So far my study of Hebrew has been through hearing and repeating with my language partner rather than reading into the definite mechanics of the language. I find this is a better starting point for me, to quickly begin to feel like you can speak the language, rather than going from the ground up. That said, I have noticed a couple of similarities and differences between other languages. Because Hebrew is Semitic, it shares many common roots with Arabic. The Arabic alif ا and hebrew aleph א are basically the same letter, with the pronunciation of "a". Depending on stress, the letter can change to more of a "i" or e" however, and that is shared by both languages. Also similar is how vowels are written. طالب is "talib" in arabic but is written with only one vowel, the other one is dropped and not written although it is still pronounced. לחם is "lechem" in hebrew but has no vowels written. One difference between the two is how male/female and conjugations work however. Arabic has up to 13 different conjugations based on who/what the speaker is referring to! Hebrew only has a couple, and the general bluntness of Israelis means that sometimes they don't bother addressing people at all.
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