Sunday, March 26th
2023 Hebrew Lesson Reviews
Hebrew Podcasts
- Heavy focus on audio learning
- Lesson guides provide writing/reading practice
- Extensive content, especially for advanced Hebrew students
- Free lesson samples available
- New lessons released monthly
As you'd guess from the name, Hebrew Podcasts focuses on teaching contemporary conversational Hebrew through listening activities. Available since 2008, this platform connects with Hebrew learners of all ages from around the world and new lessons are released monthly.
Printable PDFs for each audio lesson
Each podcast comes with a lesson guide. These guides have full transcripts: in standard Hebrew, with nikkud, and also with transcription of the Hebrew using the Latin alphabet to make it easier for English speakers to follow and imitate the pronunciation. The lesson guides are offered as PDFs and have exercises you can do for practice, but you might want to print them out to make it easier.
Not the most advanced interface
Hebrew Podcasts does incorporate some video lessons into their teaching structure. But, they're not much more than slideshow presentations over an audio podcast: you won't see actors portraying the scene that's being represented, just static images that show you the written Hebrew as it goes along. You'll soon see that this is far from being the most technologically-advanced platform for Hebrew lessons. The games are just flashcards and a hangman-style fill-in-the-letters, and the quizzes are pretty basic too.
Costs
- $69 for 6 months ($50 for renewals)
- $89 for 1 year ($79 for renewals)
Save money when you renew
These Hebrew lessons have gone up in price over the past few years. You'll pay $69 for a 6-month subscription or $89 for one year of access. If you like Hebrew Podcasts well enough to renew your membership, you'll get discounts of $10-$19 in your second year of membership, and another discount for years three and onward.
No more money-back guarantee
The company has also dropped its 60-day money-back guarantee. Prospective subscribers are encouraged to try all of Hebrew Podcasts' free lesson samples before paying for a membership: you'll find those on their main page under "Try a free sample of lessons of different levels" , as well as in the Recent Lessons section where the audio portion is marked as "Listen Now Try Free" .
Best Hebrew lessons for advanced learners
On the other hand, we have upgraded the rating on these Hebrew lessons since our last review. Why? We found overwhelmingly positive feedback about the advanced content available here. Other providers tend to start out really strong at the beginner levels but the amount of learning offered to more experienced students is almost nonexistent. In contrast, Hebrew Podcasts seems to offer more instruction as you get better at using Hebrew. The range of topics they cover is impressive: everything from day-to-day life like registering for preschool and dealing with a power outage, to culturally-relevant themes like the Israel National Trail and the Maccabiah.
A decent option for learning by listening
Because Hebrew Podcasts has such a heavy emphasis on auditory learning, it's not going to be the platform of choice for anyone that wants a lot of reading and writing practice. On the other hand, the podcasts make it easy to learn on the go - especially for advanced Hebrew students who might not find many other options out there to challenge them and keep improving their fluency. We give Hebrew Podcasts a decent three-star rating: there are more robust, tech-savvy Hebrew lessons out there, but some students will find that this is an affordable, helpful resource that's worth using.
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Where Can You Find the Best Hebrew Lessons?
Unless you're moving to Israel and benefitting from the hours-long sessions at an ulpan, you'll need to find Hebrew lessons that are a good fit: for your time, your ideal learning mode, and your budget! It's not easy to get in-person lessons for all ages, especially if you don't live in an area with a university or a significant Hebrew-speaking population.
Fortunately, there are plenty of online options to choose from. Do you learn best by listening? Some Hebrew lessons place strong emphasis on acquiring the language that way: work through audio files of syllables, words, phrases and sentences and repeat after the speaker. Not your style? No problem! Choose a Hebrew language platform that makes everything into a game, from grammar lessons to writing practice and even speech recognition software that compares your recorded language to that of a native speaker.
Hebrew Lesson FAQ
Continued from above...
Better yet, almost all online Hebrew lessons take great care to include cultural and historical information as you study. Hebrew has such a rich history and symbolism; you can't fully understand the language without knowing where it has come from and how it's used in context today.
As you look through the various possibilities for Hebrew lessons, it's easy to feel overwhelmed trying to figure out which one to use. Don't worry! Here are some criteria you can consider as you narrow down your choices:
- Approach to teaching Hebrew. What kind of learner are you? Think about your time in school: did you learn best by seeing something written down, hearing it explained, or just good, old-fashioned memorization? While many Hebrew lessons seek to incorporate all learning modalities, some place heavy emphasis on listening and speaking instead of reading and writing.
- Ease of use. How intuitive is the language platform? Does it offer a clear learning path or do you have to figure it out on your own?
- Free trial or lesson sample. The best Hebrew lessons let you try it out before you commit. We highly recommend that you take advantage of any risk-free trials or lesson examples: it's the best way to see if a particular teaching style works well for you in practice, not just in theory!
- Value. It isn't just about the subscription price or one-time fee. How much language instruction will you get for what you pay? Will you have enough material to progress through your specific fluency level in Hebrew? How many features does the service offer? Consider popular tools like speech recognition, access to personalized lesson plans or tutors, and game-based recognition like badges and leaderboards to keep you motivated (if you like that sort of thing!).
TopConsumerReviews.com has evaluated and ranked the best options for taking Hebrew lessons today. We're confident that this information will help you improve your fluency in reading, writing, and especially speaking Hebrew!
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