עִבְרִית לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד

[jeff_lindqvist]

With the extra time I'll be spending on Hebrew, I don't know how much I'll be able to stick with chess but I'm hoping to keep adding opening lines slowly but surely and reviewing known ones. I had stopped studying my openings for a while (the Modern and King's Indian Attack) but finished reviewing them and I've started learning new lines. I'm almost done with the quickstarter for the Modern.

A few days ago, the local library (my workplace, as some of you might know) organized lectures etc. plus simultaneous chess with grandmaster Pia Cramling. I chatted with one of the challengers - 14 moves into the game, it looked fairly even. I don't know who won.

[Deinonysus]

A few days ago, the local library (my workplace, as some of you might know) organized lectures etc. plus simultaneous chess with grandmaster Pia Cramling. I chatted with one of the challengers - 14 moves into the game, it looked fairly even. I don't know who won.

Wow, that is amazing! I'm actually familiar with Pia because her daughter Anna is a popular chess streamer and she's been in a few of her videos.

I can tell you how the game went with pretty high confidence. Chess players will commonly memorize opening moves, and an amateur can stay even with a GM using a prepared opening line. At move 14 the amateur could still be playing perfect theory moves, but a few moves later they'll be out of book and the GM will start crushing them, so I'm confident that GM Cramling won the game.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Wow, that is amazing! I'm actually familiar with Pia because her daughter Anna is a popular chess streamer and she's been in a few of her videos.

I can tell you how the game went with pretty high confidence. Chess players will commonly memorize opening moves, and an amateur can stay even with a GM using a prepared opening line. At move 14 the amateur could still be playing perfect theory moves, but a few moves later they'll be out of book and the GM will start crushing them, so I'm confident that GM Cramling won the game.

Correct. Yesterday someone told me that she won ~18 games - 2 ended as draws. I think most (if not all) challengers were active chess club players.

[Deinonysus]

עברית

Had a pretty big week! I finished Pimsleur Unit 2 and I'll be starting the third and final unit this coming week.

I also completed a Hebrew handwriting workbook that I got from my mother, a long time Hebrew teacher. It was actually really good. It starts you off with big letters but then lets you practice with smaller letters the size of actual handwork. The paper was good quality and my fountain pen ink didn't bleed through the pages. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning Hebrew handwriting. Here is a link to Amazon:

Derech Binah - Script Writing Workbook (Hebrew Edition) https://a.co/d/5eklBLc

The textbook for my class is עברית מן ההתחלה ivrít min hahatkhalá "Hebrew From Scratch." Funnily enough, my mother asked me what book she was using and actually says with some disgust, "it's not עברית מן ההתחלה, is it?" But I think it seems fine. It's a bit intense though. There's more Hebrew than English so it isn't self learning friendly, and there's a lot of vocabulary. The learning order is practical, not theoretical, so they start with the present tense and infinitive of verbs, while a Biblical Hebrew course would start with the more straightforward perfective/past tense since conversational ability isn't a concern there. My wife recognized the book from having taken Hebrew for a year in college, so I guess it's a standard college level text.

There's a story we're supposed to translate and underline all construct states for homework. I didn't want to write in my book or make a photocopy so I thought I'd use it as handwriting practice and copy it down. I think it came out pretty well considering that I couldn't write Hebrew by hand a week ago. I do still need to work on my spacing and size consistency and I'm sure I'll get faster and more confident with practice.

Here is the story I copied:

20230114_211301.jpg

And I should probably start writing a bit in Hebrew. FYI, I did some digging and to right-align Hebrew or Arabic text here, use the "rtl" tag.

אני אובד בבוסטון ביום שלישי וביום רביעי. בימים אחרים, אני אובד בבית. לאבוד בבוסטון כיף מאוד! אני נוהג לרוויר ולוכח את הרכבת שם. אני אוהב את כל המסעדות שם! אני רוצה לאכול ארוחת צהריים במסעדה אחרת כל יום!

Chess

I've been keeping up with my opening line reviews, and I've been learning some new ones too. I'm very course to finishing the quick starter to The Uncompromising Modern Defense. It does only cover 1.e4 and 1.d4 so I'm using a book, Opening Repertoire: the Modern Defence by Cyrus Lakdawala, to handle sidelines.

I've been getting pretty decent at beating 1600-level bots so maybe I should jump into live games when I've just finished the quick starters and not bother learning all 700 lines flagged as important. I do need to learn some more basic endgames, though.

[cjareck]

Your handwriting is very clear, and I've understood most of it. I don't learn to write, but only to read. I've seen some quickly written notes that are awful to read. So your work was also a reading practice for me. Thanks! By the way, I've also read and understood your text in Hebrew. That's good news for us both

[Deinonysus]

עברית

I've been really into chess so I got a bit sidetracked from Hebrew. I'm trying to reinstate my rule that I can't go on Chessable until I'm done with my Hebrew Anki deck for the day. I'm doing pretty well in terms of entering vocabulary (I only have five chapters worth of vocabulary left to enter), I just need to make sure I finish all my reviews so I can be all caught up.

I changed my mind again on Duolingo and started using it, but lost my streak. I've reviewed the first 9 lessons of Assimil L'hébreu but haven't gone over it in a few nights so I'm hoping to do another lesson tonight.

Chess

I've finished the quickstarter for the Modern vs. 1.e4 and 1.d4. The author doesn't recommend starting out by memorizing a ton of lines, but rather to do the quickstarter and the 150 tactics puzzles that come with the course as well as going over the model games, so I think that's what I'll do. Next I need to learn the 150 or so quickstarter lines in the King's Indian Attack course and 44 move order puzzles and I think I'll be good to go. I think learning all 700 important lines for the two courses before playing pvp games is overkill.

I do need to learn a few more lines for the Modern vs. flank openings from my other book. These lines are pretty long so I'm trying to learn one a day. I think I have about 10 to go.

Aside from my opening courses, I also want to finish:

• chapters 1-4 of Silman's Complete Endgame Course (good through up to a rating of 1600)
• Common Chess patterns
• Winning Chess Strategies
• And maybe Survive and Thrive: How to Blunder Less and Defend Better

These courses should be quicker than the opening courses because there is less memorization.

Once I'm playing pvp games, then I can start learning more opening lines and doing more general courses on Chessable.

[Deinonysus]

To those in the Boston area who are wondering how to pronounce Tatte and where it comes from, I looked it up and it's actually the Yiddish word טאַטע, meaning "dad". It's pronounced exactly like you'd pronounce "Tatte" in German, not too far from how someone with a Boston accent might say "tarter".

עבכית

I successfully got back on track. I did an Assimil lesson last night (lesson 10), and I cleared out my Anki deck this morning. Hoping I can keep it up tomorrow!

My daughter has been into listening to Hebrew books at bedtime. I do my best to translate on the fly but of course my Hebrew is still pretty limited. I have a couple of Hebrew children's books that I was given when I was a young child and my mother used to read to me, as well as some other books that I have bought as an adult. I'm glad to expose her to some Hebrew and it's good practice for me! Hopefully the class and the boost of motivation it has given me will have me reading the books more confidently soon.

[cjareck]

To those in the Boston area who are wondering how to pronounce Tatte and where it comes from, I looked it up and it's actually the Yiddish word טאַטע, meaning "dad". It's pronounced exactly like you'd pronounce "Tatte" in German, not too far from how someone with a Boston accent might say "tarter".

Interstingly, "tata" means dad in Polish. Is this Polish influence on Yiddish or the opposite?

[Querneus]

To those in the Boston area who are wondering how to pronounce Tatte and where it comes from, I looked it up and it's actually the Yiddish word טאַטע, meaning "dad". It's pronounced exactly like you'd pronounce "Tatte" in German, not too far from how someone with a Boston accent might say "tarter".

Interstingly, "tata" means dad in Polish. Is this Polish influence on Yiddish or the opposite?

It's very common across many languages that babies/toddlers call their parents with words of similar simple and repeated shape, so probably neither... Mandarin has 爸爸 bàba for 'dad' and 媽媽 māma for 'mom' after all. Georgian rather famously has მამა mama for 'dad' and დედა deda for 'mom'. Also:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/tata-

[cjareck]

It's very common across many languages that babies/toddlers call their parents with words of similar simple and repeated shape,

I was fully aware of that, but I considered "tata" to be unique for Polish. Thanks to you and the linked article, I know how wrong I was