Hebrew From Scratch

Remember kindergarten? I live it. Every day. Well, Sunday through Thursday at least. Ulpan, the 5-week Hebrew immersion course I’m currently taking, is taught ALL in Hebrew.

Which is not as problematic as it seems or as I first thought because I am in a level that is the actual equivalent of kindergarten Hebrew. Right now, we’re learning the letters of the alphabet (19 down, 3 more to go! Woot woot!) and some simple vocabulary with the letters we know. Yesterday we started some verb conjugation and the class suddenly is a lot harder…

I was hoping to avoid the mystical workings of feminine and masculine that I slogged through miserably in French, but naturally we’re doing that too. Ice cream, interestingly enough, is feminine in French and Hebrew. Glida. gimel, lamed, yod, he. Go me!

The teacher talks in a very enunciated, slow voice, and watches our faces for either recognition or bewilderment (for me, the latter) and then writes it on the board.

The title of our textbook doesn’t do much for my already battered ego, “Hebrew From Scratch, Part I”. Part I? Really? That’s just adding insult to injury. Rude.

It’s yellow and has lots of Hebrew words on it I don’t know, and is bound on the wrong side, just like everything else here. I knew, coming over, that Hebrew is read from right to left, but somehow I didn’t manage to make the mental leap and figure out that the books would all be bound on the right, and you have to read it, well, backwards.

It’s a big problem. Every time I go to do my homework, I pull out my book, plop it on my (huge) desk binding to the left, and get confused as to why it’s all upside down. Oh yeah. Duh.

The book is great, the exercises we’re doing are downright embarrassing to think about they’re so elementary. A lot of what we’re doing is looking at the formal, printed letters, reading it out loud, and writing it out in script (sort of like going from Times New Roman to cursive).

Aka HARD. Some of the letters are almost exactly the same.

There are 4 letters that are essentially a straight line, but with varying lengths and little notches at the top that may or may not be in different directions. Oh, and want to hear one that I’m convinced was made up just to mess with non-Native speakers? If the letter Vav (usually a “v” sound) is in the middle of a word, it makes an O sound. Or a V sound, it’s really a guessing game.

Which I am terrible at.

But reading out loud is probably the hardest part.

Why is that, you wonder, don’t you just sound out the words? Oh no, that would be too easy, and wouldn’t satisfy the sadistic need for Hebrew to torment people trying (failing) to learn it.

THERE ARE NO VOWELS. Does this Mem (M) make a moo mee, mah, meh, or mmm sound? I HAVE NO IDEA, and there is NO WAY TO TELL.

Well, sometimes there is, but a lot of the times there’s not. And those are the times the teacher calls on me to read out loud. I just try all the vowels until she nods, and I assume that’s the right one and move on to the next incomprehensible syllable.

I think I’m making it sound worse than it really is… I knew it would be hard going into it, but I think the Ulpan style of teaching is really effective at getting us to learn a lot, and fast. It’s just frustrating to know things like male/female verb conjugation, but at this point, I’d be thrilled to know numbers so I don’t look like an idiot every time I go to the market or get out of a cab. “Where is…?” would also be a great one to know. The little things I ask for…

We have a quiz on Sunday (weekends here are Friday and Saturday) over the 52 pages of the book that we’ve been through, and I’m nervous. But not, since it’s school work and me and school work have always gotten along.

That and the fact that I spend waaaay too much time studying Hebrew (trans: Evrit! Woot!). Think flashcards. Color-coded to correspond with the chapter. And little cards with all the letters we’ve learned on my wall. And grammatical rule notes also on the wall, but obviously in a different color. Not to mention the nightly, cumulative spelling tests.

I have way too much free time.

Market Time!!

So on Friday, my new friend Ariel and I went to the market to get some food before the town shuts down for Shabbat (sundown Friday to sundown Saturday), and it was insanity. Everyone was rushing around frantically because the meal has to be cooked by sundown, and I was just clueless. Luckily Ariel knows some Hebrew, and it seems like everyone knows at least a little bit of English. Thank God.

The market itself was sooo crowded, people were packed in absolutely everywhere, shoving and shouting and smashing their groceries into you "accidentally". There was so much fresh fruit, pomegranates the size of my head, and everything is so cheap! There were spice stalls with giant sacks of powders in all different colors, backlava trays literally oozing honey onto the ground, pitas in piles taller than myself... Insanity. And deliciousness.

Here are some pictures, I can't figure out the captions, so hopefully they speak for themselves...


Okay I lied, I haven't uploaded them yet. But I will. Soon.

Pictures

Bedroom!

Luckily most signs are like this so I can get around!

Sign for the Student Village, where I live

View from my room of a very noisy traffic circle

The British Cemetary on the way to campus

Just some pictures of everyday life here... Not much more to say about that.

Alef, Tav, He, Nun

Oh hey, view from the bedroom window. That tiny gold speck is the Dome of the Rock. I know. Awesome.

First day of Hebrew classes and I have not failed out yet! I know 6 letters of the alphabet, how to say, my name is, I am from, wine, water, baby, ocean, he and she. Great success!!

Since it's taught Ulpan style, all of the teaching is in Hebrew. Class was 2 1/2 hours long today and I thought my brain was going to explode. Luckily the teacher (I'll tell you her name as soon as I can figure out how to spell it) is really good... When she wants us to write something she pantomimes writing, and basically treats us like Kindergarteners. Which is fine by me, since I am worse than a kindergartener when it comes to Hebrew.

My living situation is great, I'm in an apartment with 5 single bedrooms, communal bathroom, common area, and kitchen. It's in one of the 12 apartment buildings in the Student Village, about a 10 minute walk from campus proper. We have these serious blinds that completely black out the room and are rumored to be bullet-proof. My roommates are somewhere on a scale of great to nonexistant... There's a 26-year-old Israeli girl who speaks no English other than Hello and yes (that was an awkward introduction), and a Swiss girl who is apparently never there. Nadia is the most social of the roommates, she's from Liverpool and is doing a prepatory program to improve her Hebrew to the point where she can enroll in the regular university as a full-time student. The other is Jess, I only met her briefly but she's doing the same program as me and appears to be British, but I could be wrong.

Nadia says she doesn't cook and doesn't really know the deal with the kitchen utensils, which I find confusing since she's been here since NOVEMBER. I've only seen her eat cereal and yogurt so far, so I guess if that's her routine then she doesn't really need a stove... I haven't cooked anything yet, just eaten hummus and nutella on a variety of bread-type things. And cucumbers. Which are. So. Good.

The Beginning

I think the best way to describe what it's been like the first couple of days is through pictures... Except that the blog site is taking FOREVER to upload, so maybe I'll wait and do it when i have a real wireless connection instead of riding off the wireless in the bar downstairs.

But Jerusalem... Is amazing. Of course. I wake up in the morning, pull up my bullet-proof blinds, stick my head out the window and see the Dome of the Rock. Legitimately.

It's so warm here, it's the middle of January and it's probably 65 degrees F. Campus is at the top of a mountain (hill) so it's pretty windy which makes it feel a little colder. All things considered (snowed in for a week in LO?!?), the weather is mind-blowingly fantastic.

Unfortuantely, I have to run now, I'll post more later tonight, but I'm meeting with my friend Ariel's friends from home for a Mexican potluck Shabbat dinner... Interesting.