Attempts on Translating Rashi and Jewish Aramaic

Rashi, an 11th century French Rabbi, is one of the most important commentators of the Talmud and is central to the contemporary study of it. In fact, some texts of the Talmud are difficult to understand without reference to him.

One would think that his works would be ubiquitous for the English reading audience, but English translations, outside of his commentary of the Torah, are almost non-existent.

This forces curious researchers such as myself to look at texts in the original language, which in this case is a complex mixture of classical Hebrew, Rabbinic Aramaic and at a lesser rate, old French.

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Notes for Learning Ancient Hebrew

A different method for learning Biblical Hebrew which may not work for everyone–learn modern Hebrew first. A look into those theory and how it applies to ancient Hebrew.

Classical Hebrew, the text for the majority of the Old Testament, is only a small part of the available Hebrew writings available today.

It doesn’t take much more effort to learn modern Hebrew over learning to read classical Hebrew texts. Utilizing the same amount of time learning modern Hebrew gives one a much more comprehensive toolkit.

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