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Rating: 
Summary: I hope no more diplomats are trained this way
Review: I bought this set because I am a polyglot; however, I think my set was missing a decoder ring or something! The Hebrew spoken on this set is not only muffed at best, but also out of date. Just like the Standard American English of today is much different than that of 15 years ago, so is the Israeli Hebrew in this set. If you're someone that already speaks Hebrew, this might help refresh your memory. To those trying to learn Hebrew, I suggest using this series only if you have a native speaker of Israeli Hebrew on hand to bring you up to speed on where the vocabulary and grammar are currently.
Rating:
Summary: I hope no more diplomats are trained this way
Review: I bought this years ago before my first trip to Israel in 1995. It of course got buried and not used. A couple of years later I studied Hebrew at an ulpan here in Los Angeles. I've supplemented ulpan studies with tapes, videos, and lots of books. The Pimsleur series is very good. "Aval" ... this Barron's series is a disappointment for many reasons.The biggest is: It's on tape. Good grief ... with technology where it is, why is anything being (re)produced on cassettes anymore? Oy! The recording quality is "kacha-kacha", and the grammar and choice of words is very different than what I learned in ulpan and what I'm continuing to imbibe. Parts of the tapes ARE semi-helpful, where the grammar/vocab are near up-2-date .... it does help with my listening skills. Overall, get the Pimsleur set (but let them know we all want a Level 2).
Rating: 
Summary: Much promise, limited realization
Review: I bought this years ago before my first trip to Israel in 1995. It of course got buried and not used. A couple of years later I studied Hebrew at an ulpan here in Los Angeles. I've supplemented ulpan studies with tapes, videos, and lots of books. The Pimsleur series is very good. "Aval" ... this Barron's series is a disappointment for many reasons. The biggest is: It's on tape. Good grief ... with technology where it is, why is anything being (re)produced on cassettes anymore? Oy! The recording quality is "kacha-kacha", and the grammar and choice of words is very different than what I learned in ulpan and what I'm continuing to imbibe. Parts of the tapes ARE semi-helpful, where the grammar/vocab are near up-2-date .... it does help with my listening skills. Overall, get the Pimsleur set (but let them know we all want a Level 2).
Rating:
Summary: Probably great for its time,but....
Review: I was interested in learning Hebrew to converse with the suprising numbers of Hebrew speakers in my neighborhood. (Upper East Side of Manhattan). I looked at Encounters in Modern Hebrew series, but there was no indication of stress for each of the words. So I bought this set... I did the first dialogue and wanted to show off to my Israeli primary care doctor... boy was I embarassed!! The language presented here is way too old to be respectable any more. Pimsleur is a good alternative,but they only have one level.
Rating:
Summary: cannot hardly make out what is said
Review: tapes sound like copies of copies of copies. I bought this with great disappointment. What a waste of money. Also, the people speaking sound like hebrew is the most boring language on the face of the earth. Don't be suckered into this one. It genuinely stinks. This is poor, poor, poor. At least make the recording off the original copy.
Rating:
Summary: Too old
Review: The problem with this set is that it is 11 years old, and much of the language is simply out of date. Not just the slang, but many grammatical points are no longer currently in use. The tapes are also muffled -- with the new technologies available and the changes in Hebrew, the publishers should produce a new version.
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