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Although some people find Hebrew is relatively easy to learn, they are in the minority. As Hebrew has a completely different alphabet system and grammar system from English, never mind having sounds that don't exist in the English language, most English speakers find it a rather difficult language to learn.

However, it must be mentioned that there are thousands of kids, many of them relative newcomers in Israel, who chatter away in Hebrew.

It's also interesting to learn that the founding fathers of the US were all schooled in the classics, which included Hebrew, and that Dr. Benjamin Franklin argued for Hebrew to be declared the official language of the new country after independence.

Answer 2

It's all relative. Hebrew uses non-Roman characters so the first step would be to learn all the letters and vowels and their sounds. Nearly every single Hebrew word originates from a simple three- or four-letter root, so you can easily see the interconnection of related words.

The language is neatly divided into "binyanim" (conjugations) according to the different tenses. There are, essentially, only 5 such binyanim in Hebrew (not counting 2 sort of automatic passive tenses).

Once you learn the different binyanim, you can neatly place different roots into each one and conjugate them. It's quite a task at first but once you embrace the concept of roots and binyanim, Hebrew is a much more simple language than English.

Words that you wouldn't even think to be related (in English) make perfect sense in their relationship in Hebrew. For example, the root אמנ basically means "believe" or "trust." From that one root, you can conjugate the verb into different tenses of believing plus derive other words such as אמן (amen) - which is the common word said after prayers and blessings. When placed into a different binyan, the root means "train" or "instruct" - think about it like you trust or believe in your trainers and instructors to teach you the correct way to do things. And so on.

In many ways, Hebrew seems quite complicated. But once you get the hang of it, it makes so much sense and is organized in a fashion that enables someone to pick up meanings of sentences without knowing the exact meaning of every word...by simply pulling out shoreshim and deriving meanings from things they may already know.

Answer 3

Hebrew is considered a medium difficulty language for English speakers to learn. The Foreign Service Institute ranks Hebrew as a Category II language, placing it as more difficult than French, Spanish, and Swedish, for example, but less difficult than East Asian languages like Chinese or Japanese.

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7y ago

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