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Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew

Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew

List Price: $44.95
Your Price: $42.18
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE book
Review: At last I have found a solid book! This is the way I want to learn Hebrew. It methodically introduces each key concept in small paragraphs and then reinforces the concepts using English to Hebrew and Hebrew to English exercises. I am able to remember and understand much better. Even Menachem Mansoor in his "Biblical Hebrew step-by-step" has heartily recommended the study of this book and now I can appreciate why.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Foundation
Review: Having been through the Grammar several times. I thought I had covered everything...a couple of months later I re-revised it and found more to this handy grammar than meets the eye. It covers the major concepts cearly, although the exercises were somewhat long, and did not treat all the forms mentioned in the particular area. An excellent companion is Gesenius's Companion which provides background and more information. In this respect I still use the Grammar - the tables are excellent, although I would have preferred the parts that are given '&c.' (etc.) to be completed, for confirmation. I would have liked the answers to the exercises to confirm my translations. All in all a great book, although the logic of chapters tends to be disjointed - The regular verb is treated earlier but Numerals are lumped at the end...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very good start
Review: I love this book and have had a good amount of success with it. I think that if you already have a little experience learning languages and are dedicated enough to study with this book every day, Weingreen will give you a solid foundation in Biblical Hebrew. It might seem at first that the lessons are short, but every comment the author makes on each topic is meaningful... there is no filler in this book. I am halfway through the book, and work all the lessons after studying each topic. It would be nice to have answers for the lessons, but they are not included, so it is necessary to have someone knowledgeable who can answer any questions you have and maybe check your work. If you are the kind of person who likes to learn quickly and doesn't need a lot of hand-holding as far as linguistic terms, this book would be good for you.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very good start
Review: I love this book and have had a good amount of success with it. I think that if you already have a little experience learning languages and are dedicated enough to study with this book every day, Weingreen will give you a solid foundation in Biblical Hebrew. It might seem at first that the lessons are short, but every comment the author makes on each topic is meaningful... there is no filler in this book. I am halfway through the book, and work all the lessons after studying each topic. It would be nice to have answers for the lessons, but they are not included, so it is necessary to have someone knowledgeable who can answer any questions you have and maybe check your work. If you are the kind of person who likes to learn quickly and doesn't need a lot of hand-holding as far as linguistic terms, this book would be good for you.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Romance of Paradigms
Review: If you are serious about learning Biblical Hebrew, this book will give you a solid grammatical foundation on which to build in your further studies. Weingreen presents the mass of Hebrew grammar in an orderly, systematic fashion, starting with the simple patterns of nouns and pronominal suffixes and gradually moving through ever more complicated verb systems. Almost the entire second half of the book is devoted to irregular verbs. Although this section could have been briefer, its very fullness provides the student with repeated drill in paradigms and allows the author to introduce longer and longer sentences in the translation exercises. Because of this book's emphasis on grammatical forms, vocabulary content is limited, as is coverage of syntax. The student who completes Weingreen will not be ready to read the Hebrew Bible fluently but he or she will be prepared to approach it with the aid of reference materials.
Adult learners without a teacher may be able to get by provided they have a strong grasp of grammar. That's how I did it. To other independent learners, I would make the following recommendations. Learn Hebrew script (consult other grammars or search the Internet). Get hold of Gesenius as soon as you can, to answer any questions that may occur and to clear up any confusion you may have about forms. Weingreen occasionally slips an unexplained bit of syntax into the exercises and you'll want Gesenius to make sure you are translating it correctly. Also, have a copy of the Hebrew text close by. You can use it for practice in sight reading and for comparing sentences in the exercises with the actual narrative. Next, get a Hebrew lexicon (like Brown-Driver-Briggs)--you'll need it sooner or later. Finally, don't give up! Try to do a little everyday, don't rush, and review frequently. Eventually everything will click and you'll find yourself actually looking forward to tackling things like "doubly weak" verbs.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT! MUCH BETTER THAN KITTEL'S BOOK
Review: This book was absolutely a joy to work with. I already was fluent in modern hebrew before I started this book, but I had never learned really why things were a certain way, I just had to memorize them. This book is a lot better than "Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook" by Kittel, Hoffer and Wright, because it slowly eases you into the language, giving you the basics first, while Kittel's book pounds you with huge amounts of grammatical rules at the very beginning. This is also better than Kittel's book because it tells you the actual biblical pronunciation of the letters and vowels, Kittel's book gives you the modern hebrew equivalents.

Also, the exercises in this book do not only review new material, but include lots of old material so you won't forget it. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN BIBLICAL (CLASSICAL) HEBREW THIS IS THE BOOK TO BUY!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My favorite devotional reading
Review: This was the text that we used for my Hebrew class in seminary, and it drove me to my knees in prayer and anguished supplication to God many times.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: concise, definitive hebrew grammar
Review: weingreen's book is great, because it does not overload you with vocabulary and gives a good collection of verb charts. Some may say that there is extra info in the book, but you know you don't have to read the entire book to get the idea of it.

The verb charts are great because although many of the forms are predictable (many of the piel, pual, and hithpael forms are almost entirely alike), he still gives full charts. The weak verbs section is yet another of these. Where he could have just said that certain letters take certain vowel points, and essentially condensed the 2nd half of his book into 4-5 pages, he gives great charts that show all of it in action.

this book is really better than kitel's Yale Univ Press Hebrew book because the indexing and layout of the book is easier to understand. This is just another older book (like J. Gresham Machen's Greek grammar) that is a classic in its field.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: concise, definitive hebrew grammar
Review: weingreen's book is great, because it does not overload you with vocabulary and gives a good collection of verb charts. Some may say that there is extra info in the book, but you know you don't have to read the entire book to get the idea of it.

The verb charts are great because although many of the forms are predictable (many of the piel, pual, and hithpael forms are almost entirely alike), he still gives full charts. The weak verbs section is yet another of these. Where he could have just said that certain letters take certain vowel points, and essentially condensed the 2nd half of his book into 4-5 pages, he gives great charts that show all of it in action.

this book is really better than kitel's Yale Univ Press Hebrew book because the indexing and layout of the book is easier to understand. This is just another older book (like J. Gresham Machen's Greek grammar) that is a classic in its field.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Romance of Paradigms
Review: Weingreen's grammar has been an invaluable textbook to several generations of Hebrew students. It is still sometimes used at seminaries, though it has for the most part been replaced by newer grammars.

This grammar is very good if you have the stomach for its method. This definitely comes from an old-school grammarian who has you memorizing a good number of paradigms. It is very thorough, which is something that many grammars lack. It must be said though that due its age, this primer has a greatly differing methodology than most people today are used to.

I would suggest that unless you believe in the 'good old days' of education that you try a different grammar, such as Gary Pratico's 'The Basics of Biblical Hebrew'. On the other hand if you learned Greek from J. Gresham Machen's 'New Testament Greek for Beginners' and liked it, this is the grammar for you.


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