Matt Neilsen's Hebrew Log

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 2, Lesson 6) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 20 minutes
Anki - 10 minutes
Srugim (Season 2, Episode 1) - 30 minutes

Total study to date: ~127 hours

-----------------------

I listened to about 4 hours of Israeli radio yesterday. Some observations:

-It's obviously quite early to say, but I feel a boost in my listening comprehension already. Not necessarily my comprehension for meaning, but my ability to listen to the sounds of the language and distinguish where words begin/end, phonological distinction, etc.

-Israelis listen to a LOT of English I already knew this, but it does make listening to radio a less useful exercise when half the songs are in English.

-Israel is 10 hours ahead of me regarding time-zones, so live radio is late-night/very late-night (which may be why there's proportionately more music than talking)

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’ve had the same problem with late night radio from France. I specifically look for news and culture stations that are less likely to play music at night. Are you familiar with Tune-in? It’s a website that helps you find online radio and you can search by location.

Here is an Israeli culture station:

http://www.kan.org.il/live/radio.aspx?stationId=5

And a news station:

http://www.kan.org.il/live/radio.aspx?stationId=3

Good luck!

[MattNeilsen]

I’ve had the same problem with late night radio from France. I specifically look for news and culture stations that are less likely to play music at night. Are you familiar with Tune-in? It’s a website that helps you find online radio and you can search by location.

Here is an Israeli culture station:

http://www.kan.org.il/live/radio.aspx?stationId=5

And a news station:

http://www.kan.org.il/live/radio.aspx?stationId=3

Good luck!

No, I wasn't familiar with this - my ears thank you

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 2, Lesson 7) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 20 minutes
Anki - 10 minutes
Srugim (Season 2, Episodes 2-5) - 120 minutes

Total study to date: ~130 hours

-----------------------

I had the house to myself for a couple hours last night, and yes, I binged on Srugim. So good. Much enjoyment.

At the encouragement of @cjareck and @Expugnator, I'm going to start using FSI Hebrew. Knowing my personality, I don't think I will have a problem with repetitive drills so it'll probably work well for me. I've decided to include FSI because I feel like I need a little more structure in my learning. I'm not that worried about learning "older" forms of speech - lots of extensive input should iron out the details. My hope is that FSI will provide me with a solid foundation in grammar, particularly in production. Plus, hearing 40 more hours of Hebrew certainly won't hurt.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 2, Lesson 8) - 30 minutes
FSI (Unit 1) - 45 minutes
Clozemaster - 20 minutes
Srugim (Season 2, Episode 6) - 30 minutes

Total study to date: ~132 hours

-----------------------

I did my first unit of FSI today. I listened straight through the lesson, then went back and repeated several sections. I think I'll need to play with the format for a week or so until I figure out what works best for me. The Introduction recommends not focusing on the written text until Unit 10, although I already have a decent foundation in reading since I'm not a complete beginner (thanks Clozemaster!). However, it's pretty damn hard to read some of the text given the quality of the PDF, so maybe I'll focus more on the audio component of FSI.

I think I'm going to aim to finish a unit every two days to make sure I'm not just rushing through the lesson (plus some of the later lessons look like they get long). As always, though, everything is open to revision.

[cjareck]

I think I'm going to aim to finish a unit every two days to make sure I'm not just rushing through the lesson (plus some of the later lessons look like they get long). As always, though, everything is open to revision.

For me, this is a very quick tempo. Perhaps during a few first units, it is OK since you already have strong foundations in the language. But later you should work through them more slowly. There are many nuances in various binyanim, consonant alternations exceptions in vowels and so on. And a slight mistake may change the binyan and the whole meaning of the sentence.
Unfortunately, I do not have so much time as I would like to have, but it takes me about a month to get through a lesson. And even then I repeat it using SRS. Maybe this method is wrong, but since I am after half of the course already, I will stick to it.
Quality of the PDF is unfortunately bad. There is something called "Hebrew Military Reader", where quality is even poorer. After OCR I had a lot of work in correcting the results before I can work on it with "Learning With Texts".

[MattNeilsen]

I'll keep playing around with it.

I managed to run this on my Windows by installing video codecs:
https://codecguide.com/
Maybe this will solve your problem also.

Circling back to this post - I still can't get Sub Rip to work. I've installed multiple codecs and every time it tells me:

"No suitable compressor could be found to give RGB32 images. If the video does not appear in the video window, recompress."

I'm somewhat at a loss at this point. I consider fairly technologically savvy, but I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I can find another program that'll do the same thing.

Hey emk - as the resident authority on subs2srs, I was curious if you have any suggestions for other programs to rip subs from a video? The only videos I have with Hebrew subs are hard-subbed, so I need to find a way to make subs and then go through the Subtitle Edit/Handbrake process that you laid out.

[MattNeilsen]

I think I'm going to aim to finish a unit every two days to make sure I'm not just rushing through the lesson (plus some of the later lessons look like they get long). As always, though, everything is open to revision.

For me, this is a very quick tempo. Perhaps during a few first units, it is OK since you already have strong foundations in the language. But later you should work through them more slowly. There are many nuances in various binyanim, consonant alternations exceptions in vowels and so on. And a slight mistake may change the binyan and the whole meaning of the sentence.
Unfortunately, I do not have so much time as I would like to have, but it takes me about a month to get through a lesson. And even then I repeat it using SRS. Maybe this method is wrong, but since I am after half of the course already, I will stick to it.
Quality of the PDF is unfortunately bad. There is something called "Hebrew Military Reader", where quality is even poorer. After OCR I had a lot of work in correcting the results before I can work on it with "Learning With Texts".

That's really helpful to know - thanks for the more realistic expectations. Since I'm only working on one language, I can probably go through it faster, but it might make sense to focus on a unit per week once I get a few units in.

[Lawyer&Mom]

There is a Srugim recap blog in English you might enjoy. I think it only covers seasons two and three, but it is a lot of fun.

https://srugimrecap.wordpress.com

[MattNeilsen]

There is a Srugim recap blog in English you might enjoy. I think it only covers seasons two and three, but it is a lot of fun.

https://srugimrecap.wordpress.com

Curse you and causing me to spend even MORE time not studying! Kidding, kidding. I just read the first couple recaps and they're quite funny. My favorite line so far:

Also, a comment. We would totally be secular for Avri but wouldn’t even eat dairy out for the sketchy bartender. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Hodaya.

Religious humor always makes me laugh Probably why I enjoy the show so much.


ETA: Ok, I ended up reading all of the recaps up to the current episode I'm on. I hate you. Not really It's actually quite good and insightful - the cultural notes are interesting to me.