Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?

On Sep 27, 2004, at 8:20 PM, David H wrote:
> Hello. I have been wondering which of these languages would be better
> to
> learn first.
> I hope to obtain a good (if not fluent) knowledge of Modern Hebrew some
> day, and I would also like to be able to read the Tanakh in its
> original
> Hebrew. But which would be better to learn first, would learning
> Biblical
> Hebrew make it easier to learn Modern Hebrew since a lot of the grammar
> and vocabulary are the same, or the other way round?
> Thanks

I'm not sure, sorry.  I learned both of them concurrently, so i don't
know which is better to learn first.  But whichever you choose, make
sure you start out reading with vowels, and then learn how to read
without them.  Because once you know how to read with them, you can
easily learn how to read without - but if you first learn without
vowels, reading vowelled texts can completely mess you up.
It also depends which is more of an immediate goal - do you want to
visit Israel, or read the Tanakh?


-Stephen (Steg)
  "prophets have visions; politicians have none."
      ~ yair zakovitch

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