There are so many online Hebrew language resources that are free and easily accessible for people of all ages!  Hebrew is something I’d like my kids to make a bit of a concerted effort to work on in the coming months in preparation for our move to Israel.  I think having a degree of comfort with the language of a country you’re moving to is a big factor in easing the adjustment process of assimilating into the culture. 

Here’s a Hebrew language site that I was looking at yesterday – http://www.in-hebrew.co.il/index.html.  This isn’t good for someone at the very beginning of learning Hebrew, but if you’re ready to learn phrases and know enough basic words to figure out which words in the phrase are which, it’s a good resource.

On the home page at the bottom, you’ll see several links to other Hebrew language learning sites.  They all look like they are worth exploring; we started with a couple of them and so far the kids are enjoying them.  Ds4 and ds8 were particularly enjoying this one: http://www.my-jewish-games.com/matchgame/index.php.  I’m going to encourage dd10 to try some of these sites – she doesn’t like Rosetta Stone because she has to guess what words mean.  When she tries to use the HaYesod book that dd14 is using very successfully, she isn’t retaining any of the vocabulary. 

I think that in the beginning stage of learning a language, it’s all overwhelming since it seems like there’s so much to know and you don’t know hardly anything!  (That’s how dd10 is understandably feeling right now.)  But then as you go on, you suddenly get to a point where it starts to get much easier.  Dd14 is now at this point, and it’s really nice to see how much she’s able to retain and understand.  She’s making a concerted effort to learn as much Hebrew as she can before she gets to Israel (she’s using just Rosetta Stone and HaYesod), since she’ll be going directly into an Israeli high school with a very small English speaking population. 

If you have a favorite site for Hebrew language, please share it below! 

Avivah