A Hebrew Chrestomathy Or Lessons In Reading And Writing Hebrew PDF Download

Excerpt from Hebrew Chrestomathy: Or, Lessons in Reading and Writing Hebrew The value of grammatical exercises and of selected courses of reading, carefully annotated to suit the wants of beginners, has long been recognized in the classic tongues. But the study of Hebrew, even in our best institutions, is prosecuted at comparative disadvantage for lack of such aids. The student plods laboriously through the Grammar, adding paradigm to paradigm and rules to rules, until his memory is overloaded with the confused and ill-digested mass. He is then set at translating, but is embarrassed in his use of the Lexicon by his imperfect familiarity with the letters, and especially by the difficulty of distinguishing the radical or primary forms of words in all the metamorphoses to which they are subjected from prefixes, suffixes and inflections; and what renders this process yet more vexatious and trying is, that words thus painfully sought for are forgotten almost as soon as they are learned, and must be looked for afresh perhaps in the very next sentence. He is next confronted by the idioms of the language in the arrangement of words, the structure of sentences, and the use of peculiar forms of expression. Unless these are pointed out, and the true key furnished for their explanation, the finer and more delicate sort will likely be unnoticed, while others will be passed over with a vague and imperfect understanding of their real nature. Those methods may well be distrusted, which propose to impart knowledge without proportionate toil. No valuable result can ever be gained without effort. The acquisition of a language involves a familiar acquaintance with its grammatical forms, the meanings of its words, and the entire multitude of its idioms: and this cannot be secured without time and labour. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.