Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

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CurlySue
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Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:41 pm

EDIT: because a number of people have expressed interest in Hebrew, I thought I'd link to a few online resources that might help people.

Morfix - online English<->Hebrew dictionary: http://www.morfix.co.il/

Lexilogos Online Hebrew keyboard: http://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/hebrew.htm

Hebrew Verb Conjugation Tables: http://www.pealim.com/

Hebrew Songs - directory of Hebrew songs (including lots of pop music) with transliteration and English translations: http://www.hebrewsongs.com/

The Hebrew word for "episode" is פרק (perek?). If you put פרק 1 (episode 1) into the Youtube search bar, you can see which Israeli/Hebrew shows are on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... A8%D7%A7+1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi all!

I'm new-ish to this forum but was on HTLAL in the past, so I don't really feel new. I recognize some people.

About Me

I was born in the former Soviet Union, but in 1991, when it was collapsing. When I was 4 months old, my family moved to Israel, and when I was 5, we moved to Canada.

When we arrived in Canada, there weren't yet many Israelis here, so I had no one to practice speaking Hebrew with, and ended up completely forgetting the language. But we spoke/speak Russian at home and I learned English at school, so I consider both of those to be my native languages.

I learned a lot of French and a dash of Spanish in my teenage years, both through a combination of classes and self-teaching. I can read and write at a high level in French and would feel comfortable working in the language if I were to ever move to Quebec or France. I can understand a lot of Spanish and get around while traveling in Spanish-speaking countries, which is enough for me.

I'm close to an N2 level in Japanese, though I've never taken an official JLPT test yet. I actually just went to Japan for the second time about a month ago (for 2 weeks) and was somewhat surprised at my own output abilities - I felt like I could express everything that came to my mind.

I'm currently finishing up an undergraduate degree. When I graduate, I actually plan on leaving Canada. I may or may not work in Japan for a year, but I will likely do an internship in Israel and then (if I don't hate it) move there permanently. I have a lot of family there (who I've visited a few times) and have heard a lot about the country from my parents (who remember living there better than I do), so I don't feel that this is entirely random. If anything, doing an internship there first will give me an idea of whether or not I want to stay permanently.

Which brings me, finally, to Hebrew.

Hebrew

Whether or not I choose to stay in Israel permanently, the fact that I will be doing an internship (that will probably last 6 months) there is a good enough reason for me to learn the language.

As a teenager, I flirted with Hebrew briefly and did a bit of this course: https://www.amazon.ca/Hebrew-Language-C ... 874413311/

It's a good enough course, but I don't think it's well-suited for the way I want to learn now.

As some of you may know, in Hebrew (and Arabic) the vowels are not always written. There are dots and lines that are sometimes added in children's books (called niqqud in Hebrew), but most things written for adults do not have this.

Because of this, I've decided that I'm going to approach Hebrew in an audio-heavy way. I'm only going to learn to read and write words that I've heard pronounced. (I might change my approach once I become advanced, but for now, I will do it this way.) I think the advantage to this is that I can jump into the adult way of reading right from the start, and not rely on niqqud as a sort of crutch.

The second thing is that I want most of my learning to focus on immersion and conversational Hebrew; I don't want to dwell on grammar too much, especially since I've already had a bit of an introduction to grammar through the aforementioned course.

I've only (now) been learning Hebrew for 2 days. I've been doing this through looking at translations of Hebrew pop songs and watching anime in Hebrew, and picking out phrases from both to add to Anki. Because I have a bit of background in Hebrew grammar and previously (in my teen years) learned a few hundred words in Hebrew, this process doesn't feel entirely like stabbing around in the dark. It's actually coming quite easily to me.

I might buy the "Teach Yourself Complete Modern Hebrew" course and/or the Pimsleur Hebrew course (which isn't obscenely expensive) sometime soon, but I want to do a bit more research on before deciding on which to get. The advantage to the Teach Yourself course is that it has both a book and CDs, so I can listen and also have the writing in front of me.

And last but not least...

Japanese

I've been learning Japanese very on and off.

If I really put my head down and focused on it obsessively, I could probably take the N1 (and have a good chance of passing it) this December. But I want to learn Hebrew and do other things (take summer courses, work on a fantasy novel in English), so that's unlikely to happen.

I might take the N2 in December instead. It will probably be easy for me, but there's nothing wrong with that. I'd rather pass the N2 with 90%+ than take a chance on the N1 and fail (and have no certification as a result).

I'm currently brushing up on kanji with the Heisig/Remembering the Kanji method.

In Conclusion

Feel free to follow this log if you're interested in updates about Hebrew (and, less often, Japanese) :) I will try to post at least once a week.

And of course, feel free to ask questions if you have any :)
Last edited by CurlySue on Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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: 3 / 16 Pimsleur Conversational Hebrew
: 2 / 9 Hebrew: A Language Course 1
: 0 / 10Hebrew: A Language Course 2
: 0 / 12Hebrew: A Language Course 3
: 4 / 500 Hebrew Comprehensible Input (500 Hours)

Sizen
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby Sizen » Mon Mar 27, 2017 3:10 am

I'll definitely be following your log as I have an interest in all the languages you know/study. I even just started learning Hebrew 6 days ago, so I'll be especially interested in your progress with regards to Hebrew.
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:31 am

Sizen wrote:I'll definitely be following your log as I have an interest in all the languages you know/study. I even just started learning Hebrew 6 days ago, so I'll be especially interested in your progress with regards to Hebrew.


Yay!

What made you choose Hebrew?
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby Sizen » Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:00 pm

CurlySue wrote:What made you choose Hebrew?

Not having the same ties to Israel as you, my reasons may seem a bit superficial, but they're all I've got! 1. Hebrew has always been in my top three beautiful languages category (Japanese, Icelandic and Hebrew, in no particular order), 2. I have an interest in writing systems and I've always wanted to learn an abjad. I'd tried in the past to learn an abjad without learning the language that goes along with it and turns out that doesn't really work. 3. I have a growing interest in the cultures and conflicts of that area of the world. 4. I just kind of feel like learning it, and so far it's been a lot of fun. (Although I really can't say much in the language yet. :? )
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CurlySue
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Mon Mar 27, 2017 4:15 pm

No need to apologize, any reason to learn a language is a good reason :P
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: 3 / 16 Pimsleur Conversational Hebrew
: 2 / 9 Hebrew: A Language Course 1
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby solocricket » Mon Mar 27, 2017 5:58 pm

I've also been interested in learning Hebrew-- I spent some time with it last summer, but I had difficulties finding good, reliable resources, so my interest kind of fizzled out. Looking forward to seeing which books/courses you use and how you like them! :D
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:24 pm

It's interesting that you mention resources... just last night, I had a sudden idea: why don't I see what my public library has? I don't have a Toronto Public Library card at the moment (even though I go to university in Toronto), but I have a library card for the library in my suburb.

It turns out that they have several resources, including:

Pimsleur Conversational Modern Hebrew, 8 CDs/16 lessons (Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Pimsleur-Hebrew- ... 743551192/)

Teach Yourself Modern Hebrew with 2 CDs (https://www.amazon.com/Yourself-Modern- ... 071445242/)

Living Language Hebrew Essentials with CDs (https://www.amazon.com/Living-Language- ... 307972151/)

I didn't bring my CD player with me, so I can't review Pimsleur or the CDs/audio portion of the courses, but I had a quick look at the TY Modern Hebrew and Living Language books, and I can offer a sort of preliminary review of both.

Teach Yourself Modern Hebrew does in fact use relatively small font (as some of the Amazon reviewers complain about), but I can still see everything fine even without my glasses, so it's not some kind of insurmountable problem. The first 2 chapters focus on the alphabet and even in Chapter 3, the dialogue is very short; Chapter 4 is where things get more serious. Overall, the dialogues focus a lot on tourist-y topics, which can be useful if you plan on visiting Israel as a tourist. On the other hand, information is mostly just presented as-is and there are few grammatical explanations. This could either be a plus or a minus, depending on what you like and on your learning style. Overall, TY is fine for someone like me (who's studied a bit of grammar and knows 100-200 words of Hebrew), but I think it moves a bit fast for a true beginner.

The Living Language course is somewhat more holistic in its content; the one I linked to is the beginner part of the course, but there is also an intermediate and an advanced book (both with accompanying CDs). So the goal of the course is to teach you a fair bit of the language overall, not just the touristy stuff. There are also more grammatical explanations, and more vocabulary is introduced in each unit/chapter than in TY. Unlike TY, it really starts at the beginning and goes through everything thoroughly, making it usable to/for complete beginners. The only downside is that the dialogues are quite short and don't incorporate all (or even most) of the vocabulary introduced in each unit/chapter. If, like me, you like to learn from concrete examples, this is a serious disadvantage. Honestly, if they could just make the dialogues longer (or have 2 dialogues per chapter), this would literally be a perfect course. It's a shame.

I think I'm personally going to go with TY Modern Hebrew and Pimsleur. I don't think I've ever used Pimsleur before, but I'll try it out over the next few days on my commutes and have a review of it up by the weekend.
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Mon Mar 27, 2017 9:51 pm

P.S. The Toronto Public Library system also has 2 copies of this: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Hebrew-Es ... 415700825/

Looking through the table of contents and early pages on Amazon, it looks very thorough and something I could learn a lot from, even if it doesn't come with an audio component. I might get a TPL library card and get that book after I finish TY Modern Hebrew.
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: 3 / 16 Pimsleur Conversational Hebrew
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby Xenops » Mon Mar 27, 2017 11:28 pm

Welcome! Hebrew is on my temptation list, due to my possibly Jewish heritage, and because all the churches I've gone to have had a high regard for the Jewish culture.

How did you reach such a high level in Japanese? I studied it for a year at college, and I hope to return to it in the future.
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Re: Adventures in Hebrew (and a bit of Japanese)

Postby CurlySue » Tue Mar 28, 2017 1:22 am

Xenops wrote:Welcome! Hebrew is on my temptation list, due to my possibly Jewish heritage, and because all the churches I've gone to have had a high regard for the Jewish culture.

How did you reach such a high level in Japanese? I studied it for a year at college, and I hope to return to it in the future.


Hebrew is a pretty cool (possibly even underrated) language regardless of one's heritage, imho :) It's probably one of the easier non-Indo-European languages to learn.

Wrt Japanese, I actually started studying it when I was 12, but it's been very on-and-off - mostly off. I think that if you put together the calendar months in which I was actually studying Japanese, you'd get something like 4 years of intensive study. I think my progress is pretty normal for that amount of effort, but I admittedly don't have many people to compare myself to.

When I was 12, a google search brought me to this website: http://ww8.tiki.ne.jp/~tmath/home/

After teaching myself hiragana and katakana, I studied the verb section of that website, which is excellent and which I would strongly recommend to every beginner of Japanese. There's also a book version of the same lessons, by the same author: https://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Verbs-S ... 938236923/

There are some downsides to it: it doesn't have that many examples for each point, the example sentences tend to use the same vocabulary over and over again (so you don't learn much vocabulary overall), it doesn't have any exercises for you to practice what's taught, etc. Despite this, the way that he breaks down Japanese verbs (the "5 base" system) is brilliant and unlike anything I've ever seen in Genki, Japanese for Busy People, or any other Japanese textbook I've looked at.

Back then, I would just copy down the example sentences into a notebook and then read over them repeatedly. If I was doing it now, I'd add the sentences into Anki.

Otherwise, I've just immersed myself in a lot of Japanese media and gradually added stuff to my SRS (first Mnemosyne, and nowadays Anki).

I've also used this book as a reference: https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Japan ... 56836542X/

Hope that helps :) I find it interesting that you're going at French intensively and are interested in Japanese and Hebrew - I feel like there's some parallel with my own trajectory.
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: 3 / 16 Pimsleur Conversational Hebrew
: 2 / 9 Hebrew: A Language Course 1
: 0 / 10Hebrew: A Language Course 2
: 0 / 12Hebrew: A Language Course 3
: 4 / 500 Hebrew Comprehensible Input (500 Hours)


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