Every so often I will venture into my local library to see if there any cool books I can read for free. The larger libraries, in particular, never cease to amaze me. Well, I’ve had a new revelation the past couple days. I knew that they had some language-related material — dictionaries, 30 year old “teach yourself” books, etc. I have just discovered, however, the “hidden collection,” the stuff you have to ask for behind the register. A fast inventory of my local coolness:

• Complete collection of FSI Hebrew tapes (great for my upcoming pre-Thanksgiving roadtrip)
• Copies of all the Hebrew courses that I considered buying but did not for one reason or another
• Extensive courses for Portugese, Spanish, German, Japanese, etc.
• Unbelievable collection of African language material (I really wish I were interested in them!)
• Pretty sizeable courses on Persian, Finnish, Irish, Norwegian, and many others

And the only requirement is that I live in the area and renew every month or so! Moral of the story: before I start another language, scope out what the library’s reserved collection. Try it yourself — you might just be surprised!

 Enough of the frustrations, though — I hit a nice milestone today. One of the first things I did when I began studying the language was learn the alphabet; I thought it best to get away from transliterated texts immediately to avoid superimposing an American accent on the Hebrew (aside: I heard someone speaking with one in Hebrew on Kol Israel the other day — now I know what I’m trying to avoid.) I’ve been reading Hebrew script reasonably well for the past few weeks, but it’s always felt a bit, well, foreign — as if I’m playing some sort of high-speed crossword puzzle with sounds and squiggly marks.  Well, today I sat down in a local rabbi’s Hebrew reading class, and I just read. I didn’t know all the words, but I seem to have managed to develop a few brain cells for processing Hebrew text. (Another aside: my friends often ask if I have trouble reading “backwards.” It’s not hard, since I always read that script that way, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to opening books the other way.)

 Tips for learning the Hebrew alphabet:

• Consistency. Drill it for an hour a day until you can decode on your own. The Pimsleur tapes came with a reader and a set of audio lessons that read each word in it successively (and also explained weird points, like how the dots work.)
• Find a local rabbi to help! He’ll teach you good pronunciation, be amazingly patient (at least, the one in my area is), give you all kinds of great tips and mnemonics, and give you insight into the Israeli and Jewish cultures.
• Practice. Once you can decode, practice all the time. Find a course with more extensive text than Pimsleur, and work on it regularly. I like the FSI course, even though it’s unvoweled. The Bergman/Band Hebrew series is also great for this, but be sure to get some feedback, since it lacks an audio pronunciation. (Note to publisher: sell a CD with the readings on them!)

 That should be enough to get you going if you’re even newer to Hebrew than I am.

!שלום

Morning: get up early, grab some breakfast, and work my way through about half an hour of a language tape. Having a “conversation” first thing in the morning really seems to shock the brain into learning, though admittedly it usually starts a bit slow. If I can, I try to memorize a long sentence or two from the tape and chew on it through the day.

I came across a set of the Pimsleur Hebrew I CD’s for cheap, so I generally do one of those (since I’ve only got the first set, I usually work on a lesson for two or three days before moving on.) However, I’m almost to the end of them (around 27ish), so I’ll have to move on to something else. I found the first couple FSI lessons for free (just search around — they’re public domain, even though some publishers sell them for mega money), and they seem pretty good, so that may be my next step.

 During the day: think through the phrase. If no one else is around, say it a few times, changing something around. For example, today I used: “Ha-yom, hamishpachah sheli nosa-at le-harim li-rot et ha-sheleg. At rotsa le-lechet?” (“Today my family is going to the mountains to see the snow. Do you (fem) want to go?”) I picked it up from a textbook I’m working through (more on that later.) Sometime around mid-day, I start varying it up mentally: asking a man rather than a woman, changing where we’re going or what we’ll see, or maybe changing a tense somewhere (today’s didn’t change tense so well, but others do.)

 Also . . . flashcards! I’ve made up several sets (basic vocabulary, verb conjugations, etc.), and I like to stow one in my bag every day. You can be very productive during odd moments with a few flashcards in your pocket.

Evening: once I get home, I pull out my textbook. I read through several passages, look over grammar explanations, and maybe even do a few exercises while making/eating supper. (Sometimes it’s handy to be single . . .) I’m using “Ivrit Shalav Alef” (Hebrew Level 1) by Bella Bergman. I’m on chapter 7 (out of 9) right now, and I’m very happy with this textbook. The readings are good (even fun!), and the grammar/vocab is laid out nicely (not too much, not too little.) There are two more volumes after the first, and I’ll write a review once I get further along.

Later in the evening: work on the Rosetta Stone software for about 20 min or so. It’s not very challenging, and it makes for a good vocab builder. I’ll give a fuller review at some point.

Right before bed: since I read the Bible anyways . . . why not read it in Hebrew? I picked up a version in modern Hebrew (not “the original,” but it was fairly cheap), and I usually try to work through at least a few verses. It’s by far the most difficult thing I do with the language, and I’m using my dictionary like it’s going out of style, but it puts the Hebrew into my brain right before I go to sleep. The psalms have been my favorite so far (lots of repetition . . .), but I think I might try some of the stories in Genesis once I get through the textbook set.

So that’s what I’m doing right now. I’ll be filling in the details over the next couple weeks, as well as sharing tips. In the meanwhile, shalom!

I recently received an offer from my employer (the U.S. Gov’t, no less) to use one of the language learning software licenses it had bought for a language of my choice, and I decided to give it a go. I’ve been working on learning Hebrew (they did let me choose . . .) for about a month now, and I decided to start this blog as a sort of online diary of my progress. In addition to talking about what I’ve been doing to this end, I plan on putting together reviews of the various materials that I have been using.

Thanks for your time, and check back for more info in the near future!