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Nov 12 2009

Websters New World Hebrew English English Hebrew Dictionary

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Websters New World Hebrew English English Hebrew Dictionary Review

Websters New World Hebrew English English Hebrew Dictionary
I am learning modern Hebrew and was nearly put off buying this book by the negative reviews. I’m so glad I bought it. It is absolutely brilliant and not too complex, easy to read print and well laid out. The words are also written in Hebrew lettering as they are used in Israel, after the transliteration. (It is not a Biblical Hebrew dictionary.) Thus far, I haven’t had a single problem finding any particular word in it. Having said that, it is not a stand-alone dictionary. You will still need at least another good one (e.g.Oxford), written in Hebrew lettering, but it is easy to find any written words, providing you have them already written down in transliteration or already know the Hebrew letter sounds. It is very inexpensive and great value for money. I’ve found it extremely useful and I already had two Hebrew dictionaries. It achieves what it sets out to do and you do need to learn transliteration to be a good all round Hebrew scholar.

Websters New World Hebrew English English Hebrew Dictionary Overview

This innovative dictionary makes the Hebrew language more accessible to students by eliminating the formidable barrier of the Hebrew alphabet. It’s easy to locate words quickly with the Webster’s New World Hebrew-English Dictionary, because the Hebrew-to-English section is alphabetized according to the transliterated English spelling. The English version is marked for correct pronunciation and followed immediately by the Hebrew spelling of the word. This breakthrough work of linguistic scholarship is packed with useful features that guarantee rapid progress, even for those with no familiarity with the Hebrew language. It contains:

  • Extensive grammatical information including parts of speech, variant verb forms, and the formation of feminines and plurals
  • Listings of idioms and compounds and indications of colloquialisms and slang
  • Common variations in pronunciations
  • Geographical, historical and cultural entries

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Customer Reviews

A nice try, but not there yet - Tom Trueman - Vancouver, BC Canada
Some day, someone will write a properly transliterated dictionary that does what I need it to do — but unfortunately, this isn’t it.

Why on Earth didn’t the author use a more logical transliterating system, like the one used in the Foreign Service Institute course, which is one of only two pronunciation-based courses available?

If you want to learn to speak and understand Hebrew quickly, transliteration is the way to go — NOT by puzzling out written material that you’re not even pronouncing properly. After you can handle the language competently, that’s the time to learn how it’s represented in print. But it’s not efficient to bury the learner in all the details of spelling and the alphabet, and dots or no dots, right off the bat. (And trying to find, in a regular dictionary, a Hebrew word you’ve only heard is like finding a needle in a haystack, when the vowels are just ignored.)

Back to the transliteration in this book, though: Instead of a logical “One letter represents one sound” system, like the F.S.I. uses, he’s chosen an awkward and cumbersome series of digraphs, which are supposed to make it easier, but which make the alphabetizing a mess, when we have “kh” and “sh” and “ts” and “oo” and “ee” all over the place, when they only represent one sound each. And it was a good idea to try to reflect the fact that so many speakers drop the “h”, but it further confuses the order, with many entries seeming to be out of place.

Some day someone will write a book like this and revise the transliteration to be more logical and useful. It might have to be me…..

Webster Hebrew Dictionary - pei gimel yod - Milwaukie, OR
The Webster’s Hebrew Dictionary is proving to be a great tool for me in my learning Hebrew. Since it gives the words written in Hebrew and its transliteration it is a tremendous aide to learning new words. Now if it could only talk.

Useful if you can’t find anything else - lexo1941 - Edinburgh, Scotland
This dictionary has had, in my opinion, a raw deal from many Amazon reviewers. I have been learning basic Hebrew by corresponding with a friend in Israel who writes to me in Hebrew but transliterated into Roman characters, and this book is extremely useful if that’s the way that you’re learning the language. Likewise, anyone attending conversational classes in Hebrew would probably find the book very helpful since it does after all indicate how the words are pronounced. The complaints about transliteration are slightly mitigated by the fact that the book does print the words in the Hebrew alphabet, minus pointing, just the way that they would be printed in a modern Hebrew book or newspaper.

If you are learning Biblical Hebrew - well, it’s not nearly as different from modern Hebrew as Koine Greek is from modern Greek, or for that matter as Old English is from Modern English. (Some people find even Middle English to be incomprehensible.) I have read complaints about the accuracy of some of the translations, but I have not yet had any difficulty making myself understood by using this book. Still, theology students shouldn’t be getting a dictionary like this in the first place, as it is explicitly about the modern language and reflects modern usage.

To sum up - a useful dictionary to help you make the transition while you’re still learning the Hebrew alphabet. Then again, I bought mine used. If I had to shell out twelve bucks for this thing I would want to have made sure that it was exactly what I needed.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Nov 12, 2009 08:47:02

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