[Hebrew] Reading != Speaking
So Readers' Digest version: my Hebrew language studies have the main focus in my (at least linguaphilic) life at the moment. There are a few reasons for this -- mainly, we have a shlixa in Peoria now who has been creating nights specifically for spoken Hebrew use (which means very little English is allowed), and I need to grab that opportunity. Outside of reciting Biblical Hebrew at temple, there is very little spoken Hebrew to be found anywhere here, particularly modern Hebrew.
Tzachi is also coming to the States in June, and though I've written him in Hebrew back and forth, we've almost never spoken in Hebrew, and I want to be able to feel somewhat at ease to speak to him in his own language, as he apparently has become in English. It will still be somewhat unbalanced -- he has far more experience in thinking and speaking in English than I have in Hebrew -- but damn it, I have a goal, and I'm going for it.
Our first Hebrew-language only dinner was Thursday, and I kept thinking to myself, "Don't make an ass of yourself. Don't make an ass of yourself. Don't make an ass of yourself." And I didn't, for the most part. But I certainly didn't start off well ...
"שלום! אני רגב, ואני בן שמונים ואחת." / Hi, I'm Regev and I'm 81 years old
"Well you sure look good considering!" I heard, and immediately I knew what I'd said. It doesn't help that "thirty" and "eighty" ARE somewhat close -- sloshim vs. shmonim. :: laugh :: I admit, I struggled more than I'd've liked, but our shlixa Lior was still impressed. "You do self-study, right???" And she had a great point -- beating myself over idiotic mistakes doesn't help me get better.
I sometimes had a harder time following what Lior said, which has been a HUGE problem in my attempts to improve my Hebrew. Though I can LOOK at text and understand it, hearing it spoken, particularly at a normal clip, is something different. Hebrew text, for starters, has no vowels save for a few instances where the needlessly-complicated Tiberian vowel points are used, and Hebrew has some tricky and hard-to-explain vowel shifts/omissions/elisions/collisions/&c. In standard text you see none of this so, unless you've heard the word in question, you may not recognize the spoken form of the word though you may be acquainted well with its written variant. I need to overcome this.
My goal: By July, to be speaking vastly more fluent and natural Hebrew. I'll make occasional updates and tag them with [Hebrew].
Tzachi is also coming to the States in June, and though I've written him in Hebrew back and forth, we've almost never spoken in Hebrew, and I want to be able to feel somewhat at ease to speak to him in his own language, as he apparently has become in English. It will still be somewhat unbalanced -- he has far more experience in thinking and speaking in English than I have in Hebrew -- but damn it, I have a goal, and I'm going for it.
Our first Hebrew-language only dinner was Thursday, and I kept thinking to myself, "Don't make an ass of yourself. Don't make an ass of yourself. Don't make an ass of yourself." And I didn't, for the most part. But I certainly didn't start off well ...
"שלום! אני רגב, ואני בן שמונים ואחת." / Hi, I'm Regev and I'm 81 years old
"Well you sure look good considering!" I heard, and immediately I knew what I'd said. It doesn't help that "thirty" and "eighty" ARE somewhat close -- sloshim vs. shmonim. :: laugh :: I admit, I struggled more than I'd've liked, but our shlixa Lior was still impressed. "You do self-study, right???" And she had a great point -- beating myself over idiotic mistakes doesn't help me get better.
I sometimes had a harder time following what Lior said, which has been a HUGE problem in my attempts to improve my Hebrew. Though I can LOOK at text and understand it, hearing it spoken, particularly at a normal clip, is something different. Hebrew text, for starters, has no vowels save for a few instances where the needlessly-complicated Tiberian vowel points are used, and Hebrew has some tricky and hard-to-explain vowel shifts/omissions/elisions/collisions/&c. In standard text you see none of this so, unless you've heard the word in question, you may not recognize the spoken form of the word though you may be acquainted well with its written variant. I need to overcome this.
My goal: By July, to be speaking vastly more fluent and natural Hebrew. I'll make occasional updates and tag them with [Hebrew].