Learn the top five tools for learning the language
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| Shira: Hi everyone. Welcome back to HebrewPod101. This is All About Lesson 11 – The Top Five Useful Tools For Learning Hebrew. I’m Shira. |
| Amir: And I’m Amir. [שלום] (Sha'lom) |
| Shira: Today we have study aids for you Hebrew lessons. |
| Amir: Indeed we do. |
| Shira: We’re going to tell you about the best tools to help you learn Hebrew, besides us, of course. |
| Amir: So these are supplements for you. |
| Shira: Think of these as the hammer, nail, wood or glue that are going to help you build your Hebrew. |
| Amir: Once you have these tools, imagine what you can do. |
| Shira: Yes, even if you try out one of two that suit you, it’s going to bring you a lot of benefit. We know because we’ve been there. |
| Amir: The best part is you can come to HebrewPod101.com to share and learn what has worked for other students just like you. |
| Shira: We have learners from all over the world with many learning styles. From the Bill Gates of learning Hebrew to the book worm who doesn’t like computers, there is someone in our community who shares your style of learning. And we can all give each other tips. |
| Amir: So come and say hello, and meet some language learning partners. |
| Shira: Ok. Now, number one. What is the number one thing that you’re going to need, Amir? |
| Amir: A Hebrew dictionary. |
| Shira: Right. Sorry guys, that was a bit of an anti-climax. |
| Amir: Anti-climax perhaps, but necessary. |
| Shira: However, we do have some very exciting dictionaries. |
| Amir: Yes, there are some surprising new forms out there that won’t make your school bag any heavier. |
| Shira: So number two is online dictionaries. |
| Amir: Another one, number three, is a grammar dictionary. |
| Shira: Number four is an old favorite, flash cards. |
| Amir: They’ve helped us so many times. |
| Shira: And at last but definitely not least, audio and visual aids. So a Hebrew dictionary… this is like what, the hammer? |
| Amir: Exactly, the most essential tool. |
| Shira: Ok, here there are several kinds of dictionaries. Even some specialized forms you may never have heard of. |
| Amir: So, of course, you can choose the paper form. |
| Shira: But these are heavy and tedious. Manually looking up words isn’t always that easy and it takes a long time. |
| Amir: Instead, there are some other great tools that have been created to make it easier. |
| Shira: Electronic dictionaries, for instance, have developed tremendously. And I recommend the hand-held dictionary from Babylon. |
| Amir: This dictionary is especially recommended because it has all the verb conjugations in it, so you will never get stuck when trying to look up a word. |
| Shira: It also has an extensive databank with phrases for most situations. So you’ll never need to panic. |
| Amir: But of course, if you prefer the good, old hardback, there are some excellent dictionaries out there. |
| Shira: Yes. I personally recommend Oxford dictionaries. They always have the most updated words and phrases. |
| Amir: But they are quite heavy. |
| Shira: True. |
| Amir: And if you were to use the paper dictionary in a restaurant, you might get a very impatient waiter. |
| Shira: Or worse, you might have to give up and just randomly pick. Scary… Ok, tool number two is all about translation. |
| Amir: Tool number two is an online aid. |
| Shira: Yes, it’s called Morfix. Inevitably, like everything in life these days, some of your learning resources are going to be found online. |
| Amir: You practically can’t avoid it. |
| Shira: So when faced with characters you don’t know on your computer screen, you’re not alone. There’s help. |
| Amir: And you can find it at www.morfix.marco.co.il It’s free and it’s a very useful dictionary. |
| Shira: The good news is is that they now have the webpage in English as well. It’s the best online dictionary available, which is why we’re recommending it. |
| Amir: It was made for Hebrew speakers to learn English, but it’s so much better than other online dictionaries that it can be used the other way as well. |
| Shira: If you think you can settle for a simpler online dictionary, Babylon or Lingvosoft work perfectly fine. |
| Amir: Oh, and if you’re using Firefox as your browser, you can install an add-on called Babylfish that translates a word when you hover with the cursor over it. |
| Shira: Ok, so dictionaries are a great tool, but now let’s continue to tool number three. |
| Amir: Our next tool is a grammar reference. |
| Shira: So once you have some vocabulary down, you of course need to form sentences. |
| Amir: And as we know, this is done with grammar. |
| Shira: Yes, and if you don’t have time to take Hebrew grammar lessons every day and only listen to HebrewPod101, a grammar reference compliments your studies nicely. |
| Amir: I think everyone should have a grammar reference at hand. |
| Shira: Definitely. And there are many out there in pocket form, so you don’t have to break your back learning Hebrew. |
| Amir: When looking for a grammar reference, make sure that it’s for Modern Hebrew and not biblical Hebrew. The two are not exactly the same, and if you use the grammar for biblical Hebrew, you may get some pretty interesting responses. |
| Shira: Yeah, that would be kind of funny actually. Now let’s get back to something more creative. |
| Amir: So my personal favorite is flash cards. |
| Shira: Yes. There’s no better way to burn Hebrew into your mind or to reinforce what you have already learned than visually. |
| Amir: And in this case, you can choose the old fashioned way or the modern way. |
| Shira: Yes, you can buy books with ready-made flashcards, practice your handwriting by making your own or use one of the many, many online resources for flash cards. |
| Amir: There are quite a lot of these, including iPhone apps and such. |
| Shira: It makes it really easy to practice during the spare moments you have. It’s guaranteed to push your Hebrew to the next level faster. |
| Amir: So speaking of iPhone apps, we’ve developed a wonderful app for learning Hebrew. It’s called WordPower and you can find it in the AppStore on iTunes. It’s also available for Android. |
| Shira: Yes. With it you can hear or see Hebrew whenever you want. |
| Amir: Our last tool is audio and visual aids. |
| Shira: Audio and visual tools are one of the best ways to learn a language. |
| Amir: And they help your brain connect different parts of the language too. |
| Shira: Yes, make sure you listen to Hebrew every day, even for a few minutes, to let your ears get used to the sound of the language. |
| Amir: You can listen to some Hebrew music, read the news, watch Israeli television or listen to online radio at ww.IBA.org.il. |
| Shira: I love listening to Israeli radio. And it has helped my listening, comprehension and pronunciation tons. |
| Amir: Sure, but we also need to let our eyes get used to Hebrew. So what better way than reading? |
| Shira: Well, reading a novel can be a bit tricky at first. So I would recommend going back to how you learned your mother tongue when you were a child. |
| Amir: You mean picture books? |
| Shira: I sure do. You might think that it’s too childish, but it does work. And luckily you’re studying Hebrew because the Hebrew Bible has some of the best stories in the world for both children and adults. |
| Amir: There are a lot of biblical book available at all levels. |
| Shira: So all these things are great. I’ve used them all. But I have to say that there’s one last thing I want to mention. Lately, people have gotten into these high tech flying items and they forget about this. |
| Amir: What is it? |
| Shira: It’s a humble notebook and pen. There are many study techniques that simply use a notebook and pen, but I’ll share my tip. Every time you hear a word, learn a word or find yourself lacking a word that you need to know, just write it down. |
| Amir: True. That’s a good method. |
| Shira: Yes, and the next time you’re with someone Israeli, then you can ask that person how do you say such and such. Or you can just go over the words with them. |
| Amir: That’s really a very good tip. |
| Shira: It’s going to take your Hebrew to the next level. |
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| Shira: Well those are our top five tools for learning Hebrew. If you have some other resources you would like to share, you can always stop by HebrewPod101 and you can share it with the rest of the community. |
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