The Routledge Introductory Course in Modern Hebrew: Hebrew in Israel

I used this book for self-study, and found it to be excellent. For a start, it is well-organized. It basically consists of eight units comprising 90 short, digestible chapters, whose content is presented methodically and thoroughly. It is also well-written. The explanatory materials in English are always clear and to the point, and the Hebrew narratives and dialogues that begin most of the chapters and also come elsewhere in the book are interesting and enjoyable. The exercises, of which there is a great variety, are also interesting, and challenging, and thus engaging. As a bonus, the book is attractively designed, which adds to the experience of using it. One of its biggest assets, moreover, is its companion website. Like the book, the website is appealingly designed and effectively organized, and it contains a wealth of content. For example, it contains readings of all the dialogues and narratives and various other elements of the book. The dialogue and narrative readings are done by professional actors (as well as the author), who bring the material to life. A difficult part of Hebrew is the verbs, and the website contains a verb dictionary that gives all the conjugations, in each tense, of practically every verb that appears in the book, and for each tense there's a recording of all the conjugations, so that you can hear how they sound. For each of the eight units, there's an answer key for the exercises in that unit, links to songs and videos related to the unit, additional reading and listening material, and more. There's also a "Resources" page with links to other websites that are useful or interesting, and other content as well. The content of the textbook is also eclectic. It includes poems, Biblical and Talmudic quotations, and even jokes. One particularly impressive aspect of the textbook is the caliber of its writing. The English explanations are invariably spot-on, and many of the dialogues and narratives have a literary quality to them, so that they're pleasant to read and listen to. Some tell stories, which sometimes continue serially for many chapters, in which the characters speak and act like real people in real situations; others are topical essays on assorted subjects. Also impressive is the diversity and depth of the exercises. You can't make up exercises like these off the top of your head. It's clear that years of thinking, and of pedagogical experience, went into creating this book. Everything in it (and on the website too, for that matter) seems carefully thought out. I feel lucky that I chose to use this book to study introductory Hebrew. Having finished it, I realize that I still have a long way to go before I can use the language with any competence. But at least, I feel, I'm off to a good start.

Great book. You need to have some knowledge of Hebrew in order to take full advantage of the book. Love the website with all the recordings. It’s a great addition.

Muy fàcil de usar

1) As noted in another review, there must be something wrong with the binding of this edition, it appears to be bound back to front. Especially confusing when using the dictionary in the back, where the columns go from right to left, but continue on the page to the right.2) I find this book pretty difficult for a beginner. Very few words are transcribed phonetically, even in the beginning, so I have to spend a lot of time looking up words to be able to pronounce them. One thing I find especially frustrating is that the headings are only in Hebrew, so right from the first lesson, the exercises are marked תרגיל etc, and it is never explained what it means (or how to pronounce it).3) On the website you can listen to the vocab-lists and the dialogues, but the voices are not synchronized with the highlighted text in the video. Very irritating!4) On the website, under Lessons, the text for each video is only in Hebrew, so you are looking at a long list of only Hebrew words. Easy to understand if you know Hebrew - but I guess the point of buying this book is that you *don't* know Hebrew, so very confusing for me at least.I hope this book gets easier to use and understand as I learn more Hebrew, so far I think it is hard to use and navigate.

I had been teaching myself Biblical Hebrew for a while before I decided to take up Modern Hebrew as well, and I found this book. It may seem a little bit daunting at the beginning to look at all that Hebrew print, but do not let that dampen your motivation. Granted, the textbook is primarily conceived to be used in the context of a course, with a teacher (in which case I have no reason not to believe the praise lavished in the back cover by Hebrew language professors). But the book is also an excellent resource for self-study. It is important though to take a very methodical approach. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of thoroughly and conscientiously completing the introductory unit, Alef-Beit. It introduces the Hebrew alphabet, the phonological value of each letter, and spelling conventions of modern Hebrew, including the marking of vowels. It also introduces the print/block and script/cursive versions of the alphabet, with important reading and writing excercises. Last, but not least, it already introduces basic vocabulary that is then revisited in subsequent lessons. Another key component is the accompanying website, which contains all the relevant audio for each lesson (vocabulary and dialogues) and plenty of additional resources that address different dimensions --notional, functional, cultural--of learning Hebrew as an additional language.