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zhiguli
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 6201 days ago

176 posts - 221 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Russian, Mandarin

 
 Message 25 of 70
06 October 2009 at 7:09pm | IP Logged 
you can also try forums like fxp.co.il for direct links to tv shows.
1 person has voted this message useful



nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 26 of 70
08 October 2009 at 5:12pm | IP Logged 
You tube is my friend. As I said before, I prefer not to stream videos due to an intermittent Internet connection,
but   when I'm connected I go on you tube and listen to music, comedy shows, and news.

I tried fxp.co.il and I found forums where people were talking about TV shows...maybe I didn't look hard
enough, but I'm OK with you tube at this point.

My other friend is netflix because I'm able to see if the film has Hebrew subtitles before renting it. My problem
in the past was that many of the Israeli films I was watching had English subtitles that I was unable to remove.
No matter how much I try not to look at the subtitles, my brain is lazy and wants to get the information as easily
as possible without having to think in Hebrew.

I live in New York City and am looking for a place I can buy cheap Israeli movies and CDs. Online the prices are
too high for me. I've had luck finding books in used book stores, but I'm still in search of other media.

Too bad I don't share my friend's love of Mizrahi music. He has thousands of Israeli Mizrahi songs on his
computer, but they give me a huge headache.   I'm more of a fan of the folk music: Naomi Shemer, Arik Einstein,
Shlomo Artzi, Chava Alberstein, etc...

I've been spending a lot of time with the flash cards, you tube, music, and learn hebrew pod. Haven't really been
looking at the textbook, but I'll do that over Shabbat. I need to get back to Anki; I've sort of dropped it for the
past few days.





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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 27 of 70
11 October 2009 at 3:20pm | IP Logged 
no formal study has been undertaken since I last wrote. I've been spending my time watching Israeli movies with
Hebrew subtitles, listening to that Hebrew high-tech podcast, and listening to learn hebrew pod and Israeli
music while walking around or at the gym.

I also had a 30 minute conversation with a friend over the phone. It went well. I understood about 80% of what
he was saying but had a lot of trouble speaking when I needed to express a complicated concept or the past and
future tenses. I know the past and future tenses, and grammatically they are not so difficult to master, but I just
haven't used them much.

So the plan is:

I will be able to understand more of what my friend is saying if I learn more vocabulary and get used to fast
speech. Listening to native materials is helping me get used to the pacing, and the flash cards and anki are
helping me with vocab.

My speech needs to improve drastically. This is the difficult part. Anki and flash cards will help some, but what
I really need to do is to find a native speaker here in New York City who needs help with English and will be my
conversation partner. Many Israelis already know English, but I've met several here in New York who can only
speak a few words and are trying to learn.

Today I'm going to force myself to spend 45 minutes with the flash cards and anki. I've been avoiding those.

Also, I still need to solve the problem of how to obtain loads of media for input. I'm using you tube and netflix
now for TV shows and movies. I need to find a few more podcasts about topics that interest me, mainly arts,
history, current events, science, etc..



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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 28 of 70
13 October 2009 at 12:31am | IP Logged 
nogoodnik wrote:
Goals for the rest of 2009

Modern Hebrew

1. Find an intermediate text
2. Complete 1000 word flash card set (I know some of these words already so it is not as hard as it seems.)
3. Pimsleur 3 if it comes out in time.
4. Beginning to use native materials.

Russian

1. 3/4 of the way through first Princeton Russian Course
2. Pimsleur 2 and 3
3. Michel Thomas Vocab Course

Biblical/Prayer book Hebrew

1. Finish First Hebrew Reader
2. Memorize and be able to translate Birchat Hamatzon

Yiddish, Spanish, and everything else:

nada and gornisht, respectively...

Aug 27

Have not yet begun studying today even though I've made all these lofty goals!! Today the plan is to work on the
Hebrew Reader and do a few Pimsleur Russian lessons.


This is one of my first posts. I wanted to check back to see how I'm progressing in relation to my goals.   I must
say that I'm quite proud of my progress in Modern Hebrew. I will certainly finish the flash card set soon, I found
an intermediate text and have decided to use it only for reading practice, and I'm incorporating a lot of native
materials.

I've started limiting my film and TV viewing to Hebrew only, and I listen to Hebrew music and podcasts when I
am commuting, at the gym, or at home. I discovered that the Open University is
offering audiobooks and electronic books for free
I've also found more podcasts; life is good.

I'd like to get back to my Biblical Hebrew studying. I will schedule some time tomorrow for that.



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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 29 of 70
14 October 2009 at 6:59am | IP Logged 
I forgot about Biblical Hebrew today, oh well.

I didn't measure the time that I spent listening passively to Hebrew podcasts and music, but it was at least 10
hours. I also went through flash cards and watched a Hebrew movie without subtitles.

Weird things are starting to happen. I'm getting used to normal-paced speech. I understood at least 80 percent
of the movie I watched. I'd estimate that I understand 40 percent of what is going on in the podcasts. I'm
usually a fan or classical music or silence while working or hanging around the house, but I've seen dramatic
results in the past couple of days, so I'm willing to deal with noise. Even weirder: I'm beginning to think in
Hebrew!

The next step is to start going through newspapers. After that, I'd like to start writing some compositions.

OK time to get back to listening to radio Gaga. Tagline: "A podcast by women, for women, made of women"
(haha)
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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 30 of 70
15 October 2009 at 8:31pm | IP Logged 
Today I took a major step that I've been avoiding for quite some time. I've switched my news source from the
New York Times to ידיעות אחרונות. I've been avoiding this because I thought I lacked the capability. Why? Well, I
was afraid of the lack of vowels, which makes pronunciation very difficult for me, unless I've memorized the
word root and understand the pronunciation by context.

Today it struck me that there is no reason that I need to read the news out loud perfectly and there is no reason
why I need to understand the context of every sentence in order to begin reading news in Hebrew. So now I get
my news by reading ynet.co.il and entering words I can't figure out in google translate. After awhile, the idea is
that I'll no longer need google translate as much and I'll be able to eventually wean myself off of it. Each Friday,
I'll also buy the paper form of ידיעות אחרונות, which is the Israeli equivalent of the Sunday New York Times and
go through it over Shabbat with a paper dictionary.



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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 31 of 70
16 October 2009 at 8:06pm | IP Logged 
I've recently taken the step from studying many languages to focusing on Hebrew, and even more recently have
decided to conduct my life in Hebrew as much as possible. I did some searches on "artificial immersion" and
found the All Japanese All the Time blog and some discussions about his method on his website.

It seems like he created an immersion environment and was able to become fluent in Japanese in 18 months.
This is probably old news to all of you on learnanylanguage.com, but I didn't know much about his story.
Anyway, I'm trying to limit my time spent on English language websites, but I'll definitely be reading his blog
occasionally.

I'm listening to this lovely Yael Naim video and
going through these flash cards. Discovered that the word עצם means both "bone" and "self" and Israeli
Independence Day, יום–העצמאות, comes from the same root letters as both.

I must admit that I'm finding it slightly difficult to adjust to reading mostly Modern Hebrew as opposed to
English. It is really hard for me. On the other hand, listening has become almost second nature to me since I've
begun watching only Hebrew-language films and listening to only Israeli music and Hebrew podcasts.

I am confident that I will reach basic fluency in listening by the end of the Gregorian year.

As far as speaking, I feel that memorizing the flash cards is not helping me in that respect (although it does
help with reading and listening.) After I finish the flash card set or while I'm still in the thick of it, my thought
was to recreate sentences that I would normally use in everyday sentences and try to memorize them, sort of like
Pimsleur tries to do.

Reading is only going to get easier as I get more exposure. I'm starting to realize that I just have to jump in.

Edited by nogoodnik on 16 October 2009 at 8:07pm

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nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5329 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 32 of 70
18 October 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged 
Reading is still really difficult. I bought a Hebrew language newspaper to read on Saturday and I got a massive
headache. There are just so many words that I didn't know how to pronounce and I really missed looking at
vowels.
On the other hand, I can read most of the stories from the Intermediate level Ora Band textbook, which don't
indicate vowels. I also have no problem reading the Torah or Chumash (although I read much more slowly than
the Rabbis and native speakers in my synagogue,) which are vowelized (is that a word?) biblical Hebrew.

Possible solutions:

1. Books for adolescents.
2. Having a native speaker help me read the newspaper and memorizing sentences that way.
3. I was thinking of trying magazines instead...more photos, fewer words :)

I can't say that I'm too discouraged though; I've made enormous progress in speaking and listening as a result of
making a few small changes in my studying. Watching only Hebrew language films without subtitles has
changed my life (O.K I'm being a little bit dramatic) and keeping a Hebrew language podcast or music on when
I'm home has caused me to start thinking in Hebrew.

Oh I found a Hebrew book, movie, and music store in my neighborhood finally. I don't have any money to buy
these materials just yet, but it's good to know that they're there.




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