There must be, there must be a better way to teach Hebrew to a non-Hebrew speaker

Without the music - there is no understanding!

I will be blunt. Music is an essential aspect of every part of the Hebrew Bible. To study without the music is to be deaf to the tone of voice. Abstraction by itself is dry and bitter.

Suppose you are starting from scratch - never seen a jot of Hebrew in your life.

OK let's go. Let's take apart the first verse of Genesis

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים
אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ

You say, "I can't read a bit of this! If I print it I can't tell up from down."

OK - let's put it into SimHebrew

brawit bra alohim 
at hwmiim vat harx

I have lost some information - but the symbols are at least readable b-ra-wit - what's wit? w is pronounced sh (usually) so it is roughly b-ra-shit - between the b and the r is a schwa - a 'nothing' vowel - sometimes noted with an upside down e. English has tons of schwas - you perhaps just hear them without wondering about them. But they're there.

When you see two consonants together without a vowel - insert a schwa (at a minimum). So the second word is b-ra - and the third word is Elohim - it's a plural and it signifies (means if you like that word) God.

You will notice that the sign for /a/ occurs three times in these first three words - and each time it is a slightly different pronunciation. (English is every bit as bad - there are many shades of /a/ in English.) You just learn them! The first /a/ in brawit is more like a schwa. It is not accented. The second /a/ carries the sound of /a/ as in are, an ah sound. The third /a/ carries the sound of /a/ as in many, an eh sound. 

But I have lost the music. SimHebrew is fabulous and you can learn to read it just like English or French or Spanish or Italian in its Latin text. (All those languages have slightly differing uses and pronunciations of the letters). SimHebrew is a one-to-one onto (isomorphic for you maths folks) mapping of the full Hebrew text. But the music is missing there too.

The above 7 words in the square text include the music. It too can be sight read! It is somewhat incompatible with left to right processing of course. So I have automated the transcription. (With a roughly phonetic lyric line - see below.)

Let's read it:

For convenience, let's start on e - a note that is easily sung by most people. That e can be our default starting note for a verse - unless some other note or flourish is indicated. So sing b-ra- on the e. Then notice that בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית on the third syllable has a rounded half parenthesis leading up below the w. That changes the note to a g (g# in the default mode). So sing wit (w=sh) on the g# and stay there till you are told to change. All the instruction is contained in the accent when you meet it - and the rule never changes! It's a coded system of signs and therefore it is coherent and consistent.

The next word bra continues on the g# until the second syllable ra בָּרָ֣א. The angle bracket under the text raises us to the fifth. The first two syllables of Elohim El-o- remain on the fifth. On the third syllable -him אֱלֹהִ֑ים we come to a rest on the 4th note of the scale.

Then on the second part of the verse, the reciting note changes to an f on the object marker (aleph-taf) אֵ֥ת at.

Then note the return to the g#, הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם - same accent under the text - same note as before. The accent rising to the left is g#, the similar looking half-parenthesis going down to the left is f.

The direct object marker in each case is sung on the f, וְאֵ֥ת but stay on the g# for the first syllable of course.

We continue on f for the first syllable of the last word. The final accent on the second syllable of h-a-rx הָאָֽרֶץ returns to our starting note, e.

Each note change shows accentuation as well as pitch. Funny thing about music, its shape and sound include accentuation - the pulse of the sound. Here you are hearing the pulse of the voice of the cantor singing the word of God.

There are no accents above the text in this verse. The whole of the emerging created order of space-time is encompassed by 7 words.

Here's the score:

The text and music of Genesis, the first verse
direct from the Leningrad codex without human intervention

For a fuller introduction to the music, please see here. To read without the music is to fail to hear the tone of voice. This will often result in a poor interpretation on the content.

Relating the Hebrew to the SimHebrew is a matter of mapping the right to left transcription with a few differences. Most letters are one to one with the Leningrad pointed text. A few additional vowels may be noted - so the 'lo' of Elohim and the 'ii' (pronounced yi) of hwmiim. All my programs written over the last 17 years use SimHebrew internally as an abbreviation for the Unicode. It makes the programming much easier.

There's much more that we can say about the letters and roots in this verse. If you are seeing Hebrew for the first time, you would want to know that the first letter /b/ is a preposition, that the root it precedes is raw (rosh) often glossed as head among other things. The letter /b/ in the second word is not a preposition but part of the root /bra/ to create. Elohim is a masculine plural form. The suffix /im/ reveals it. The direct object marker is rarely glossed. The second time it is used it is preceded by /v/, a very common prefix signifying and (in this case). And twice we see the definite article /h/ used as prefix. Heavens (wmim) is also a plural -- that is its root form also. You can find all these words in my online concordance at the link in the menu.