Resources · Habits

Eight habits that make Hebrew stick between lessons

The learners who get there are not the ones with the best app. They are the ones who put Hebrew into things they were doing anyway. Eight habits, none of them longer than ten minutes.

Picked and annotated by the teachers of the Israeli Hebrew Institute. Every entry links to the people who made it; nothing here is hosted by us. How this list is put together.

• Get the word of the day on WhatsApp

  BeginnerIntermediatefree

  One word a morning, with the vowels, the meaning and a sentence Israelis say, in a group you can leave any time. Thirty seconds, every day, is how vocabulary actually grows.

  Join the group ↗

• Shadow one sentence

  BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedfree

  Take one line from a song or a series, play it, and say it back at the same time, five times, copying the rhythm not the letters. Israeli intonation lives in the rhythm.

• Label the kitchen

  Beginnerfree

  Sticky notes on the fridge, the tap, the salt, the door: the Hebrew word, with its vowels, in your handwriting. You will read each one two hundred times without trying.

  Use Nakdan above to get the vowels right before you write them.

• Subtitles in three steps

  Intermediatefree

  Episode one with English subtitles, to know the story. The same episode with Hebrew subtitles, to see the words you heard. Then a scene you know with no subtitles at all. Do not skip the middle step.

• Cook in Hebrew

  Intermediatefree

  Pick a recipe from Hen in the Kitchen, play it while you cook, and do what she says. Verbs you act out are verbs you keep.

  Hen in the Kitchen ↗

• Switch one app to Hebrew

  IntermediateAdvancedfree

  Not your whole phone: one app you know by heart, like WhatsApp or the weather. You already know what every button does, so now you know what it is called.

• Talk to an Israeli, ten minutes a week

  BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedfreemium

  A language exchange app pairs you with an Israeli learning English: ten minutes of Hebrew for ten of English. Use the app's own chat, meet in public if you meet, and tell them to correct you.

  Tandem ↗HelloTalk ↗

• Answer the daily challenge

  BeginnerIntermediatefree

  Every day we post a phrase and three meanings, A, B or C. Answer in the comments; a teacher answers you back. Getting it wrong in public costs nothing and teaches more than getting it right.

  The challengesOn Instagram ↗