How to Use Aleph with Beth Videos to Learn Biblical Hebrew

Getting Started with the Free Hebrew Course

Are you interested in giving our free course a try, but you don't exactly know where to start? You're not alone, and this video is for you. A good place to begin is by reading most of the pages on our website.

We've designed our site to help everyone understand the science behind our teaching methodology and why Hebrew is important. It's good to have a firm foundation before you start by answering some of the questions we talk about on our website.

One of the big questions many people have is about our pronunciation. So we've dedicated an entire page to explaining this so that you can have a clearer idea why our pronunciation system might be a little different from others you've heard.

It's also important to understand that we're teaching Biblical Hebrew, not modern Israeli Hebrew that you'll hear if you travel to Israel. Although there's some overlap between the two, they are quite different.

So it's important to know that if you learn Hebrew with us, you won't end up learning how to have a basic conversation in Israel, although it will be a helpful bridge to learning modern Hebrew in the future if you decide to.

Another question you might have is, how long should I expect this to take? Our first response is simple, a lifetime. Hebrew is a lifetime marathon, not a 100-meter dash. Think about how long it took you to get to the point where you could read and understand classic poetry in your mother tongue.

It usually takes more than 20 years. And the Hebrew Bible is full of advanced poetry, which even native speakers of modern Hebrew struggle to read. So we want to make sure you have realistic expectations.

You shouldn't expect to sit down and fluently read the Psalms for devotions after a year of studying Hebrew. You might be able to do that with the help of a lexicon, an app, or interlinear, but most people take years to be able to read Hebrew poetry well.

We don't say this to discourage you, but rather to help you have the right expectations. Everyone can learn a language, and Hebrew is simply a language. But it takes time, and there are no shortcuts. For example, let's say you're a native speaker of English.

How long did it take you to have a vocabulary large enough to write university-level papers? Most people don't acquire that level in their mother tongue by the time they're 5 or 10 years old. So there really aren't shortcuts, even when it comes to our native language.

Language learning takes time. So one of the important things to realize at the beginning of this process is that it'll require a lot of patience. If you begin by thinking of Hebrew as a lifelong marathon, you'll set yourself up for more success and less discouragement.

What to Expect from Learning Hebrew

So, on the positive side, what should you expect? Well, depending on the amount of time you can dedicate to Hebrew each week, you may be able to begin reading some basic portions of narrative in the Hebrew Bible after a year.

In our lessons, you'll start reading some simple verses before the 20th lesson. So within a year, it's definitely possible to begin working your way through some passages of Scripture on your own. And if you're at a place in your life where you can dedicate hours each day to learning, you'll likely see some impressive results within six months.

We fully realize that everyone in this modern, fast-paced world is in a rush, and we want to accomplish things overnight with barely an inconvenience. But Hebrew just can't be mastered by quickly cramming a bunch of information into our heads.

Before you begin, it's also important to watch our tips video for learning Hebrew, which will explain some crucial things that every student needs to know. Once you've laid this foundation for your studies, let's talk about what to do step by step.

The Four Core Resources for Learning Hebrew

We realize that everyone is different, and not everyone has a lot of time to dedicate to learning Hebrew. That's totally okay. Our resources are adaptable to anyone, in any season of life, with any kind of schedule.

There are four core resources for learning Hebrew with us. Our videos, our quizzes on Bibling, our transcripts, and our grammar lessons. Let's get to know each one in turn. First, our videos. They're designed to be watched, enjoyed, and repeated at whatever pace works for you.

If you only have time to watch one per week, that's fine. Or, if you have time to watch a couple a day, even better. We've designed a suggested learning schedule that is free on our website. We'd encourage you to download it, tweak it to match your rhythm of life, reformat it if you wish, and then use it as a checklist.

Some people may need less repetition than the learning schedule suggests. But repetition never hurts in language learning, even if you think you've already mastered the material. If you'd rather not use the learning schedule, you can invent your own learning program.

But it's important to follow the videos in order on the lesson playlist. That list should help keep you on the right track. On the learning schedule, we include the quizzes, which is the next part of our core materials.

The quizzes are fun, interactive, multimedia reviews designed to help you reinforce what you're learning in the videos and assess how well you're internalizing the language. These quizzes can be reached through the link on our resource page or learning schedule and can also be accessed through the free BibleLink Android app.

The third core element is our transcripts of the lessons. These transcripts enable you to practice your reading skills with simple, recognizable content once you've learned the whole alphabet after watching up through lesson 19.

These transcripts contain everything that is said in the videos, but in written form, including lots of pictures, illustrations, emojis, and color to keep you engaged. These transcripts also serve teachers, whether at home or at school, who need a written guide for reviewing with students.

Teachers can also scan through the transcripts to get a quick idea of what's in a video lesson or use it to run a search for where a certain word or phrase occurs throughout the course. These transcripts are free to download and print as well.

They can be found easily on our website resource page. Finally, our fourth core resource is geared towards those who want an extra layer of precision in their study of Hebrew or who simply love grammar.

We've written grammar lessons to accompany each video explaining explicitly what's being taught implicitly in the videos. You'll learn some of the academic terminology for describing Hebrew grammar and syntax.

And we provide vocabulary helps that clarify the meanings of words that may have left you puzzled. These grammar lessons are a work in progress and don't exist for every single lesson video yet. We offer them as something to supplement your learning, but not as a required resource.

Some people will do better if they don't use these grammar lessons at all, at least in the beginning, because grammar details may be intimidating or distracting. For that reason, we don't include these lessons in the learning schedule, but we know plenty of people will want them and benefit from them.

If you do use them, don't rely on them as a cheat sheet and run to them immediately after watching a lesson once. Your brain needs time to internalize naturally, and you need to learn to appreciate a time of ambiguity where not everything is immediately clear.

So we recommend using the grammar lessons carefully for clarification after allowing sufficient repetition for your brain to process and digest the material through repetition. So those are the core elements for learning Hebrew with us.

Social Media, Downloads, and Final Encouragement

If you want to follow us on our social media channels, you can do so on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. On Twitter and Facebook, you'll see interesting things about our vision, the history of Hebrew, and even inspirational quotes.

And from time to time, we'll recommend good resources we come across, and we'll keep you up to date on the new content we're releasing for your growth in the language. On our Instagram, you'll see a few pictures every week with Hebrew describing what's in the picture, as well as simple Bible verses and vocabulary.

This serves as a quick way to review and maintain what you've learned. Make sure to explore our resource page for other interesting things you may not have seen before, like the very useful BART app and a place where you can download high-resolution manuscript images.

Now, for those who struggle with reliable internet or simply don't have access, we've got you covered. At the bottom of our How It Works page, you'll find several convenient ways to download our videos for offline viewing or sharing with others on USB drives.

We would love for you to help get our videos into the hands of those in developing countries with no internet connection, especially those involved in Bible translation. Anyway, that should be enough to get you started.

If you have further questions, remember that you'll probably find an answer somewhere on our website. We wish you shalom in your studies, and if you have a question we haven't answered online or a testimonial to share, we're easy to get in touch with via email or our social media channels.

Thank you for being a part of experiencing the joy of Hebrew with us.