Hebrew/Aramaic Alphabet Course Contents

Overview

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Welcome to this Hebrew/Aramaic Alphabet Course. Completing this Course is an essential foundation for all the later Courses. We recommend this course to everyone, even if you are already familiar with the Hebrew/Aramaic Alphabet, because there are many subtle differences between the letters in Hebrew and Aramaic which are explained here.

This Course covers the Ashuri Alphabet, which is the Alphabet used for everything in Hebrew (including Modern Hebrew in Israel today) and the Hebrew Bible, as well as Biblical Aramaic, the Aramaic Targums, and the Aramaic Old and New Testaments. The Ashuri script has been used for everything associated with Jews and Judaism ever since the Babylonian exile.

If your primary interest is Hebrew (at this stage), then everything you will learn here is equally applicable to Hebrew (although Aramaic is obviously mentioned). However, understanding the letters from an Aramaic perspective will give you an extra depth of understanding, as well as help you towards Biblical Aramaic.

NOTE: This Course will teach you how to both read and write Hebrew/Aramaic. This is important because other approaches may teach you to read the Alphabet (only) but you still might not be able to actually write. Really, you need to learn how to both read and write!

Downloads

Here are some downloads to help you get the most from this Course.

Stage 1 - Learn the Letters

For Stage 1, please go through each of the Lessons below, one by one, in the order listed. Remember that each Lesson generally has an Interactive Lesson, plus a video to watch, plus an exercise of writing out the letter on a Practice Sheet. It is essential that you do this!

Stage 2 - Learn the Vowels

For Stage 2, please go through each of the Lessons below, one by one, in the order listed. Now that you know the letters of the Hebrew/Aramaic Alphabet, this next stage teaches you the vowels. The vowels are important because they tell you how to pronounce the word.

Stage 3 - Learn To Read Entire Words

You should now know, and be able to recognise, each of the letters individually. Next, you need to get to the stage where you can read entire words. The Lessons below will help you to do this. At first, the process will be very slow because you will need to spell out the words letter by letter, but you will soon speed up with some practice! Again, go through these lessons one by one, in the order listed.

Stage 4 - Write Out A Biblical Passage

To complete Stage 4, please write out a Bible passage of your choice, copying it from a Hebrew or Aramaic Bible, and send it to Ewan. You will learn a lot from this exercise, so please do not skip it! The video below shows you what a typical handwriting sample looks like.