Matt Neilsen's Hebrew Log

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 8 - review) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster/Duolingo - 90 minutes
Anki - 30 minutes

Total study to date: ~51 hours

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I was thinking yesterday how much fun it's going to be to do Clozemaster with Spanish. If I'm picking things up this quickly in Hebrew, then I can only imagine it's going to be crazy fast in a language that's significantly more transparent to me. I'm afraid to try it now, though - I don't want to get hooked and take away from Hebrew study

I reviewed Lesson 8 again in Pimsleur to brush up before I do Lesson 9 today. I still need to contact some other libraries to see about getting copies of Levels 2 & 3.

Overall, I'm really enjoying my current study routine. I'm not finding it particularly difficult to get a couple hours of study in per day, and between my various resources, I always have something that I look forward to doing.

Quick note: I've switched all my Clozemaster work to Text Input rather than Multiple Choice as I'm finding it's producing significantly better recall. The trade-off is that it's slower, so I'm getting exposed to less total sentences per unit of time. Maybe I'll hop over to Expug's log and ask him how he thinks about balancing the two.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 9) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 210 minutes (I got a little hooked... )
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~55.5 hours

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I had a nice two-hour block on Clozemaster in the morning and had a couple hours in the evening to work on Hebrew as well. I'm over 80% through the 1-100 Most Common Words - I should have all the sentences played by this weekend. Of course, I'll need to continue to review the sentences so I can get the entire thing green (aka mastered). I'll move on to the 101-500 Most Common Words as soon as I've played all the 1-100. I mentioned before that it's a big jump in sentence count (647 vs. 4,827), so I'm guessing it'll take me ~2 months to work through the next section. That would mean ~80 new sentences every day which is reasonable.

You might have noticed that Duolingo has essentially dropped out of my routine. For some reason, I can't get as excited about it as I am with Clozemaster. I'm still doing a lesson or two a day to add more vocabulary, but I'm in no rush to complete the tree. I find that Clozemaster provides good basic practice for reading and writing, Pimsleur provides good basic practice for speaking and listening, and Anki provides a targeted system to memorize any vocab/grammar I particularly like/need/etc. Apparently, I have a fairly high tolerance for ambiguity and discovering things in context, so my routine seems to be working for me.

One thing I am planning to add into my routine is a short listening segment of natives speaking on Youtube. I'll try to find relatively simple exchanges so that I can hear words "in the wild". I also want to make sure I'm exposing myself to native speed/intonation/mannerisms/etc. so that it's not as shocking when I transition to native materials.


ETA: I was reading a thread by @s_allard and he mentioned a video series called Easy German. I found the equivalent in Hebrew, but unfortunately, there are only 5 videos. However, the segments are a nice length (3-5 minutes) and cover several basic topics (weather, art, university, etc.), so it's still a nice resource. You can find it here if you're interested, and I'll add it to my resources section on page 1 of this log.

[MattNeilsen]

Just a quick update:

I decided to pull the trigger and pay for Clozemaster PRO - Monthly. There are a number of discount codes floating around - I used code ACTUALFLUENCY to get $2 off the first month (making it $6 for the first month). I'm going to play with it for 30 days and see how I like it.

I think one thing that I already like is that I'm changing the review structure so that I see review sentences sooner. The default settings (5 mins --> 1 day --> 10 days --> 30 days --> 180 days) is simply too long in my opinion. I want to inundate my mind with these early sentences to build momentum, and I think seeing sentences sooner will assist with that goal.

Also, the ability to look up sentences is awesome. I typed in a couple words that I've been having trouble with, and it literally pulled up hundreds of sentences with the word highlighted in context. It's a great way to see the pattern of how the word gets used in various settings. From a grammar standpoint, that ALONE might justify paying for Clozemaster.

I also have a sense that there might be a Black Friday deal for Clozemaster, so I don't mind paying monthly for a couple months and then making a decision on Black Friday whether or not to pay for a year.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 10) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - ~240 minutes
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~60.5 hours

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I decided to upgrade to Clozemaster PRO yesterday, which meant I ended up playing even more than usual I'll give an update about PRO in a week or so once I've had time to play with it, but I really like it so far.

I ended up finishing the 1-100 Most Common Words yesterday. The cool part is that if I click "Play" now it shows me sentences that are up for review, so I can go back and consolidate the level quicker. I think I'll play this same level for a couple days before I move on to 101-500.

My reading speed has significantly improved (for basic sentences), and my sense of how to spell things has improved a lot as well. Moving forward, I think the 101-500 Most Common Words is going to provide a great foundation for reading comprehension. I will continue to supplement it with Anki cards from Gabe Wyner's 625 Most Frequent Word-List as well as Duolingo practice. Hopefully, this full-court press will start to get the language into my head.

Lest it feel neglected, I'll also mention that Pimsleur will continue to be a part of my daily routine for the dedicated pronunciation/intonation practice.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 11) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - ~120 minutes
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~63.5 hours

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I spent all my Clozemaster time working on reviews of the 1-100 Most Common Words. I'll start doing some new sentences from the 101-500 category tomorrow or Monday.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 12) - 45 minutes
Clozemaster - ~90 minutes
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~66.5 hours

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Nothing exciting to report - just putting in the work.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 13) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 60 minutes
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~68.5 hours

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!שנה טובה (Shanah tovah!)

Yesterday was Rosh Hashanah (the beginning of the New Year in the Jewish calendar). A common greeting is שנה טובה, which literally means "Good year". Though I'm not Jewish, last night I went to a Rosh Hashanah service with my fiance to observe the holiday. It was a great experience to hear a lot of Hebrew, and I was surprised at how much I was able to pick up. I'm still a long way from speaking conversationally, but it's exciting when little pieces of the language start coming together.

[MattNeilsen]

Yesterday’s activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 14) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 30 minutes
Duolingo - 10 minutes
Anki - 20 minutes

Total study to date: ~70 hours

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Every now and again I get possessed by studying nutrition, and I can’t let it go until I’ve given it its due course. Unfortunately, that means it’s cutting into my language learning time. No matter - it’ll pass

[zenmonkey]

REQUEST FOR YOU ALL
If anyone knows of an audiobook for Lord of the Rings in Hebrew (or really any other long series), I would be most grateful to hear about it. I really want to try the L-R Method as I think it would be a great fit with my personality. I'm planning to start with the New Testament unless I can find another fictional series.

Just discovered your log, I've subscribed.
Good luck!

For Hebrew audio books, I've been recommended https://books.icast.co.il
I haven't bought anything there, but there it is.

[MattNeilsen]

Just discovered your log, I've subscribed.
Good luck!

For Hebrew audio books, I've been recommended https://books.icast.co.il
I haven't bought anything there, but there it is.

Thanks for subscribing, and I appreciate the recommendation. Ironically, I just got another recommendation for iCast a couple days ago, so I'm definitely going to spend some time looking through it. I might need to ask an Israeli friend to help me navigate it.

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Yesterday's activity:

Pimsleur (Level 1, Lesson 15) - 30 minutes
Clozemaster - 30 minutes
Duolingo - 15 minutes
Anki - 15 minutes

Total study to date: ~71.5 hours

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I like Pimsleur for practicing pronunciation. I still find myself irritated at times because it seems like it blazes right through tricky pronunciations (particularly with "reish"/[ʁ] sounds), but overall it seems like a good program. I do find that I'm developing some automaticity in basic sentences, and it pairs nicely with Clozemaster. I always feel like a treasure hunter when I "discover" a word in Pimsleur or Clozemaster that I already saw in the other program.

!קדימה (it means "Let's go!" or "Forward!")