Learn Hebrew 🇮🇱

שלום מה שלומך? 👋 ! Here’s our curated content for training your passive understanding of the language.

Shalom! Peace!

Here’s our selection of content for people learning Hebrew.

Put a link to this page in a phone note so you can very quickly access it, and add links to videos you want to re-watch in that same note. That way your listening practice is just one click away.

(Click / Tap to expand the sections below)

📔 Basic Phrases

These phrases are the perfect point of departure for serious learners. They help you stay in the language, without needing to switch to English. And you internalize patterns.

Unlock them one-by-one in the app, and memorize them from the “Practice” tab.

Basic phrases
Self introductions
Useful reactions
Clarifications

This is just to get you started. For personalized phrases, we recommend sessions of 45 minutes with a native speaker.

  • Know 300 phrases and you can make jokes and impress people
  • Know 600 phrases and you can hold basic conversations
  • Know 1000 phrases and you start communicating effortlessly

And because of working with audio, you’ll get compliments on your pronunciation a lot. We promise!

🎧 Start Your Listening Training Here (with Omer)

Let’s find out how listening-reading works! The following videos of Omer, a skater from Jerusalem who became a video artist, woodworker, and multi-talent. Sit down for the duration of one video and get to know the Listening-reading process step-by-step.

In the future, you can go through the same steps with any YouTube video or Netflix show. That content is interesting and made for native speakers.

There’s also EasyHebrew with some simple content (it gets a bit boring after some time, but hey). It’s also your first dip into actually reading the Hebrew alphabet, so we might want to create some more with latinized subtitles. These videos are great for on the road, because they have double subtitles included, and you can also start focusing on reading the Hebrew alphabet (hint: right-to-left [lol]).

🎧 Train your listening skills with proper documentaries

We have selected enjoyable documentaries and reportage channels. Watch them, listen to the language, and build a natural intuition. Some polyglots swear by this method — 30 minutes a day builds working proficiency.

כאן 11 – תאגיד השידור הישראלי (1.09m subs)

כאן 11 – תאגיד השידור הישראלי (view channel) – ברוכים הבאים לערוץ היוטיוב הרשמי של כאן 11. הירשמו לערוץ שלנו ותוכלו למצוא כאן את התוכניות הכי אהובות ומדוברות בישראל: קופה ראשית, חוליגנים, מנאייכ, חזרות, היהודים באים, בואו לאכול איתי, זהו זה, המרדף, זמן אמת, שב”ס, סליחה על השאלה ועוד

כאן | חדשות – תאגיד השידור הישראלי (794k subs)

כאן | חדשות – תאגיד השידור הישראלי (view channel) – ערוץ היוטיוב של חטיבת החדשות של כאן, תאגיד השידור הישראלי. הכתבות החמות והמהדורות המלאות – לצפייה מתי שנוח לכם

חדשות 13 (268k subs)

חדשות 13 (view channel) – ברוכים הבאים לערוץ היוטיוב של חדשות 13.

קשת 12 – הטלוויזיה של הישראלים (139k subs)

קשת 12 – הטלוויזיה של הישראלים (view channel) – עמוד היוטיוב הרשמי של קשת 12 – הטלוויזיה של ישראלים כל התכניות והסדרות הכי אהובות וטובות בטלוויזיה רק כאן בקשת 12. ערוץ 12 בשלט הטלוויזיה.

Calcalist | כלכליסט (112k subs)

Calcalist | כלכליסט (view channel) – ברוכים באים לערוץ היוטיוב של כלכליסט, כאן תוכלו למצוא את כל תכני הוידאו שלנו וסדרות הרשת.

🎧 Train listening with weird popular YouTube videos

It’s like zapping TV through another linguistic and cultural universe. Watch what native speakers watch. We hope you find something interesting.

🧑‍🏫 Language Introduction and Pronunciation

Below, a language introduction by LangFocus (great but nerdy).

In general about the grammar:

(1) Verbs consist 3-4 consonants (like skdftwqrtkh), and you put the some letters (mainly aeiou) between them to change their tense and sometimes meaning.

(2) But the root is almost always 3-4 letters.

(3) The language distinguishes between male and female actors, through pronouns and verb endings.

(4) Adjectives and nouns agree with each other, meaning they share the same form. (e.g. Sefer ka’tan = small book. Sfarim kta’nim = small books).

(5) In general a lot of morphing is done through the changing of the vowels, while the consonant roots stay the same.

These were the basics. The rest you’ll can discover while memorising phrases and listening. You can add notes on a phrase in the app when you notice a pattern.

Here’s a lovely language nerd’s overview of this old language (yay LangFocus!):

Hebrew pronunciation

There was this quite big Crowdfunding campaign out which came, among other things, four videos that go into all possible details, from spelling, phonetics, consonants, to writing rules. It’s useful to know this, but you’ll be practicing with audio anyways so you’ll also be fine without it for now:) They’re a great resource for making the details everything right, but might be a bit overwhelming without any phrases.

We recommend to come back to it later.

You can watch them anywhere, just like you can practice phrases and do some listening anywhere.

📺 TV Series

Are you more the type of person that watches series?

Well, using Language Reactor in Google Chrome, you can watch and rewatch Netflix episodes with two subtitles. Even if the level seems too high, reading along in Hebrew and sometimes pausing to understand can help you feel the structure of sentences and the rhythm of the language.

Here’s our selection of original Hebrew series:

  • Fauda – Fauda means chaos in Arabic and it follows a unite that operates to prevent attacks. Classic series that’s loved by both sides.
  • Shtisel – About the life of Orthodox Jews in an orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem and how they deal with their topics in life.
  • Hashoter Hatov – Brooklyn 99 but with more nerdy characters. Hashoter is police agent. Tov is good. So it translates as like “the good cop”.
  • A Body That Works – After years of trying to have a child, a married couple decides to give surrogacy a chance. But when it comes to people, three is a complicated number. (may not be available in all regions)
  • The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem – In 1919 Jerusalem, housecleaner Rosa weds a shopkeeper who loves another woman, a choice that impacts her dynamic with eldest daughter Luna for decades. (may not be available in all regions)