Hi Nick,

Thanks for posting and sharing this!

It seems like you worked very systematically on your Spanish and I'm sure it yielded some great results 😄 This is great advice for everyone that wishes to improve their language skills fast 👍

Enjoy learning Hebrew with us and please feel free to post your questions in case you have any 😉

Best,

Roi

Team HebrewPod101.com

I Can’t speak for everyone else but this is my challenge...English is my native language and I actually had to learn Spanish to work in my career as a US Customs Officer. I came up with a learning method to help learn the most common verbs used, then learned how to conjugate those verbs. Then I learned nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and numbers. I also made a separate list of words in Spanish that sound similar to the words in English, these were called cognitives. Learning this way made it pretty easy for me and I’m trying to use the same learning method to learn Hebrew. So far it’s working out, but I need to see the words with the niqqud to make my method work.

Hi Michael R. Masters and Rebekka,

Thanks for posting and for sharing your questions!

@Michael - thanks for the well educated summary of the issue. Shva na and Shva nakh are indeed most frequent in Hebrew, but there is a third one - shva "merakhef" (literally: 'hoveringshva'). This third form appears in specific cases where two shvas are following one another, as in many imperative forms of binyan kal, as in the word "kitvi" (כִּתְבִי)

Here in this lesson, we don't deal with the grammatical categorization and naming yet, but we tried to lighten some of the most common situations where shvas generally occur and their correct pronunciation... This topic is explained in more detail in other lessons.

@Rebekka - This is a tricky subject that takes experience and familiarity with Hebrew vocabulary... Generally, I would avoid determining that several things in a language are "Always" so and so, as there are always exceptions... The best we can do is to find the general rule and follow it while learning the exceptions gradually as they come...😅

Shva can appear under any letter and its pronunciation varies as a result of the grammatical structure (binyan), the following letter and other factors. Generally, though, when you read a letter with a shva underneath, you can assume a "non vowel' or a very short "E" vowel, as in the case of a shva under a lamed at the beginning of a word.

I hope that helps. This is not an intuitive subject and it takes some practice to fully understand and use... Please let us know if you have any further questions, we'll do our best to assist :)

Best,

Roi

Team HebrewPod101.com

Hello, I enjoy learning with your videos,

but there are not enough explanations.

How can I know which of the three shva vowels it is when reading a new word that I don't know?

Is the first shva vowel ONLY under the letter Lamed? Is it ALWAYS the first shva vowel when it appears under the letter lamed?

When the shva vowel is in the middle of a word, is it always the second shva vowel or can it be the first one as well?

Why is the word for big in the video g'dola and in the vokabulary gadol? The same applies some other words.

???

In every textbook on Hebrew Grammar I've ever read, mention is made of only 2 Shva's: vocalic and silent. It seems to me that the origin of this shva 3 is with the well-known rule in Massoretic Hebrew where the 'a' or 'e' vowel in the initial syllable is reduced to a vocalic shva (shva na) when suffixial endings are appended to the word root and the initial vowel is removed two syllable from the stress. However, it appears that, in modern Hebrew vocalization, this resultant vocalic shva has been transformed into a silent, non-shva, or just another form of shva nach, without any apparent grammatical rules to support it.

Hi Birdie and Flora K.,

Thanks for posting and sharing your experiences!

Pronunciation gets easier with time... A good way to practice this is trying to listen carefully to a recording of a native speaker and try imitating the sound in front of a camera... feel free to try it out ! 😁😁😄👍

Enjoy learning Hebrew!

Best,

Roi

Team HebrewPod101.com

I'm finding it more difficult to pronounce the throat sound when it is in the middle. "Todah" for making this program so interesting and thorough! 👍👍

Birdie

Definitely the biggest challenge for me is the "resh" sound, because it's so guttural and deep in your throat. I also have a hard time understanding the intonation of certain words when speaking, and when listening, it's super fast so I get so confused!

Hi Isabel P.,

Thanks for posting and sharing this!

Yes, many Hebrew learners are struggling with the pronunciation of Reish... but please don't worry! first of all, this can be trained by listening carefully and practicing pronunciation (best in front of a mirror). Second - as long as you can communicate and other people understand you - who said that accents are so bad?! 😉😄

Keep up the good work, and feel free to let us know in case you have any questions 👍

Best,

Roi

Team HebrewPod101.com

Our biggest challenge in learning Hebrew is the “reish” sound.🙁