Consider this page a work in progress. I’ve updated it once, future updates will happen as and when they happen and may include pictures of ducks and random cake emoticons.
Duolingo– Duo is an old friend to most people who learn languages online. Free, and with many language options.
Memrise– Memrise is a great place to study almost anything requiring memorization. It is based on the principles and timing of spaced repetition software (SRS) and the goal is to bring up words or facts at just the right time to help them move from short term memory to long term memory, with a minimum of loss in the process. Free, I think, with subscription options (I can’t remember what it does as I’ve had it long enough that I forget why I have it).
Anki– Anki is basically the God-King of SRS programs. There are older programs, there are other programs, but eventually, it all comes down to Anki. There are many shared decks available online, or you can build your own and maybe share them with the world as well. Free, and definitely worth a try.
Clozemaster– remember back in school when you would have tests and have to fill in the blank? Apparently, there’s a name for that! Cloze deletion is much lauded as a better way of learning vocabulary by doing so in context. This resource is fairly new to me, but I’ll be giving it a good bit of practice for a while to see if it helps me.
Habitica, also known as HabitRPG– Habitica, which I shall now refer to as HabitRPG, because that one I can spell (it’s actually the old name) is an adorably cute website where you can set up goals you want to reach, put things on todo lists, and even set up habits to work on, all in an old school adventure RPG format. You can join guilds with shared interests, join parties to go on quests and battle foes, or just do your own thing alone or with friends. Free, and a great way to game-ify things you hate doing.
I will give out special points for two Anki addons. They can be used no matter what you are studying. Any language, science, history, anything. The first is the Memrise course importer. While you can find this from searching, you’ll be doing a lot of searching as they keep updating crap and screwing up the addons (Memrise does the updates, not the addon authors). I’ve linked the Github version, which currently works (April/2017). The other is the Habitica/HabitRPG addon. You can use it to auto-port your anki points over, and you can change a number of the settings in regards to scoring.
Hebrew Specific links
Duolingo – There’s only one Hebrew course at the moment, English > Hebrew. From what I hear, there’s a Yiddish course in the incubator, though at the time of this writing, it’s more than a year out. While it’s a very different language, a lot of people like learning languages with discounts (buy Spanish, get Portugeuse 60% off!) and there is a bit of overlap between Hebrew and Yiddish, though how much I couldn’t tell you. When it finally pops out of the incubator, I hope to be far enough advanced in my Hebrew studies to take advantage of that overlap!
Memrise – So that link is for the Memrise course which matches our Duolingo course. There are some issues I have with it, but in the end, it’s a great free resource. Duo has a habit of throwing things at you and not stopping to check if you’ve caught them all. You can use that course to practice your juggling. There are some other great Memrise courses, each with their own upsides and downsides, but all are great for learning and practice. And speaking of practice, Duo is also a crap platform for teaching you the Alefbet. You’re much better off approaching that both separately, and before you dip into anything else. It wouldn’t hurt to learn a bit about vowel markers as well. You’ll use them in dictionaries and children’s books.
While it’s not Memrise, I’d like to give a special shout out to this. I’m a real big fan of the suck it up and get it over with approach to things like this. Hit that lingua junkie link, follow instructions, and then roll on over to the Memrise Alefbet course. You’ll thank me later!
::cake:: Verb Work- Shout out to the website for the Rut Avni books. This gives you a quick and dirty overview of verb conjugation across all the binyanim and mentions all the tenses. Mind you, it’s not comprehensive, she wants you to buy the books, but it’ll give you some basic rules. I will say that I own both the textbook and workbook, and both are riddled with English language spelling errors. They detract from the mental flow of study, but they don’t affect your learning, it’s mostly just that she can’t decide on a spelling for the work masculine, or feminine, and little things like that. You can always tell what she’s trying to say. They only one worth really mentioning is in the Hifil section of the workbook, I think it was, it says “To day” instead of “To say”. Not that bad.
And since I mentioned children’s books before, allow me to posts a few links, in no particular order, of websites with books I can’t read yet. I take no responsibility for anything you find at either of those links. All I know is that they contain books, and I’m a bibliophile with an itch I can’t scratch.
As far as Anki decks go, I don’t see any point in linking any. A quick search and you can find what you might want, a quick trial will show you what you don’t like, and eventually you’ll reach the point where you realize that you’d rather build your own.
Hope that helps!
Kizor – I only just found this tonight. Awesome saucesome. Hebrew has a really annoying way of abbreviating things, to the point where unless you know what it’s supposed to be, you’ll never ever guess. This site spells them out for you, Tells you where they come from, what they are related to (Judaism, medical term, sports stuff), etc. For example Magen David Adom, the Israeli ambulance service is מגן דוד אדום when spelled out, but מד”א when abbreviated. There is some kind of rule for how you create these things, but I don’t know what it is. I do know, thanks to this site, that it is apparently pronounced מָדָ”א. Though I’m still working on anything past that.
As a bit of a gift to everyone out there, here’s some tools for anyone studying Hebrew. I set up some PDFs for Hebrew Verb practice. There are three different files availabe. One that doubles for both present tense or command form, another for past or future tense, and the last one is a collection of verb tenses for a single verb on one sheet.
If you’re studying a different language, I recommend setting up something similar for yourself. Once you get a grip on your verb patterns, you tend to understand all the verbs better, including the more irregular ones.
Exploring Language Learning 