Beginning Biblical Hebrew

Rating:
Summary: Best of What's Out There
Review: I am a current new student to Hebrew, and we are using this book. There are a few minor problems with it, but overall I find it presents difficult material in a way that makes it easy to learn. I have looked at several other books out there, and this one is my favorite, far and away.



Rating:
Summary: Quite Good
Review: I am admittedly a bit biased in assessing this book. I took 2 classes of Hebrew under Dr. Futato where he used this book as his basic Grammar textbook for the courses. As such, I had the advantage not only of this Grammar, but also having access to its author as he went through it and explained the material as well as his thought process for how he chose to organize the Grammar.

This Grammar has some features in it that are lacking in most other Grammars that are so common sense, it makes one hope that Futato's Hebrew Grammar will at least inspire better Grammars by others. In particular, Futato insists on introducing the student to relevant vocabulary in the lesson prior to when it will be used to teach the subsequent lesson's contents. In Grammar after Grammar, students find themselves in the position of not only learning new concepts with each lesson, but being exposed to vocabulary not previously learned that is essential to being able to tangibly work with the concepts in that lesson. This is a very poor methodology of teaching a language, and Futato goes a long way toward rectifying that here. It's great to see vocabulary relating to the Hiphil (as just one example) in the lesson BEFORE getting exposed to the Hiphil, and then using that vocabulary in the Hiphil lesson to substantively interact with the Hiphil.

In addition, emphasis is placed on the majors instead of the minors, and each lesson is very digestable in terms of its length and content. Where the concepts are more difficult, Futato breaks up the lessons so that the student can absorb the material gradually. The lessons are well written and non-technical for the most part. Futato, I think, recognizes that he is writing this Grammar for beginners, and as such, expounds the material at a truly beginner level. Students, I think, can make considerable progress in this book independently, and that's a credit to how well the Grammar is laid out, and how clear the material is presented.

The lesson exercises themselves have elements in them that range from great to so-so. The translation exercises get progressively more difficult as more lessons are learned, and this keeps the student challenged, but not overwhelmed. Futato generally does a good job of providing at least some explanation for relevant oddities in the Hebrew language that the student will encounter in the lesson exercises. Each lesson exercise has a section devoted to reviewing material and concepts from previous lessons, thus keeping the previous material fresh and providing a sustained basis for the logical accumulation of knowledge. My only mini-complaint is that some of the exercises are actually a little too easy and rudimentary, and that's saying something coming from someone like me who doesn't possess a particularly strong aptitude for languages.

I'm giving the book 4 stars for 2 main reasons, one of which I know is going to be fixed. There are a proliferation of grammatical mistakes throughout the Grammar, and in some cases, those mistakes are quite material in terms of introducing mass confusion into some of the lesson exercise questions. Futato is aware of this problem and is working with the publisher to correct these mistakes. So I fully suspect that the next printing of this Grammar will be much cleaner. The more substantive problem is that while this is not a Syntax, the lesson exercises that deal with translation do not ask the student to parse verbs and participles - the student is merely asked to translate. To me, this is incomplete, and I would suggest that these exercises be modified to force students not merely to translate, but to parse verbs from the Hebrew text, and to have the answer key in the back of the book modified accordingly.

But overall, this is a fine introductory Grammar that lays down a solid basis for further study of Biblical Hebrew.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly conceived - lousy organisation
Review: Very disappointed - the only online review of this book is the overly gushing shlock provided by (...)! The vocab lists seem to be an afterthought, with no consideration regarding parts of speech, gender, number, etc. Very many typos make checking your work an adventure. Frustratingly does not spell out the more complex paradigms, clearly in an effort to conserve space, and therefore money. (eg, "Doubly Weak Verbs", p. 91). I am glad to see it is out of print, and hopefully will not be foisted upon unsuspecting students in the future.