Questions about Hebrew

Question

I have been studying modern Hebrew for about a month. Although my reading ability is still slow, I can read pretty well. I have some questions that I hope you can help with: \- When making flash cards and learning vocabulary, should I include nikkud? At what point should I drop those? \- I feel like I am learning pretty well, but I'd also like more in depth grammar information. Can you recommend a resource? So far, the hardest part for me has been verb conjugation. I am fluent in Spanish, English, and French, but I find that Hebrew is much less intuitive for me to see the pattern. Instead of learning the rule and applying it, I'm learning the infinitive and also the stem and then conjugating. Meaning, If I were to see a random verb in the infinitive, I would not immediately know how it conjugates like I would with the languages i'm familiar with. Even with little exposure in the other languages, I was able to conjugate random verbs in the wild. For instance, here are the verbs I've learned so far in infinitive and conjugated in masculine present for אני : ל**למוד ->** לומד ל**שתות ->** שותה ל**עושות ->** עושה ל**עבוד ->** עובד ל**רצות ->** רוצה ל**דבר ->** מדבר ​ I don't see any common pattern between identifying the root here. 'to speak' really throws me off because 'מ' isn't even found in the infinitive. How can I learn more about the verbal system so that I can internalize it? Is it just a case of having to learn a crap ton of verbs by rote?

Answer 1

I would keep using the nikud for now because you aren't yet familiar with typical vowel patterns. Once you learn those patterns, I think it will be easier for you to guess the pronunciation of the words without using the nikud.

As for verbs, there are different verb patterns in Hebrew, and once you know those, you will be much better off and much better able to guess what to do with a new verb, one you've never seen. The מ you mentioned is part of the present tense of the pi-el (פיעל), and once you understand that, it won't seem so strange. The verb patterns are called בניינים (binyanim) in Hebrew, and you will need to learn about them in order to progress.

As you've seen, romance languages are not that helpful in learning Hebrew because it's a different alphabet, different grammar, and different concepts.

!בהצלחה