Hebrew Language

5 Pages 1343 Words

I originally enrolled in Hebrew for a number of reasons. First of all I was interested in learning a language that was a language family other than the Romance. That left a Semitic language or a Tai-Korean language. The options were further narrowed by the fact that I gather great importance from the Bible and think that an understanding of the Hebrew script would bring me new insight. Furthermore I think Israel is such a culturally rich place and currently the hearth of political diplomacy, and learning ancient Hebrew would help me learn about the nature of the most epic ethnic group of all time. That said, I am extremely happy with my choice and am very excited about learning more. It just so happened that my teacher would be the most engaging, entertaining, knowledgeable and communicative professor I’ve had at (no flattery intended). I think that in the first two semesters I have laid a good foundation to grow from and eventually be proficient in translating the Old Testament.
Right from the start I knew that I was in a different world. I had to forget most of what I knew about language organization and start over. Vowels weren’t their own letters, letters were actually the first letter of the word for the letter (confusing at first) and numbers, which I still haven’t learned, were based on letters and very complex. After a few weeks though it stopped sounding completely backwards and started making since. Since then I have learned a great deal of the background of the language and what the basic structures of grammar are.
Most of the knowledge I have about ancient Hebrew pertains to the mindset and organization of speech rather than a large vocabulary and recognition of verbs. Vocabulary and content is definitely something I’m going to have to work on this summer. Hebrew though, is flexible in the sense that it is not about memorizing or learning from wrote. It is rather, like a puzzle and a search for cl...