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Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan
#3
Even if you want to learn Hebrew for a specific purpose, such as to read the Hebrew New Covenant, I would still highly recommend trying to learn to speak the language, rather than just learning to read and write it. When you can speak a language, and hold a conversation, you learn it at a much deeper level, and learn to think in the language, rather than thinking in your own language and translating. This is why one of Paul Younan's posts said that he gets frustrated arguing over the meaning of Aramaic words with people who can't speak the language. Speaking will let you see the vocabulary used over a much wider range of uses, and you will learn to parse verbs, for example, instantly rather than recognising a form only when you read it.

I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the books you list, although I have seen most of them. I went to an Ulpan (language school) in Israel for 6 months, then worked for an Israeli company in Israel for 4.5 years. "The diplomats" presumably use this course:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.lulu.com/content/831922">http://www.lulu.com/content/831922</a><!-- m -->
which I have, and have gone through in detail. It is very good, and you will definitely learn the language well from it. However, the Hebrew is typed and not very clear, it is a bit dated now, and the vocabulary is very geared towards what diplomats would use. The Linguaphone Hebrew is also very good, but it has not been updated since the 1970s, and although still good, some words have gone out of fashion in modern Israel, like nobody would use "taxi" in Israel for a taxi-cab, everyone would say "monit".

PS. My surname is pronounced Ma-Cloud, as in the name of the main character in the film "Highlander".

PPS. Once you understand Hebrew, and there are lots of courses to help you do that, learning Aramaic is very easy because the words, roots, verb forms, etc. have very strong parallels in both languages.

- Ewan MacLeod
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Messages In This Thread
Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan - by *Albion* - 02-25-2008, 08:23 PM
Re: Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan - by Amatsyah - 02-26-2008, 10:54 AM
Re: Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan - by Ewan MacLeod - 02-26-2008, 01:36 PM
Re: Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan - by *Albion* - 02-27-2008, 05:50 AM
Re: Question For Ya'aqub And Ewan - by yaaqub - 02-27-2008, 12:41 PM

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