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My (Biblical) Hebrew journey so far | ||
Tags: Hebrew | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| chgurlsng Newbie United States Joined 4581 days ago 17 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, French, Spanish, Biblical Hebrew | Message 1 of 1 30 September 2013 at 3:22pm | IP Logged |
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I've been a member on this forum for some time, but have neglected keeping up with posting. Back in May, I wrote about my my upcoming trip to Israel. I have been back since July, and decided it was high time to update on my progress.
For those of you who haven't read my old thread, the program that I studied with was through The Center for Biblical Languages, specifically, their Living Biblical Hebrew program. I attended an intense 5-week course. I can now say with full certainty that this is by far the most amazing language learning experience I have had. Even if you're interested in Modern Hebrew, this program is phenomenal. My experience with the immersion course was fantastic. There are picture lessons at first which we had to do prior to the trip. These pictures were mostly nouns in the beginning, but moved to full sentences by the end of 10 lessons. Upon arriving in Israel, we spoke Hebrew for 4 hours every day, and then had about 3 hours of homework. The homework concentrated on the book of Jonah and had grammar drills which were ALL in Hebrew. By the end of the class, I felt like I had attended preschool again. It was fun, challenging, and extremely rewarding. My listening comprehension is still beginner level. I have an active vocabulary of about 300 words, but those words are used in such ways that I can often guess other words based on context. I don't associate words with my native tongue most of the time, I immediately comprehend them in Hebrew. This is absolutely wonderful to me, because I can think in Hebrew when I'm listening to something rather than always translating in my head (which is what happens for me in French, unfortunately). This gives me the freedom to make conjectures about what the rest of the words in a difficult sentence might mean. Reading is still very difficult, and I need a lot more practice. What has been hard for me is the fonts. I still need vowel markings. It takes me a very long time to sound out whole sentences, which is rather frustrating. If I listen to audio while reading, I have no problem with following along, but then I concentrate on reading the words on the page so much that I can't comprehend everything. I am going to have to get faster at reading to keep learning. My goal now is to go through one chapter of the Torah every day. First, I listen to the audio, then I read while listening, and lastly, I try to read on my own. My problem with this is that I get lost when listening for more than 2 minutes. It's brain overload and I just start daydreaming. I think I need to try shadowing. Since returning from Israel, I moved closer to a synagogue with a more conservative bent. I have been forcing myself to use the siddur without transliteration. I feel like I'm mumbling a lot because they read FAST, but I think I'll catch on eventually. Whew, this is a long post now, but I hope that it helps people studying Hebrew (modern or Biblical). 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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