Children learning Hebrew

[Kees Boer]

This is a little girl learning Hebrew. She is very excited about learning Hebrew. I've talked with adults about it and they tend to shy away from that. I'm not sure why since most of the Bible is written in Hebrew.

But I will say that it is much easier to learn a foreign language at a young age. I can even see that with my Spanish. I learned English a lot faster as a teenager. If you have young children, teach them foreign languages while they are young. It's well worth the effort. I understand that if you can teach someone before the age of six, they won't even have an accent. That is amazing. Of course that would require a local to teach them. Of course with the internet there are a lot of sources that can teach them by a local. I really like Pimsleur a lot. I'm using it now to learn Hebrew, while I'm falling asleep at night. And I went through all the Spanish courses before I came to South America, just driving around in Gainesville, doing what I was doing anyways.

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

I suppose most young people - if they are interested in foreign languages at all - prefer to learn a language that is used in large portions of the world today (like Spanish, French, German). And adults who see the benefits of being able to speak Hebrew probably shy away because Hebrew seems to be quite tedious to learn, especially since they don't use the Latin alphabet.

I am currently learning Ivrit, and while I've made some decent progress I do miss having the ability to speak to a native speaker of the language to improve. That ability was very helpful when I learned English. Whenever I have a question about the Hebrew grammar or pronounciation now I have to hit the books or hope to find someone saying the word on the internet.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think Koine Greek is actually more useful for Christians to learn from the perspective of Bible study, since the original text of the New Testament was composed in it, and the Old Testament in the Septuagint version, preferred by many Christians for its clearer Christological references and its more spiritual, longer version of Esther, where it is more of a story about God answering prayers, is also in Koine Greek, whereas Hebrew only covers most of the Old Testament, however, there are Aramaic bits scattered throughout and some entire books like Daniel are written in Aramaic. Greek also allows for the reading of important works of Patristic literature, philosophy, history, early liturgical manuscripts, and also New Testament apocrypha. After their return from the Babylonian Captivity, the Jews had become Aramaic speakers.

However, as a practical language, since the State of Israel revived Hebrew, there is some utility, as it functions as a lingua franca between Jews of different nationalities (mixed with some Aramaic). Learning Hebrew, some basic Aramaic, and Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian Arabic would open a lot of career opportunities in the Holy Land.

 

[Kees Boer]

I took two years of Koine Greek in the past. The Hebrew language is just so rich of pictures. It's very different than the Greek language... I found in both languages it was fairly easy and fast to learn the alphabets...