Armon

Learn Hebrew.

Armon is a language learning app that builds proficiency quickly and maintains it. Armon combines several of the best language learning practices under one curriculum:

  • Read and listen to cultural and practical passages to see your target language in context.
  • Learn a little grammar and about eight new words a day.
  • Drill the grammar until you can actively produce it.
  • Review the vocabulary with spaced repetition.

With twenty minutes a day you can cover in one year what a college class covers in two years, and retain more of it.

See what you can read after three months.

Hebrew · Passage 90 יְרוּשָׁלַיִם שֶׁל זָהָב

לִפְנֵי שָׁנָה הַמִּשְׁפָּחָה קָמָה מוּקְדָּם וְנָסְעָה לִירוּשָׁלַיִם. הֵם הָלְכוּ לָעִיר הָעַתִּיקָה וְרָאוּ אֶת הַכּוֹתֶל. מִרְיָם קָנְתָה תַּבְלִינִים בַּשּׁוּק. דּוֹב שָׂם פֶּתֶק בַּכּוֹתֶל. אָבִי רָץ בֵּין הָרְחוֹבוֹת הַצָּרִים וְאָמַר שֶׁהוּא רוֹאֶה אֶת כָּל הָעוֹלָם מִשָּׁם. שִׁירָה שָׁתְתָה קָפֶה שָׁחוֹר בְּבֵית קָפֶה יְהוּדִי וָתִיק. בַּדֶּרֶךְ הַבַּיְתָה אָבִי שָׁאַל: ״מָתַי אֲנַחְנוּ חוֹזְרִים?״ כּוּלָּם אָמְרוּ: ״מָחָר!״

A year ago the family got up early and drove to Jerusalem. They went to the Old City and saw the Western Wall. Miriam bought spices at the market. Dov put a note in the Wall. Avi ran between the narrow streets and said he could see the whole world from there. Shira drank black coffee in an old Jewish coffeehouse. On the way home Avi asked, “When are we coming back?” Everyone said, “Tomorrow!”

The method

How a lesson works.

Most courses give you the rule first and the example second. We teach you the context first, explain the rule, and help you practice it.

1. Encounter it in context

Each lesson opens with a passage: a scene, a piece of history, a practical exchange. It arrives with a translation and the vocabulary it uses. You read it for meaning first.

2. See the rule made explicit

One grammar point per passage, explained in ordinary language, using the sentence you have just read as the example.

Hebrew · Passage 1 מִשְׁפַּחַת לֵוִי

אֲנִי דּוֹב וְאַתָּה אָבִי. הוּא גֶּבֶר גָּדוֹל.

I am Dov and you are Avi. He is a big man.

The rule behind it

Nominal sentences, and the follower rule

Hebrew writes no word for am, is or are. To say "I am Dov" you put the pronoun and the noun side by side, which reads literally as "I Dov." The adjective then follows the noun it describes: גֶּבֶר גָּדוֹל is "a man big."

3. Drill it until it is active

Reading a form is easier than producing one, so the drills make you produce it. They are generated from the same grammar and vocabulary as the passage, in four formats.

The door is black.

הַדֶּלֶת ___

שְׁחוֹרָה שָׁחוֹר שְׁחוֹרִים שְׁחוֹרוֹת

4. Retain it through spaced repetition

Every grammar topic and every notecard returns right when you are about to forget it. You no longer need to choose what to review because we show you the optimal drill or notecard right when you need to see it.

What you read

What the passages are about.

The passages are cultural and practical, and they grow in difficulty across the course. A morning at the Jerusalem spice market, a conversation at the Western Wall, the revival of Hebrew, or a family's journey from Ethiopia. By the end, they are full paragraphs.

  • Passage 78: שׁוּק מַחֲנֶה יְהוּדָה. Shira reports on the class trip to Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. An old spice vendor shuts his stall to tell the students the history of the place.
  • Passage 141: הַשָּׂפָה שֶׁחָזְרָה לַחַיִּים. An American tourist asks Dov how he speaks an ancient language every day. A hundred and fifty years ago every Jew read Hebrew and nobody spoke it. Then Eliezer Ben-Yehuda came to Jerusalem.
  • Passage 144: מַה שֶׁהֵבִיאוּ אִיתָּם. Shira asks her new friend Yordanos where her family is from. Her grandparents came out of Ethiopia in the eighties and brought their heritage, their music, and their prayers with them.
  • Passage 200: אִי אֶפְשָׁר לִשְׁכּוֹחַ. The last passage. Dov stands at the Western Wall with Daniel and tells him the destruction was two thousand years ago, and that people said it was impossible to return.

Why Armon

Compared with the alternatives.

Better than a language app

The gamified apps do not teach grammar explicitly, do not teach the language in the context of its surrounding culture, and do not have a real review schedule. Armon combines all three in one curriculum, and each pillar reinforces the others. Without passages, grammar, and review together, learning a language is slow and ineffective.

Better than a textbook

A textbook has no audio and no drills, and it cannot track what you have forgotten.

A fraction of the cost of a tutor or a language school

A tutor or a language school is excellent and expensive, but neither builds in the structured review you still have to do on your own time.

Course

The course.

Hebrew

Beginner to high intermediate
  • The aleph bet course is free. Everyone should be able to read Hebrew, and we did not feel right putting that behind a paywall.
  • Passages running from your first sentence to extended narrative prose, each with a translation, its vocabulary, and the grammar point it was written to teach.
  • Learn how to find your way to the Western Wall, take a flight to Eilat, order shawarma at the shuk, and split the bill afterward.
  • Spaced repetition notecards and a grammar reference you can consult at any time.
  • Read with nikkud (vowel markers) to learn pronunciation.
  • We add more content every month.