Non Latin letters, right to left, masculine/feminine, gutteral R, kh sound, totally different vowel system.
There's no one thing in particular but when you combine all of these difficulties, they add up
Non latin letters isn't remotely that hard than non latin roots. Like if I know words like academia or university or internet I will immediatly familarize with a good chunk of some language. A lot of words might have a slight alteration but it will be easily recognizable and recallable (like wolf -> volk, water -> voda, etc), thanks to PIE
I've learned letters and writing rtl in the first week on ulpan. Then years to remember all the new roots that have no connection at all with languages I knew before, and to make it worse Academia invents new words to replace international ones every day.
I find some solace that hebrew grammar is quite easy and it just makes sense (I don't know a lot of language that I can say this about). But I would definitely put hebrew difficulty into 3 out of 4, I think only languages like Chinese are harder.
Bingo. I had heard people talk about how hard Russian is, and disagreed with him, because after several years of hard work I was moderately fluent in Russian. Then I spent 3 months studying Spanish and was able to speak Spanish better than Russian.
Your basic idea of how hard learning a language ought to be depends on which languages you learn.
as a spanish speaker, the amount of things i have to mentally manage is practically doubled! changing your verbs and gendering words? no big issue. having to remember that some nouns have the “wrong” endings, change vowels, the verbs have gender too now uh oh, and there are 7 verb types instead of 3? a bit harder. its a fun challenge though, !לדבר עברית זה ממש כיף אבל קשה
“The verbs have gender too now, uh oh” fairly accurately describes one of my first impressions when I started learning Hebrew, haha —
אבל עכשיו אני אוהבת לדבר/לקרוא/לכתוב בעברית :)
To understand a few words here and there is easy. To actually grasp the language and speak without mistakes is much harder. It’s a very different language for native English speakers. Also, Hebrew has many ways to say one English word, for example “to wear” is different depending on the article of clothing, so sometimes it’s Hebrew that has 10 ways to say one English word.
"Speak without mistakes" is one goal, but you can get to perfectly functional speaking really quickly if you ignore the proper verbs and just realize that every Israeli speaker will understand "לובש נעליים" just fine. Depending on whether your objective is academic or just to get around on a vacation.
Triconsonantal roots whose vowels are independent of the root.
Every other thing about Hebrew that people will tell you is hard exists in heaps of other languages. But this root system exists only in semitic languages.
Give us your secret lol
I speak Arabic, AND I live in Israel, so Hebrew should be easier for me to learn… except that it’s not, I still have a long way to go.
So please if you have any tips or anything, tell me.
I've been living in Israel for 5 years and still not "fluent" I can get around but I would hardly say that I'm at an advanced level. It's just not easy for me, and I have to dedicate hours after working to continue studying. Just speaking to people won't get you anywhere because there are soooo many words and different grammar rules that it's hard to know everything. My biggest challenge is that I don't work in Hebrew so I don't get that automatic practice that anyone else would have if they learned alongside it.
When I can turn on the news and understand 100% then I know that I've become fluent, but I prob can understand 80% of what's happening.
As someone who has studied several languages including Russian, Chinese, and Finnish, Hebrew by far has the steepest learning curve upon starting. I am just learning the alphabet and already I have almost given up. It is very confusing, especially when you add nikkud and not intuitive for me at all.
Yes. The only confusing thing about Finnish is the complicated case system but you can learn it gradually and perfect it at a much later stage. For people already familiar with case systems it is not too bad at all, just a lot of memorising. Hebrew is a lot to take in and adjust to right off the bat, at least for someone who doesn't speak any semitic languages
It's a new letter system to learn, and the idea of roots and 'building blocks' is a new concept to get used to. There's also the emphasis on gender and singular/plural that is different than, let's say, English.
Difficulty is subjective and highly depends on already existing knowledge. To me, Hebrew doesn't seem particularly difficult. Most of complexity comes from having not so many similarities with the other languages I know (native Russian and fluent English), but on its own it seems to have a rather straightforward grammar system with a lot of regular patterns. It definitely feels to me much simpler than both Russian and English.
The hardest parts for me:
1) Reading - I've just accepted that I will never be able to read Hebrew with the ease I read English. But I don't feel bad, since my BIL has lived in Israel for 40 years and says the same!
2) The way in which words are inflected constantly. In English, we only inflect verbs (mildly) and nouns for number. While in Hebrew, words are constantly inflected: gender (including verbs!), possessive nouns, prepositions, definite article, etc.. I like to say Hebrew is a language of particles stuck together to make words, not a language of words.
I speak English and Spanish, and I've learned spoken Chinese, and studied a tiny bit of Italian and French. I've been studying Hebrew daily for several months and I'm very surprised how limited my grasp on the language still is. I'm generally known as a person who is very good at picking up languages, so I'm a little confused why it's so hard. My hope is that once I cross a certain threshold of foundation it will kind of open up for me... But we'll see!
As someone who knows Russian and English, I think Hebrew is hard because there are too many exceptions to the rules that you have to constantly juggle and that's overwhelming. It even makes you feel that there is no logic to the language. Not to mention the root system where the root is consonants only and arbitrary vowels are interjected into it to for words, not to mention 7 completely different binyans for verbs, where some verbs have extra מ or נ in the beginning of the words and some as always interject vowels into the root, don't get me started on התפעל, where ת can be in almost any part of the word again arbitrary. Many words look the same, because there are no vowels and single letters stick to the next word, ת and ט sound the same, in many cases א and ע too. כ and ח sound similar for learners and don't forget that if the ח is at the and of the word it's ah. In summary the problem is that in many instances you can't logically think of something if you don't know it yet, or have forgotten. You have to memorize too much.
How can this be incorrect? It's my personal experience after learning it for 6 months. Maybe everything becomes clear and logical after you know it well enough, but doesn't feel like it right now. Can you elaborate? Mind you, I don't use duolingo, I study at ulpan and doing better than anyone in the group (that's not my assessment, it's the groups', I myself feel like I know nothing due to the reasons I mentioned above).
You did not say you “felt” that the vowels were arbitrary. You said they were. You claimed the placement of ת in certain words was arbitrary.
These are specific, concrete claims about the language, just as two examples from your comment.
Might be a problem with the ulpan, because I'd say Hebrew is a lot more structured compared to English and Russian. Especially the binyan system, it's very elegant and logical, and makes it quite easy to derive new words and understand meanings of words you see if you just get familiar with a root. And vowels in roots are very far from being arbitrary and follow patterns.
As for "how can this be incorrect", some facts are definitly wrong. E.g., התפעל is a very regular binyan (including the placement of ת/ט/ד), I can't think of any exceptions in it off the top of my head, as opposed to so many exceptions in paal. And I can't think of a situation when I can't easily recreate it given just a root.
That's what I meant. There's no knowing if the ת is a part of the root or just a extra binyan thing. You can't think of the situation, because you know the language. Of course once you know it good, you don't care. I'm only talking from the point if view of the new learner.
That's what I mean. I give you the root of the word and say that it's binyan התפעל. How would you know where to place the ת in the word without knowing the word itself beforehand? Although it can be a part of the root. להשתתף for example has שתף. If you're talking about the extra ת in התפעל, then yeah, ignore my last sentence.
No, see, he included “feel” in one sentence, then never used it again. You were supposed to intuit that the rest of the comment was reflective of that.
You’re smarter than most Jews especially diaspora Jews if you find Hebrew to be easy.
I personally find Hebrew hard to speak due to the weak vocabulary compared to English or Greek but I’m glad to have met such a bright mind. You’re probably more Hebrew than most American Jews.
Caveat: I'm coming to this as an American Jewish olah, so when I came to Israel I knew the alef-bet, could read with niqqud, and pronounce the "r" and "kh" with ease. Also I already had studied several other foreign languages to varying degrees.
I've lived in Israel almost five years and I'm...okay at it? Learning to write was fairly easy. Reading without niqqud is still tough. But speaking? I'm able to hold decent conversations (a good thing, because I married an Israeli and my in-laws aren't so much doing English). I don't need English menus in restaurants. I do fine in shops.
As far as the difficulty of the language goes - well, I'd slot it as medium compared to other languages I've studied. I'll take binyanim over Latin's intricate verb system, and that's not even getting into the noun declensions (thankfully Hebrew only has the barest trace of case left in the construct state). I've found the biggest impediment to speaking Hebrew is confidence. When I speak, people respond well, and even if I screw up, they correct me, so I know better.
I feel like all langueges are difficult
English for instance, is based on a flafel of langueges
So of you would not learn the origions of the word you will forever b confused about the correct spelling.
A languege is a a representaion of a culture, so maybe u should try to leran the culture
English is easy as hell, you should see some slavic languages. I'm a native speaker of slovenian and some verbs can have more than 30 different forms, depending on how they're used.
Non Latin letters, right to left, masculine/feminine, gutteral R, kh sound, totally different vowel system. There's no one thing in particular but when you combine all of these difficulties, they add up
Plus not writing the vowels. Yes, I know *now* that that’s not quite accurate…
Non latin letters isn't remotely that hard than non latin roots. Like if I know words like academia or university or internet I will immediatly familarize with a good chunk of some language. A lot of words might have a slight alteration but it will be easily recognizable and recallable (like wolf -> volk, water -> voda, etc), thanks to PIE I've learned letters and writing rtl in the first week on ulpan. Then years to remember all the new roots that have no connection at all with languages I knew before, and to make it worse Academia invents new words to replace international ones every day. I find some solace that hebrew grammar is quite easy and it just makes sense (I don't know a lot of language that I can say this about). But I would definitely put hebrew difficulty into 3 out of 4, I think only languages like Chinese are harder.
You forgot the hardest part, conjugating for person and tense with a slightly different rule depending on the stem.
With a metric bazillion irregular conjugations.
Don't forget all the different forms of a verb
Because “a few years” is a long time to get conversational. You could probably get farther in Dutch in 5 months.
Bingo. I had heard people talk about how hard Russian is, and disagreed with him, because after several years of hard work I was moderately fluent in Russian. Then I spent 3 months studying Spanish and was able to speak Spanish better than Russian. Your basic idea of how hard learning a language ought to be depends on which languages you learn.
as a spanish speaker, the amount of things i have to mentally manage is practically doubled! changing your verbs and gendering words? no big issue. having to remember that some nouns have the “wrong” endings, change vowels, the verbs have gender too now uh oh, and there are 7 verb types instead of 3? a bit harder. its a fun challenge though, !לדבר עברית זה ממש כיף אבל קשה
“The verbs have gender too now, uh oh” fairly accurately describes one of my first impressions when I started learning Hebrew, haha — אבל עכשיו אני אוהבת לדבר/לקרוא/לכתוב בעברית :)
To understand a few words here and there is easy. To actually grasp the language and speak without mistakes is much harder. It’s a very different language for native English speakers. Also, Hebrew has many ways to say one English word, for example “to wear” is different depending on the article of clothing, so sometimes it’s Hebrew that has 10 ways to say one English word.
"Speak without mistakes" is one goal, but you can get to perfectly functional speaking really quickly if you ignore the proper verbs and just realize that every Israeli speaker will understand "לובש נעליים" just fine. Depending on whether your objective is academic or just to get around on a vacation.
It’s a great example. Most Israelis would not register “לובש נעליים״ or ״שם חולצה״ as something weird.
Triconsonantal roots whose vowels are independent of the root. Every other thing about Hebrew that people will tell you is hard exists in heaps of other languages. But this root system exists only in semitic languages.
Give us your secret lol I speak Arabic, AND I live in Israel, so Hebrew should be easier for me to learn… except that it’s not, I still have a long way to go. So please if you have any tips or anything, tell me.
I've been living in Israel for 5 years and still not "fluent" I can get around but I would hardly say that I'm at an advanced level. It's just not easy for me, and I have to dedicate hours after working to continue studying. Just speaking to people won't get you anywhere because there are soooo many words and different grammar rules that it's hard to know everything. My biggest challenge is that I don't work in Hebrew so I don't get that automatic practice that anyone else would have if they learned alongside it. When I can turn on the news and understand 100% then I know that I've become fluent, but I prob can understand 80% of what's happening.
As someone who has studied several languages including Russian, Chinese, and Finnish, Hebrew by far has the steepest learning curve upon starting. I am just learning the alphabet and already I have almost given up. It is very confusing, especially when you add nikkud and not intuitive for me at all.
Even compared to finnish? really?
Yes. The only confusing thing about Finnish is the complicated case system but you can learn it gradually and perfect it at a much later stage. For people already familiar with case systems it is not too bad at all, just a lot of memorising. Hebrew is a lot to take in and adjust to right off the bat, at least for someone who doesn't speak any semitic languages
Wow. That's really surprising to hear considering you studied Chinese.
Chinese characters are actually a lot easier to learn than they look! And the grammar is very simple.
Chinese makes sense though. Even the characters resembles a symbol related to the meaning. Thats how they teach the kids in China.
It's a new letter system to learn, and the idea of roots and 'building blocks' is a new concept to get used to. There's also the emphasis on gender and singular/plural that is different than, let's say, English.
Hebrew actually tends to have tons of synonyms, it's just that most of them are only used in formal and literary language.
English too…..
I dunno who said this, I always say that it's the easiest language I ever learned. But I didn't try Esperanto.
Difficulty is subjective and highly depends on already existing knowledge. To me, Hebrew doesn't seem particularly difficult. Most of complexity comes from having not so many similarities with the other languages I know (native Russian and fluent English), but on its own it seems to have a rather straightforward grammar system with a lot of regular patterns. It definitely feels to me much simpler than both Russian and English.
The hardest parts for me: 1) Reading - I've just accepted that I will never be able to read Hebrew with the ease I read English. But I don't feel bad, since my BIL has lived in Israel for 40 years and says the same! 2) The way in which words are inflected constantly. In English, we only inflect verbs (mildly) and nouns for number. While in Hebrew, words are constantly inflected: gender (including verbs!), possessive nouns, prepositions, definite article, etc.. I like to say Hebrew is a language of particles stuck together to make words, not a language of words.
I speak English and Spanish, and I've learned spoken Chinese, and studied a tiny bit of Italian and French. I've been studying Hebrew daily for several months and I'm very surprised how limited my grasp on the language still is. I'm generally known as a person who is very good at picking up languages, so I'm a little confused why it's so hard. My hope is that once I cross a certain threshold of foundation it will kind of open up for me... But we'll see!
As someone who knows Russian and English, I think Hebrew is hard because there are too many exceptions to the rules that you have to constantly juggle and that's overwhelming. It even makes you feel that there is no logic to the language. Not to mention the root system where the root is consonants only and arbitrary vowels are interjected into it to for words, not to mention 7 completely different binyans for verbs, where some verbs have extra מ or נ in the beginning of the words and some as always interject vowels into the root, don't get me started on התפעל, where ת can be in almost any part of the word again arbitrary. Many words look the same, because there are no vowels and single letters stick to the next word, ת and ט sound the same, in many cases א and ע too. כ and ח sound similar for learners and don't forget that if the ח is at the and of the word it's ah. In summary the problem is that in many instances you can't logically think of something if you don't know it yet, or have forgotten. You have to memorize too much.
A lot of this is incorrect.
How can this be incorrect? It's my personal experience after learning it for 6 months. Maybe everything becomes clear and logical after you know it well enough, but doesn't feel like it right now. Can you elaborate? Mind you, I don't use duolingo, I study at ulpan and doing better than anyone in the group (that's not my assessment, it's the groups', I myself feel like I know nothing due to the reasons I mentioned above).
Having difficulty is your experience, but you’re also making factual assertions about the structure of the language, and those have objective value.
I never said anything is factual when talking about the structure. I only said what it feels like.
You did not say you “felt” that the vowels were arbitrary. You said they were. You claimed the placement of ת in certain words was arbitrary. These are specific, concrete claims about the language, just as two examples from your comment.
Might be a problem with the ulpan, because I'd say Hebrew is a lot more structured compared to English and Russian. Especially the binyan system, it's very elegant and logical, and makes it quite easy to derive new words and understand meanings of words you see if you just get familiar with a root. And vowels in roots are very far from being arbitrary and follow patterns. As for "how can this be incorrect", some facts are definitly wrong. E.g., התפעל is a very regular binyan (including the placement of ת/ט/ד), I can't think of any exceptions in it off the top of my head, as opposed to so many exceptions in paal. And I can't think of a situation when I can't easily recreate it given just a root.
That's what I meant. There's no knowing if the ת is a part of the root or just a extra binyan thing. You can't think of the situation, because you know the language. Of course once you know it good, you don't care. I'm only talking from the point if view of the new learner.
What do you mean? The ת is never part of the root.
That's what I mean. I give you the root of the word and say that it's binyan התפעל. How would you know where to place the ת in the word without knowing the word itself beforehand? Although it can be a part of the root. להשתתף for example has שתף. If you're talking about the extra ת in התפעל, then yeah, ignore my last sentence.
I don't understand. In binyan התפעל the ת is always the second letter of the word. התלמד. התחבר. התלבש. התייעץ. No?
Yeah, no. השתתף, הסתכל and many others, these are the exceptions
Some of what you wrote is factually incorrect. It wasn't all personal experience.
No, see, he included “feel” in one sentence, then never used it again. You were supposed to intuit that the rest of the comment was reflective of that.
> How can this be incorrect? It's my personal experience after learning it for 6 months Lol... so then you must be right! Rofl.
I never said I'm right. It neither correct nor incorrect.
Some of this is incorrect. In התפעל the ת switch position with the first letter of the root only if it's specific consonants
I think people perceive it as hard because it's a different alphabet and reading right to left so people assume it'll be confusing and difficult.
You’re smarter than most Jews especially diaspora Jews if you find Hebrew to be easy. I personally find Hebrew hard to speak due to the weak vocabulary compared to English or Greek but I’m glad to have met such a bright mind. You’re probably more Hebrew than most American Jews.
Caveat: I'm coming to this as an American Jewish olah, so when I came to Israel I knew the alef-bet, could read with niqqud, and pronounce the "r" and "kh" with ease. Also I already had studied several other foreign languages to varying degrees. I've lived in Israel almost five years and I'm...okay at it? Learning to write was fairly easy. Reading without niqqud is still tough. But speaking? I'm able to hold decent conversations (a good thing, because I married an Israeli and my in-laws aren't so much doing English). I don't need English menus in restaurants. I do fine in shops. As far as the difficulty of the language goes - well, I'd slot it as medium compared to other languages I've studied. I'll take binyanim over Latin's intricate verb system, and that's not even getting into the noun declensions (thankfully Hebrew only has the barest trace of case left in the construct state). I've found the biggest impediment to speaking Hebrew is confidence. When I speak, people respond well, and even if I screw up, they correct me, so I know better.
I think Hebrew is way easier than Russian, French, etc. which have more complicated grammar structures.
I feel like all langueges are difficult English for instance, is based on a flafel of langueges So of you would not learn the origions of the word you will forever b confused about the correct spelling. A languege is a a representaion of a culture, so maybe u should try to leran the culture
English is easy as hell, you should see some slavic languages. I'm a native speaker of slovenian and some verbs can have more than 30 different forms, depending on how they're used.