  Very disappointing., 2007-03-17
Comment: I've had disappointment before with Teach Yourself language books lacking basic things, but a friend recommended the Arabic version to me and seeing that, it seemed the courses had been seriously revamped.
Revamped they may have been - but sadly "modern hebrew" lives up to TY's general lack of in depth study, too many misprints, non-translation of words used predominantly in texts, and generally just not clear enough for the hobbyist or in depth enough for the serious language learner.
1) Misprints.
When a language is in as exotic and unusual-looking a script as Hebrew, and when it is printed right to left and not left to right, any misprints in the transliteration can be at the least very confusing for the new learner. In one of the first verb conjugations in the book, the transliteration of two of the basic personal pronouns is mistyped - one is backwards, one is a mix - leaving a learner potentially trying to work out quite how one pronounces "emh". There are several other misprints.
One of the more serious is in the key to the exercises, where the wrong verb (though in the right person) is used for 2 out of 5 answers. I'm an experienced enough linguist to be able to spot that it wasn't my mistake, but for someone coming to the book with no language experience and trusting the "teach yourself" ethic, this could be immensely frustrating and possibly discouraging.
2) Misprints or non-explained grammar/morphology.
There are quite a few places where words appear in Hebrew spelt in two different ways - sometimes on the same page. 's are also used in the middle of some words in one place, and not in others - with no explanation. Particularly as the ' is easily confused with the Hebrew letter Yod, this is very confusing, and given the myriad misprints elsewhere, it is not easy to be confident whether this is some kind of grammatical thing or merely another instance of carelessness on the editors' part. The blithe assurance in the woefully inadequate grammar summary/revision in the back of the book that sometimes letters are missed out or doubled but that this is a question "not to be asked now" is not helpful or reassuring, and I am not left feeling confident that I know when the random 's are mistakes and when they are grammar issues.
3) Lack of grammar/badly explained grammar/lack of grammar tables.
I appreciate that grammar isn't everyone's cup of tea, but - it IS essential in language study at some stage or another, and even if it does not form the bulk of the main texts, it needs to be addressed somewhere.
TY Modern Hebrew has a grand total of 4 pages dealing with "language revision". It doesn't have grammatical tables of conjugation of nouns or declension of verb endings even for basic regular patterns except tucked into the main text and badly explained.
Prefixes are badly explained and often made more complex in an effort to make them appear "not boring grammar".
A short "language traps to avoid" section is useful but a little of a non-entity.
I realise that pages of grammar can be a turn off for any student, and the reams of verb tables etc in the back of, for example, TY Arabic, are indeed intimidating. But these things need to be available to the student to reference as and when they need to, and as their confidence in handling the language grows and they start to use language not contained in the book.
Even within the context of the book, several times in even the first few chapters, constructions are used or words are referenced which are not explained or translated anywhere in the book. Granted a reasonable linguist will pick up meanings and figure out constructions, but this is not a book necessarily aimed at reasonable linguists but potentially at monoglot beginners.
4) Non-translation of words used in the text/translations not linked to text.
In several places, the book asks questions about texts or uses words without translation of those words in time for the student to have come across them elsewhere. Some words can be picked up easily from context, or because they are borrowed words from other languages. And I am 100% in favour of having a go at figuring out words, and not having everything handed on a plate. BUT the beginning student needs the help for most things, and especially non-obvious words, on the page or before the text. Several pages later or in a later chapter - and often on a page with a text that doesn't use that word - is very unhelpful.
5) Bad explanation of script/prononciation/writing.
Given the transliterations used in the first chapters of the book, it is very apparent that the advice and help given on reading and writing the script is not as comprehensive as one would hope when two whole chapters are devoted to it. The handwritten letters are not written on lines so it's not easy to see how they lie in relation to the printed line, and none of them give any help as to how they are formed/stroke order.
Additionally, several of the letters are marked as having no exact parallel in English and one has, therefore, to "listen carefully to the recording". All very well, but the recording is of the names of the letters, not of their sounds, and letters like Ayin remain a mistery. Given the complexity of some of the sounds in related Semitic languages, this is not comforting...
The explanation of the pointing for vowels is also faulty, many of them are described badly or with words that differ greatly in prononciation and are therefore very unhelpful. Comparing them with the recording, only a few of them really fit well with the sounds of the words used to describe them, and I have a reasonably RP English accent.
One of them, "Shva", is linked to the second syllable of "tractor". Yes, most of us say "trak-ter" in normal speech, the second syllable ending up as a schwa, but seeing "O as in tractor" will convince many the vowel should be said "or" or "aw", given that most people don't really think about how speech is elided in normal use when they are trying to pronounce new letters in a new language.
In conclusion...
Weirdly enough, despite all the faults, I have actually enjoyed studying the language with this book. How much of that is due to enjoyment of Hebrew and how much is down to the book is debatable, but for benefit of the doubt I have to give 2 stars. However... it is frustrating, not well written, riddled with mistakes, and missing a lot of necessary explanation for a book which boldly claims its goal as "all round confidence" and having content that "explores the language in depth". The book would suffice to whet the appetite and "get by" reasonably well on holiday in Israel, but in no way would it give all round confidence, and if there's one thing for sure, depth is lacking. A great shame and a disservice to a language which (despite the book) I am growing to love.
If you can supplement it with a more accurate, in depth, and informative book, then some of the exercises are reasonably fun and useful. But in its current state crammed full of mistakes and thin on grammar help, it isn't worth £20 even with the CDs. Deeply disappointing.
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