by special symbols: dots and dashes, which are called vowels or “nekudot”.

In neither written nor printed font, letters are connected to each other. In rare cases, due to the speed of writing, they do touch.

Five letters have double graphics, i.e. at the beginning and in the middle of a word they are written in the same way, and at the end of the word they change their appearance.

Each letter in Hebrew stands for a specific number. An entire science is based on this - gematria (discovering the secret meaning of all words).

For many centuries, Hebrew was a dead language. This is an isolated case when, after so many years, a language is revived and begins to actively develop. For this reason, most modern words that did not exist two thousand years ago were invented or borrowed from other languages.

In Hebrew, dull and hissing sounds predominate, so some may think that the Russian language sounds more sonorous, but Hebrew, like any Mediterranean language, can sound very soft.

Two different letters of the Hebrew alphabet can convey the same sound.

Hebrew lacks the sounds [ы], [ш]. But there are several unfamiliar to our ears:

ה (similar to the Ukrainian letter "g" or Latin "h")

ע (glottal sound "a")

ח (glottal “x”, rustling sound coming from the larynx)

In modern Israeli society, it is common to burr. However, scientists claim that “R” in Hebrew should sound exactly the same as the Russian “R”

The letters “א”, “ה”, “ח”, and “ע” convey a guttural sound unusual for Russian. In order to pronounce it correctly, it is necessary to activate the larynx, to raise its tone, since for Russian speakers it is more relaxed.

In Hebrew, the sound “l” is softer than in Russian, but not entirely hard. The correct “l” is something between “le” and “le”, “la” and “la”, “lo” and “le”, “lyu” and “lu”.

One of the rules of Hebrew grammar is that a noun always comes before an adjective. In Israel they say: “the house is beautiful”, “the person is smart”, “the car is fast”, etc.

In every language, stress (meaning emphasis) sets the tone for the entire sentence. In Russian, such stress falls on the first part of the sentences, and in Hebrew on the last.

The arrangement of words in sentences differs from the Russian language, for example in Hebrew they say: “He is happy because he has a family”, “His sons wanted to congratulate him”, “They were born in the year 1985”

In Hebrew, the literary and spoken language is like the earth and the sky. For example, if someone on the street tries to communicate in high Hebrew, others will think that he is a writer, a poet, or an alien.

Some prepositions in Hebrew are written together with the words that follow them.

In the Russian language, most words are formed using suffixes and prefixes. In the Hebrew language, the main method of word formation is the change of vowels within the root.

In Hebrew there are word-formation models unusual for the Russian language:

1. Mishkali (for nouns and adjectives)

2. Binyans (for verbs)

Knowing them, you can easily conjugate verbs and determine the semantic connotation of a word by its root.

In Hebrew there is such a thing as “smichut” (a conjugate combination of two nouns). For example, the word “cafe” (beit-kafe) in Hebrew consists of two nouns: “house” (bayt) and “coffee” (cafe).

Unlike many languages, Hebrew has pronominal suffixes. For example, with the help of such a suffix, the phrase “my house” can be said in one single word.

Unlike Russian, in Hebrew the same adjective or verb, even in the plural, has both feminine and masculine forms. For example: the adjective “beautiful” - yafot (f.r.), yafim - (m.r.). The verb “we speak” is madabrim (m.r.), medabrot (f.r.).

There is no respectful form of “you” in Hebrew, so even complete strangers address each other as “you” from the first meeting.

All pronouns except “I” and “we” are gender related. For example, “you” in the masculine gender will be different from “you” in the feminine. When addressing a female group (“they/you”), feminine pronouns are used, but if there is at least one man among them, then the masculine gender is used when addressing.

A masculine word in Russian can be a feminine word in Hebrew, and vice versa.

In the Russian language there are only two numerals that take masculine or feminine gender: one/one, two/two. In Hebrew, all numbers can be either masculine or feminine. The gender of a numeral depends on the gender of the noun with which it is used.

There is no neuter gender in Hebrew. Russian neuter words in Hebrew can be feminine or masculine.

When writing this article, materials were used from the site http://speak-hebrew.ru/