That's me,
Alisa Zingerman

My mission:

making Hebrew accessible, for anyone, anywhere

All my wonderful students are learning Hebrew for different reasons, but they have one thing in common - they do not live in Israel while learning the language.

So they (you? ;) ) have to roam the internet in search for the best remote learning opportunities, in order to create a close-to-immersion situation while not being in the country.

That's why I am launching TheHebrewHub site - to provide you with sure stepping stones to Hebrew-mastery, to collect in one place all I did myself and to guide you to all the resources that I think are of value.
My story
I grew up in Moscow, Russia, in a house full of books. :) My father loves reading and my mother is an English teacher, I still remember taking the beautifully printed "Winnie the Pooh" from an English bookshelf, looking at the pictures, and closing it again - because I couldn't read it. But not for long! Instead of spending time with a babysitter, I waited for my mom at her work - sitting at the last row of her various after-school English groups, daydreaming and... well, absorbing English, as it appeared. :)

Then, when I was 14, I started attending a Jewish school - where I first saw the beautiful letters of the Hebrew alphabet - and, what can I tell you, it was love at first sight! Naturally, the love didn't end there - three years later I went to Israel, where I made "aliya" (the Hebrew word for immigration), got married, my daughter Dvora was born, a teaching college was completed, another university degree started and not completed, and yet another. :)

By the time my daughter was ten, she was very enthusiastic about anime, and that's how we started learning Japanese (which I'm learning until now!) At a certain point my husband got approved for writing his doctoral dissertation in Germany, so we learnt German for a while and then moved to Germany. And that's where I started teaching Hebrew! It was a great experience and a great privilege, to meet the curious, eager to acquire the new language and the new culture, Hebrew-learners. It was a whole new world for me.

Then I saw that the needs of the online learners are different from those who immigrate to Israel, they need another approach and different materials - which I could not find. So I started creating! During the past years, I made a beginners' course and all kinds of other stuff - and then I felt that it was time to have one place to tell about them - and that's this site! You are warmly welcome to explore the courses and the materials that I have here!

Well, what else... Ah, one day a wonderful polyglot student came to me to learn Hebrew - Judith Mayer is her name! She told me about the Polyglot Gathering and talked me into visiting it - though I didn't consider myself a polyglot at all! So I went there - and that was it - I caught the "polyglot bug"! I started learning Esperanto, and Bulgarian, and Portuguese... and that's where I am, currently. :) Glancing in the direction of Yiddish, but not giving in to the temptation. One day, for sure! :)

Seems like my story is the story of my languages, for the most part. :) Hope you enjoy learning languages (especially Hebrew!) as much as I do, and hope I am doing well helping you on this path!
More about me
Talks I gave at the Polyglot Gathering 2015:
Hebrew workshop 2015
Can immersion possibly hinder language acquisition
My languages
  • Russian
  • Hebrew
  • English
  • German
  • Bulgarian
  • Japanese
  • Esperanto
  • (Spanish)
Teaching practice
  • 300 students
    from all over the world
  • 3000 lessons
    taught at italki
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