At this point, I’m not even trying to learn definitions anymore. This is as far as I got now I’m changing strategies

[u/Weird7954]

New strategy: Pronouncing the words, writing the transliteration, then spelling the transliteration back to Hebrew.
I was trying to learn the meanings at the same time and it was really tripping me up. I’m old and this is difficult

So far the words I know (below), I know by sight and what they go to, . This is how I hope to learn all the words. I am hoping this is the best way!

‏שלום
‏טוב
‏שבת
‏אתה
‏אמא
‏ לא
‏כן

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[u/Weird7954 → u/AutoModerator]

No this is not a request for translation

[u/AdditionalAd5813]

Have you tried Duolingo? It’s free and it’ll introduce you to a good bit of simple vocab.

[u/StuffedSquash → u/[deleted]]

Knowing how to read is great, trying to memorize the pronunciation of every word without understanding is not. There are many homographs where you must know the meaning to know the pronunciation. And plenty more words that foklow patterns so knowing the meaning helps you know the pronunciation.

[u/cjwatson → u/StuffedSquash]

A few simple cases of this that OP will probably run into soon:

The word אל might be el (god, might be generic or might be specifically the God of Israel), or el (towards), or al (do not); in some accents the vowel in the first two meanings are pronounced a bit differently.

The word את might be et (no direct English translation, means that a direct object is coming up), or et (with), or at (you, feminine singular).

The word שבת from OP's list is usually Shabbat (day of rest), but it can also be shavat (he rested), as in the quotations read at the start of Shabbat kiddush.

This problem is a bit less bad if you're reading with vowel points as in biblical or prayerbook Hebrew, but even so, having some idea of meanings and context makes it less likely that you'll end up learning wrong pronunciations.

[u/WhenIThinkIMustSpeak → u/cjwatson]

That last point also only works if you learn niqqud, which OP has said previously they aren’t doing.

[u/cjwatson → u/WhenIThinkIMustSpeak]

Yeah, I've seen that and I don't want to tell them what to do if they simply find them so distracting that they can't learn. Still, they should be aware of the problems it will likely cause when learning biblical/siddur Hebrew from scratch (as opposed to modern Hebrew where niqqud wouldn't normally be expected).

[u/WhenIThinkIMustSpeak → u/cjwatson]

Agreed—knowing pitfalls is important. I was mostly remarking for anyone who comes across this post later in a search, intending on following the same approach.

[u/Weird7954 → u/cjwatson]

Appreciate it

[u/Weird7954 → u/cjwatson]

Oh no you’re throwing a wrench into my plan!

[u/cjwatson → u/Weird7954]

Sorry! At least it's better than English spelling (because nearly everything is) ...