Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

[Tristano]

You said that you're approaching Hebrew in an audio intensive way (or something).
But you're learning grammar and it looks like you tackled the alphabet. I learned it with anki but if I try to read a word instead of a single flashcard a black hole is created and kills a puppy. It's like instead of reading "hello"I read "wF1#€&". Did you have the same problem? How did you solve it? With Russian for example reading is very easy for me, but Hebrew... Brrrrr

[zenmonkey]

You said that you're approaching Hebrew in an audio intensive way (or something).
But you're learning grammar and it looks like you tackled the alphabet. I learned it with anki but if I try to read a word instead of a single flashcard a black hole is created and kills a puppy. It's like instead of reading "hello"I read "wF1#€&". Did you have the same problem? How did you solve it? With Russian for example reading is very easy for me, but Hebrew... Brrrrr

First, thanks CurlySue for your log and resources - I liked your description of how you use Anki and I'm stealing the Arthur videos!!

Tristano - I think CurlySue is a 'false beginner' from her language background description and already has some 'Hebrew experience' which helps with re-starting. I am, like you killing puppies every time I try to read, but it is getting better. I found that the only effective way for me to get the pronunciation of words is to get some feedback immediately - I use forvo a lot and italki teachers/tutors. It is slowly getting better with feedback. Some of it is just memorisation. Figuring out the difference in he/she wants (היא רוצה, הוא רוצה) is really just from learning the rules of that ה- ending. Rinse. Repeat. I'm certainly going to start adding specific cards to my Anki deck to work on that.

Maybe the solution is to focus a lot more on the oral early on - like outlined in this log?

[tarvos]

It's really important to focus on speaking with Hebrew in my experience - it really helps

[Tristano]

Thanks @zenmonkey and @tarvos, I'm indeed doing most of my work with audio resources like Pimsleur and Assimil. I repeat and shadow and try to speak some words with my Israeli colleague. I'm not getting the most out of assimil because reading would require a lot of time and effort to me so I'm neglecting the reading and writing parts of the program. I'll probably repeat it a second time with a focus on those two skills. Do you recommend me to take lessons at this time? I'm like 56/90 with Pimsleur and 18/85 with Assimil. Or better to finish these two programs before? It's first time that I attempt seriously at a non transparent language and whatever I used before with my easy romance and Germanic languages don't work here. Thanks! (And sorry OP for the invasion)

[CurlySue]

You said that you're approaching Hebrew in an audio intensive way (or something).
But you're learning grammar and it looks like you tackled the alphabet. I learned it with anki but if I try to read a word instead of a single flashcard a black hole is created and kills a puppy. It's like instead of reading "hello"I read "wF1#€&". Did you have the same problem? How did you solve it? With Russian for example reading is very easy for me, but Hebrew... Brrrrr

Yeah, my original intention was to only use resources that included audio. But the "Hebrew Language Course" program was/is so good that I couldn't pass up using it, even though it doesn't come with audio/CDs. But I'm trying to listen to music and watch Arthur (or other youtube clips) each day to keep up my listening skills.

And yeah, zenmonkey is right - I'm a "false beginner" with some previous experience.

That said, I'm beginning to feel a bit more confident reading nikkud. Without nikkud, I have a hard time knowing how something would be pronounced unless I already know related words (I can guess that רצה would be "ratza", he wanted). Everything I add into Anki is something I've heard said out loud or read before with nikkud, and I add an English transliteration on the back of the cards to help me out, too.

I sometimes wonder how native speakers know how a new word (especially a noun) is pronounced if they just see it in a book or something. Do they have to look it up? Or are there enough patterns that one can eventually guess these things (e.g I've noticed that when וח is at the end of a noun, it tends to be pronounced "-uach" and not uch, ucha, och, ocha, etc)? I guess I'll see as I get better/more familiar with the language.

[Tristano]

I can provide you an answer to your last question - if I remember to ask if to my Israeli colleague.

[Tristano]

I got the answer Sue! He said that when he sees a new word 99% of the times he knows how to read it because of the patterns. He doesn't know the rule, but he just knows that it is like that.