I hesitated answering this question, because, quite frankly, my learning started with a year, two semesters, of formal training. Most of my learning after that, though was mostly self-taught, was before the internet era. Oh, I was using CP/M with a 300 baud acoustic modem in the early days of the internet, no way to show up Hebrew in those days.
We should ask first why John Hadwin wants to learn Hebrew. Does he want to become a Hebrew scholar, knowing all forms of Hebrew? Then starting with medieval Hebrew, with all the dots and other such as this site gives, would be a good start. Medieval Hebrew, with all its points, is possibly the most complex dialect of Hebrew, so for a scholar it would be good place to start.
My purpose was merely to read God’s Word, and I discovered I had to unlearn a lot in order to know Biblical Hebrew. None of the letters sound the same in Biblical Hebrew (chapter 1) nor was there a furtive patach (chapter 2), the shewa didn’t exist (chapter 3) nor any of the accents (chapter 4) nor the dagesh, let alone the differences between forte and lene (chapter 5). There’s no perfect tense (chapter 10) nor imperfect tense (chapter 17), rather in Biblical Hebrew the Qatal and Yiqtol are modal. It’s a lot harder to unlearn than to learn correctly in the first place. If John’s purpose for learning Hebrew is the same as mine, then if he studies from this site, he’ll spend a lot of time and effort learning things he’ll have to forget in order to master Biblical Hebrew.
The nouns and adjectives in medieval Hebrew, with the exception of the points, are pretty much the same as in Biblical Hebrew. But the syntax is not always the same.
There are other differences between the medieval dialect of Hebrew as referenced by the Masoretic points, and Biblical Hebrew that I didn’t mention.
As for me, I’ve forgotten most of the medieval Hebrew that I knew as I concentrated on Biblical Hebrew. But I don’t know of a good source for the self-study of Biblical Hebrew. Unfortunately.
Karl W. Randolph.