User talk:馬太阿房

Welcome to Wikisource, and thanks for pointing out the issue with Shaddai. If you feel like contributing a chapter, feel free to take your pick from the partial or untranslated books listed here: [1]. If you have any other questions or anything you think needs further work, don't hesitate to ask!

Most of the contributors are gone, but I'm working on improving the remaining translation as much as I can. Alephb (talk) 23:54, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Genesis 2:24

Hey I saw your note on Genesis 2:24. You're right -- I did intend to remove the word "will." Thank you for catching that.

In response to your question, it does look like Genesis 2:24 is part of the words of the author of Genesis, and not part of the quote by Adam. I'm changing it to reflect that. Alephb (talk) 00:01, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Learning Hebrew

Hey, this is in response to your inquiry about Hebrew.

Unfortunately, there is no single link you can go to that would teach you biblical Hebrew. Instead, there are a lot of different resources scattered in different places across the internet. But if you're willing to put in the work, there's enough information that you could teach yourself step by step. If you decide to give this a try, I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions, because Hebrew is very different from English (a lot more different than, say, Spanish or German). But I'd be happy to answer any questions you have as you're learning.

To get you started, are you familiar at all with the Hebrew letters and vowels? Alephb (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

No. I'm not familiar with any of the letters yet. The only thing I think I know about Hebrew is that it is written right to left like Chinese and Japanese, except not vertical. Right? 馬太阿房 (talk) 19:25, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

That's correct. And it is originally written as a series of consonants. Later, the Masoretes (some Jewish scholars) added little markings and dots to clarify the pronunciation of the vowels. Alephb (talk) 19:39, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Hebrew Alphabet

If you aren't familiar with the alphabet and vowels, the first thing to do is to memorize the alphabet, memorize how to pronounce each letter, and memorize how to pronounce each of the vowels. I would recommend downloading the program called "Anki" and using it for making flashcards, but that's really not necessary if you have your own method of memorizing things. You can find a table of the alphabet here: [2]. There are several different "accents" or systems of pronunciation, but I'd recommend using the one linked to (basically a Sephardic pronunciation like they use in Israel more or less).

I'd recommend memorizing the table linked to, but with the following changes. Treat aleph as a silent letter; do not try to pronounce it. Pronounce gimel like the English g, as in giggle, whether or not it has a dot. Pronounce dalet like the English d as in dog, whether or not it has a dot. Pronounce waw or vav as v as in verb. Prounounce tet as a regular t as in Tom, the same as tav. Prounounce samek as a regular s as is sissy. Treat ayin as a silent letter; do not even try to pronounce it unless you feel up for a challenge. Pronounce tsade as the ts is hots. Pronounce k as a regular k as in Kyle. If you feel like going for an authentic pronounciation of resh, google it; otherwise just read it to yourself as an English r as in rabbit. Pronounce tav as a t as in Tom, whether or not it has a dot.

That's my recommendation for the alphabet.

You'll also want to memorize the order of the alphabet, until you can say to yourself, aleph bet gimel dalet he vav zayin chet tet yod kaf lamed mem nun samek ayin pe quf resh shin tav. You'll need this later, for looking up words in a dictionary. There are several good Hebrew dictionaries online.

For the vowels, you can memorize them from this list: [3].

Once you have the vowels and consonants somewhat memorized, the next thing to do would be to pick chapters in the Hebrew Bible and start trying to sound them out. You can go to this website [4] to pick a chapter of the Bible and start sounding it out. If you want, you can write down how you are sounding it out and I'd be happy to check your work for you.

Another way to check your pronunciations is to pick a chapter from this website: [5]. Once you reach a specific chapter, like this page, just click on the "List to this chapter in Hebrew" link, and it will give you an audio recording that you can listen to online of the chapter being read out loud.

Learning how to pronounce Hebrew is a fairly tedious and unwarding part of the studying, but after you get that done you'll be ready to start learning words. If you have any questions, feel free to ask -- I love helping people with Hebrew. Alephb (talk) 19:40, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

PS. Another thing that might help you check your work is to copy a chunk of Hebrew and paste it here: [6]. It will give you a transliteration into the English/Latin alphabet that will help you see which letters in Hebrew correspond to which ones in English. Alephb (talk) 19:43, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Even Better

PPS. A textbook that explains the alphabet, and gives you helpful exercises, can be found here: Beginning Biblical Hebrew.

user:Alephb Thank you so much for taking the time to put these links together for me. I've been enjoying learning from them and plan to incorporate learning Hebrew into my daily routine. 馬太阿房 (talk) 05:23, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

user:馬太阿房 Best of luck to you. Let me know if you need anything explained. Alephb (talk) 05:58, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

user:Alephb Question about Tav and Tet. According to your direction I should learn to pronounce undotted Tav the same as dotted Tav which is exactly the same as I should pronounce Tet. Do I understand correctly? Is there a reason why I should not pronounce undotted tav as "th" in "they"? It seems like it would be hard to learn to spell words properly if I pronounce them the same regardless of how they are spelled. For example, I might mistakenly spell a word with a tav instead of a tet, or I might leave off a dot when there should be one. 馬太阿房 (talk) 23:53, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

馬太阿房. That's a good question. Basically, I was taught to pronounce the word roughly the way words are pronounced in modern Israeli Hebrew. That will do you good if you ever wind up having verbal conversations with people studying Hebrew, because it's more or less the standard in universities and among most-Hebrew speakers today. But if you want to try and go for a pronunciation more like the one around 800 AD (when the vowel-points were put in), then you could distinguish the dotted and non-dotted tavs. And maybe it would help you with spelling. I don't think it will be a big deal in spelling, though, because the tav is much more common than the tet. So as time passes, words with a "tet" will probably "jump out" at you as unusual, regardless of how you're pronouncing. When it comes to writing Hebrew, nobody uses the dots anymore (it just shows up in the Bible and some related old works, and in some elementary textbooks and such). Here's a webpage in modern Hebrew: [7]. Just like in the Bible originally, there's no dots. If you can learn to read without dots eventually, that'll help you out a lot. Particularly in biblical passages where the dot-makers made one choice, but it could have gone more than one way, you'll be able to pick those up easier.

If you do decide to go for distinguishing tavs, the tav without a dot (dagesh is the name of the dot) should be pronounced like the "th" in "thought" if you're trying to reconstruct the original pronounciation. As far as I know, no one pronounces the undotted tav as a "th" in "they." If you anticipate spending any time in around the Hebrew spoken in Orthodox Ashkenazi communities, you should know that the undotted tav is pronounces as an "s" by them. So I would pronounce the first word of Genesis as bereshit; the Masoretes (the dot-makers) and Yemenite Jews would probably pronounce it as bereshith; the Ashkenazim would pronounce the last consonant as "s."

The six consonants which in Masoretic times changed their value depending on whether they had a dagesh are the begad kephat letters: bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, pe, tav. With the dagesh, they are like the English ones beginning the words boy, go, kite, pin, and to. Without the dagesh, they are originally v as in vaccine, a 'gh' sounds that is similar to the modern Israeli 'r' (nobody does this one anymore that I know of), the d without a dagesh was like the "th" in "they," the 'k' without a dagesh is the harsh "kh," the p without a dagesh is f as in French, and the 't' was as in "thought." In modern Israeli Hebrew, the g, d, t are pronounced as in English, while the the b, k, and p still retain their old alternate sounds.

As far as I know, it is still uncertain whether the earliest biblical authors would have used the alternate sounds for any of the begad kephat letters. Unfortunately, we don't get the dots till around 800 AD, so as far as I know we are forced to guess at some of the details of the original pronunciation. Alephb (talk) 03:03, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

PS. If you want to hear some Modern Israeli Hebrew, the materials (audio files and textbook) for an old government course for diplomats on modern Hebrew are online now. You can read selections from the textbook and play the audio files here: [8]. I used that to learn the Hebrew alphabet and pronunciation before I took my first courses in biblical Hebrew. I found them helpful. Of course, you can pick and choose whichever resources work for you best. Good luck! I'm thrilled to see that you've decided to take up Hebrew. As always, I'm happy to answer any more questions you might have. Alephb (talk) 03:09, 10 June 2017 (UTC)