Back in 1994, I first began to learn Hebrew. Most books were just too difficult; for example, I ordered the "Foreign Service Institute" course. It taught the entire alphabet on one page, then jumped into complex lessons with no vowels.
On an out-of-town business trip, I finally discovered a book of exercises that teach a person to easily read the Hebrew letters. The book taught one or two letters per chapter, and slowly introduced the vowels (or Nikud). Each lesson progressed by adding one or two Hebrew letters, and another vowel or two.
Using this system, I was able to master "site reading" of Hebrew. In other words, even if I didn't understand the words I was reading, I could sound-out each word in the Sidur (prayer book) or the Hebrew Bible, or a Hebrew lesson book. The only problem was, sometimes I was still guessing and didn't have anyone to confirm if my new reading abilities were correct or not.
So even these "readers" were lacking. If I only had my own personal Hebrew tutor working with me, then I could have learned even faster. Since I was a computer software developer, I knew that the computer could take the place of the tutor, and pronounce the words for me.
My search began to find Hebrew fonts that were appropriate, and a good multimedia software program called "Toolbook". That was the easy part; the hard part was developing the dozens of words, lessons, and system of combingin them. I almost wore out the pages of my printed Hebrew dictionary.
Part of creating the program was to choose the hundreds of exercises. Another challenging part was finding a good quality microphone, and creating and editing over 2700 voice files. My fingers were almost raw from looking up so many words in a Hebrew dictionary.
Finally, the art work came together, and the progam changed from three diskettes (you don't see those much any more) to a CD/ROM. I learned Microsoft Frontpage and began selling the program online, back when the world wide web was just in its infancy. After 10 years, I have literrally sold 100s of the program.
When I first started "At Home with Hebrew" in 1994, the concept of selling on the internet was still new; some people even questioned if it was legal. I learned Microsoft FrontPage and created the first version of my website, and over the years the site had grown to sell many other Hebrew tutorials. Our recent products include "Hebrew Kindergarten" and "Songs of the Shabbat". - 15784
On an out-of-town business trip, I finally discovered a book of exercises that teach a person to easily read the Hebrew letters. The book taught one or two letters per chapter, and slowly introduced the vowels (or Nikud). Each lesson progressed by adding one or two Hebrew letters, and another vowel or two.
Using this system, I was able to master "site reading" of Hebrew. In other words, even if I didn't understand the words I was reading, I could sound-out each word in the Sidur (prayer book) or the Hebrew Bible, or a Hebrew lesson book. The only problem was, sometimes I was still guessing and didn't have anyone to confirm if my new reading abilities were correct or not.
So even these "readers" were lacking. If I only had my own personal Hebrew tutor working with me, then I could have learned even faster. Since I was a computer software developer, I knew that the computer could take the place of the tutor, and pronounce the words for me.
My search began to find Hebrew fonts that were appropriate, and a good multimedia software program called "Toolbook". That was the easy part; the hard part was developing the dozens of words, lessons, and system of combingin them. I almost wore out the pages of my printed Hebrew dictionary.
Part of creating the program was to choose the hundreds of exercises. Another challenging part was finding a good quality microphone, and creating and editing over 2700 voice files. My fingers were almost raw from looking up so many words in a Hebrew dictionary.
Finally, the art work came together, and the progam changed from three diskettes (you don't see those much any more) to a CD/ROM. I learned Microsoft Frontpage and began selling the program online, back when the world wide web was just in its infancy. After 10 years, I have literrally sold 100s of the program.
When I first started "At Home with Hebrew" in 1994, the concept of selling on the internet was still new; some people even questioned if it was legal. I learned Microsoft FrontPage and created the first version of my website, and over the years the site had grown to sell many other Hebrew tutorials. Our recent products include "Hebrew Kindergarten" and "Songs of the Shabbat". - 15784