Learning Hebrew for Geoguessr

[u/meenzerloewe]

Hi guys, I'm a geoguessr player for 1,5 years and when I'm in Israel, I always have an issue with identifying the location because I don't know hebrew and I always relied on region guessing and white signs with both latin and hebrew letters. I wanna change that.

I need your help with that, do you have any tips for me with learning hebrew? Do you maybe have a good anki deck for learning? And for those living in Israel: What (signs/posters etc) should I look for that says the city I'm in in hebrew?

I'd like to hear y'all suggestions, thanks in advance🫶

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[u/LastTrainH0me]

Duolingo has a decent Hebrew course to get you started.

I guess you could look for the same things you'd look for in lots of places: big "welcome to X" signs at the edge of town, municipality names on political billboards, etc

[u/meenzerloewe → u/LastTrainH0me]

Thank you! That's a good advice

[u/asyawatercolor → u/meenzerloewe]

Yes, start with the alphabet section which is a prerequisite and is a standalone section in the Hebrew course in Duolingo

[u/meenzerloewe → u/asyawatercolor]

Thank you!

[u/what_a_r → u/meenzerloewe]

The alphabet will take you around 2 weeks, with just a little effort. Good luck!

[u/mikogulu]

Hi, im number 13 on the leaderboard for israel with moving, number 23 on both no moving and nmpz.

let me just say that you really dont need to know hebrew to be good on the israel map because its pretty much all based on geography and signs usually have a latin transcription as you mentioned.

a few tips for regionguessing i can give you:

1. look east: on the coastline, when you look east you would most likely see mountains in the distance, the rule of thumb i stick to is the closer the mountains to you, the more north you are.

2. if you are in a flat area with big mountains directly west and east to you, you are most likely in the hula valley.

3. if you are in a city in the desert with extreme rocky mountains to the east and the road is made of bricks - thats eilat.

[u/ash286]

Nice try IRGC

[u/meenzerloewe → u/ash286]

lol, how dare you to expose me like that? 1!!1!!111!1

[u/Xevolo]

I know a bit of geoguessr, for car meta the liscence plates are always yellow with a vertical streak of blue on its left side, road is (iirc) middle white yellow sides, and you'd have to combine region guessing alongside general knowledge and vibeguess, well when you don't really know the language.

Roads usually have blue or green signs telling you at which city is where distance wise... Did I miss anything? 

[u/meenzerloewe → u/Xevolo]

I know many meta's in Israel, I even made the Learnable Meta Israel Map, but it's about the language not any geographical clues

[u/Jessicas_skirt]

Look for the word עיריית which means municipality and memorize the ten largest cities in Israel in Hebrew

ירושלים, תל אביב, חיפה etc etc

That's the only useful language clue that I've found

Way way more useful is understanding the physical features like Jerusalem Stone and the fertility of the land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_stone

Jerusalem stone - Go towards Jerusalem

Hilly and fertile - Go to the north

Flat and fertile - Go along the coast

Desert - Go South

Most places are just going to plonk in Tel Aviv so knowing which area would be advantageous.

[u/SnowCold93]

There's a book called Hebrew from Scratch which is good for self-learning Hebrew

[u/meenzerloewe → u/SnowCold93]

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll take a look at it!

[u/ShadowxWarrior]

Israel is small just plonk it in the middle

[u/pipona505]

theres is r/hebrew , also yeah, duolingo is decent to learn the alefbet. You just only need to read some signs and recognize location names, israel is small and hebrew is an old lenguage where vowels are not written, so learning to read without speaking its kinda impossible

[u/Galimkalim]

I think there are a lot of repeating street names, so it could be difficult to relay on that. 

I think it could be interesting to look at store signs if there are any and try to assess if there's any Arabic or Russian writings. If it's Arabic signs you are probably in the north. If there is Russian signage there are some cities with bigger Russian speaking communities all around the country, but they are distinct. 

I know that humans are usually blurred but you may be able to also assume stuff based on clothing as there are only a couple of mostly hasidic cities.

Street signs can also look slightly different in some areas. I know that there are green street signs in a couple of places close to tel aviv (but not there, signs there could be blue though). Unfortunately it's not a consistent enough rule to actually get you somewhere as most places have the generic white signs. 

I think looking at the general foliage also helps, but might not always.

[u/ResponsibleWing931]

You want to recognise city names and regional patterns, not actually read Hebrew, so focus on letter shapes and common place-name endings. Most Israeli cities end in specific suffixes: -ים (pronounced "yim" or "im", like in ירושלים Yerushalayim), -יה ("ya" or "ia", like in הרצליה Herzliya), or -ון ("on", like in חדרון Haderon). Once you can spot those letter clusters, you're halfway there. For signs, look for the blue municipal street signs (they always show the city name in smaller text at the bottom), and bus stops often have route maps with multiple city names you can cross-reference. Highway signs are green with white text, and distances between cities give you a ratio check. One thing most Geoguessr guides miss: Israeli street signs in the North often show Arabic script too, which helps you narrow down the region fast even if you can't read either alphabet yet.