Hebrew content and general tips on Hebrew/Lingq. How to remove vowels (niqqud)

Hebrew resources are not easy to find, but there is actually no shortage of good quality material for Beginner 2 and beyond:
https://www.ranlevi.com/כל-הפרקים/
(over 200 podcasts with transcripts and audio; many of these are over 2,000 words so the audio might need to be trimmed if you want to fit it correctly into linqq’s interface)
https://gloss.dliflc.edu/
DLI: Over 200 shorter readings with transcripts and audio arranged by level of difficulty. I’ve asked about sharing at Lingq but have not gotten a response yet. I had to do a lot of copying, pasting, and deleting as the pdf files contain parallel texts (English-Hebrew) which is both helpful and unhelpful for importing them and using them with Lingq.
http://ae.lms.education.gov.il/course/view.php?id=396%20"%20target%3D"_new"
Years of newspaper archives with audio of many articles read out loud (remove vowel points before importing to Lingq). See below for instructions on how to remove vowels). I don’t know how to contact them about sharing these on Lingq after a cursory glance at their webpage (my Hebrew isn’t so great yet). But you can easily copy/paste articles from the pdfs. There are a ton. Make sure you remove vowels first before importing. Wouldn’t it be great if Lingq would automatically remove the vowels when importing a text?

I’m working on getting this course uploaded to Lingq (through dictation of one lesson at a time—the first two lessons are done). I’m trying to be vigilant, but look out for any spelling errors.
Librivox Hebrew (You sometimes have to do some searching to make sure you get the right texts, but I found them all eventually). Use google translate to your native language to help you navigate.
Mini-stories on Lingq: these are great! I believe there are 30 now. I hope whoever is recording them does more. And to the person recording them, thank you for your hard work! And again, thank you.
New Testament (free audio):

Though when getting the text you have to make sure you get the proper version or the audio won’t match (year is 1991). You will need to purchase the text. Also you will need to remove the vowels.
How to remove vowels (this actually works!):

  1. Download autohotkey.

  2. Read instructions on how to create a new script (or whatever they call it). You will just be copying and pasting the one below.

  3. This is the text you will copy and paste:
    !.::
    Clipboard := “”
    Send, ^c
    ClipWait, 1
    Clipboard := RegExReplace(Clipboard, “\p{M}”)
    Send, ^v
    Return

  4. After saving your script and closing the notepad doc, right click on your script icon and select “Run script”.

  5. Highlight a Hebrew text with vowels.

  6. Use the shortcut ALT + . (ALT plus period) and the vowels should be removed.
    I struggled a lot to figure this out as I am not a person that uses these kinds of programs normally.
    Some helpful tips about using Hebrew on Lingq:

  7. I’ve had issues using the web interface (with my Lingq entries randomly changing or matching up with the wrong word), but if I use my Ipad I don’t have any of these issues.

  8. Don’t use texts with vowels in Lingq! Remove them (see above).

  9. Morfix, Morfix, Morfix! Use this dictionary. It is also great for helping you see how a root can be used in different contexts.
    My Hebrew plans:
    I had a background in Classical Hebrew so I’ve been able to jump more into Beginner 2/Intermediate level Hebrew.
    Here is my plan as of today:

  10. Finish reading through the New Testament with audio on Lingq (it is familiar content to me). This is probably well over 100,000 words of reading (bigger than a Hunger Games book).

  11. Do the 200 DLI Gloss articles with audio on Lingqq.

  12. Either do Ran Levi or Librivox or alternate back and forth.
    I’m hoping to get the FSI Hebrew lessons up on LINGQ if I’m not bored out of my mind typing/dictating them. Though it is a great speaking exercise.
    That’s about all I have for now. With the Ran Levi podcast on science and history there really is no excuse for not having interesting content for Hebrew (for some types of people at least). I’m guessing there may be close to a million words to be read/listened to in his 200+ podcasts. And it is free. I look forward to the day when I can understand them well!
    Good luck on your Hebrew journeys everyone!!

Updated (about removing vowels) From Ricardo:

RicardoA(18 Posts)

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  • 7937
    1 year ago📷Liked1 LikeUsers looking to remove niqqud before importing Hebrew texts into LingQ may also find the following page useful: Removing Vowels from Hebrew Unicode Text · GitHub
    It lists a variety of scripts that users have suggested for the purpose of removing niqqud from text.
    I personally tried canjecricketer’s suggestion to use the following function for Google Sheets:
    =REGEXREPLACE(B1,“[(\x{0591}-\x{05BD})OR(\x{05BF}-\x{05C2})OR(\x{05C4}-\x{05C7})]”,“”)
    In a Google Sheets spreadsheet, you just paste your Hebrew text into cell B1 and then paste the above code into cell A1 (or any cell other than B1). Cell A1 should then display the same text but without niqqud, which you can then copy and paste into LingQ. I tested this method and it worked great for me!
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Thank you for all of these great resources. When starting a new language it’s difficult to find content if you don’t know the language enough to know where or how to search for what you’re looking for haha. Which can be very frustrating.

When I tried Hebrew…is it just me or does the tts feature not work on Linq?

You’re weclome. I know the feeling of struggling to find resources.

Regarding TTS, it doesn’t always pronounce it correctly–which is understandable considering the vowel situation. If you use the Morfix dictionary, you can use the vowels to help you pronounce at least one form of the word correctly. I rely on my audio and the dictionary–not the TTS.

I should also say, don’t get too overwhelmed with the pronunciation as it begins to make more sense after more exposure to the language if you stick with it.

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The Ran Levi podcasts are great, plenty of topics from the sinking of the Italian submarine Scire in Haifa hrbour to an Israeli sci fi magazine to syphilis and the Tuskegee experiment.

icast.co.il has some audio books, netbook.co.il has some ebooks that can be imported into lingq although the selection is limited. e-vrit has a wider selection, but they can’t be imported, I look forward to being able to read them but.

Btw a Hebrew version of S Y Agnon’s Lady and the Peddlar can be found, along with an audio version. It’s a great short story.

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Have you tried using forvo for hebrew audio? I just set it up with goldendict + hebrew dictionaries and it seems to work rather well, but I’m just starting to look at Hebrew as a possible next language to learn.

No I haven’t tried it yet, maybe I need to check it out.

Good relatively interesting intermediate content: http://www.hebrew-courses.com/

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I have had countless issues with Hebrew on LingQ, especially if the text has niqqud. The system records each letter as a new word, it doesn’t matter if it is a full word or just a letter, it will only register my first letter of the word. So I gave up on using LingQ with it. The last time I used Hebrew on here was probably well over a year ago. Have they fixed these issues? Or do I need to focus on texts without niqqudot? I would love to read the Hebrew Bible on here (I can do it with a hard copy, just not as fun of course :wink: ) but the niqqudot make it problematic. I read you used a method to get rid of the niqqud, so I will try that first. Very great to see I can also access wonderful content in Modern as well. That will be on my list shortly. Thank you so much bro! You are the man for working on this for us! Seriously, sending my gratitude!

Mine works fine on my ipad. Every now and then I need to reload a page, but it works fine. The last time I tried on my computer it really was very buggy like you’re saying. I don’t think I’ll try again as I don’t want to mess up my words. I’m content to just keep using my ipad. If anyone from DLI or Hebrew-courses would write me back we could have a ton of content on LingQ. There are a lot of good options for the Hebrew Bible. I like the Olive Tree app, but you do have to pay for the resources including the parsings. But it is good for me as I’m often in areas without good internet, and I can use it offline. I do split screen mode with itunes playing the audio on one side and the Hebrew with English translation on the other side. I recently took 6 weeks off and did some French, but now I’m back on Hebrew–hopefully for the next year. Oh and thanks for the “thank you”. : )

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Oh and use texts without vowels or remove the vowels from the text.

I think I need to remove the vowels to make it useful. By the way, you are quite welcome, you are doing so much by providing this much information the thanks is certainly in order. By the way, if you are wanting a useful website for parsing that is free use: Scholars Gateway: Parsing

Sometimes you have to take out the symbol that shows where the stress is in a word (Wow, I can’t remember the term for that, now I am feeling stupid), but other than that it is very helpful. It even shows you the first occurrence in each book where that word appears in that form. It isn’t 100% perfect, but I would say a high 99.9% of the time it gets it correct.

Just thought I should mention it, although I bet you are already aware of this site.

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Users looking to remove niqqud before importing Hebrew texts into LingQ may also find the following page useful: Removing Vowels from Hebrew Unicode Text · GitHub

It lists a variety of scripts that users have suggested for the purpose of removing niqqud from text.

I personally tried canjecricketer’s suggestion to use the following function for Google Sheets:

=REGEXREPLACE(B1,“[(\x{0591}-\x{05BD})OR(\x{05BF}-\x{05C2})OR(\x{05C4}-\x{05C7})]”,“”)

In a Google Sheets spreadsheet, you just paste your Hebrew text into cell B1 and then paste the above code into cell A1 (or any cell other than B1). Cell A1 should then display the same text but without niqqud, which you can then copy and paste into LingQ. I tested this method and it worked great for me!

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I’ve found the website nakdan useful for putting vowels onto a Hebrew text. You can read pretty much anything this way. I use a split screen view where one window is LingQ without vowels and one window is nakdan with the vowels. This way you can read texts that don’t have audio as well. It’s been pretty revolutionary for me personally as it has freed me up to try to read anything I feel like reading. Also in nakdan you can click on a word to see various vowel options and choose the appropriate one. There are some mistakes of course but they are quite noticeable if you have a decent amount of experience with Hebrew.

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I just noticed this post now. Fantastic! Tov meod!

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Hey kevind thank you for sharing these recourses. Particularly the podcasts from ran levi. :slight_smile:

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So it is good to be careful with importing any Hebrew books to make sure to remove any vowels. Harry Potter has vowels on some of the words for example (very few) but it is enough to somehow ruin everything in a given lesson. I’m guessing because Hebrew is not a supported language? Anyway if there could be an automatic way to remove the vowels when importing that would be amazing. Again if I want vowels I just used Nakdan in a separate window. Hopefully over the next few years I can get over my dependence on the vowels : )