Re: Biblical Hebrew or Modern Hebrew?

Katav Steg Belski:


> 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?
I learnt some Modern Hebrew first, and it was a mistake. To switch from BHe
to MnHe is much easier. But anyway, all I can say is "I agree 100% with
Steg", esp. about vowels. And finally, it depends on your immediate goal.

-- Yitzik who teaches BHe to some rather lazy guys in a certain institution