You may remember a recent blog where I decided I was going to sound like an idiot for the next two or three years, until my Hebrew improves. .
Haha - I wrote that in the days when Ulpan was easy. Now we are in the big leagues and brother, are we confused. So let's make that ten years.
For example, today our teacher gave us a list of words that include the letter aleph. OK, we all assumed this would be words that START with an aleph. Nope, these are categories of words that HAVE an aleph. Confused yet? Me too.
In the end we think she was giving us spelling tips, but none of us is sure exactly what was the point of this lesson.
And in another lesson we were learning about two words together in which both are nouns (as in water bottle), and two words together in which one is a noun and one is an adjective (big bottle). OK, not so bad right? Just wait. There are all kinds of rules about plurals, singular, using a letter "heh" sometimes, standing on your head and whistling Dixie (or Hatikvah), patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time, and more. At least that's what it feels like.
At this point, we just look at each other and say, "Whatever she writes on the board, put it in your machberet and don't ask why." When a class of twelve adults gets into a giggling fit, you know something is going wrong.
Don't get me wrong, the teachers are dedicated and caring, and very knowledgeable. It's just us students who, with everything else we are experiencing as new olim, feel quite inundated with information and things to learn and figure out.
Now I know that English is a much harder language to learn than Hebrew. So for all of the people I have ever known who had to learn English (including my own grandparents, a"h), I am sorry I EVER mocked your accent, your sentence structure, or your reticence to speak in English.
Anyway, on to other things.
Let's discuss self-serve gasoline.
Let's discuss how I DID IT BY MYSELF TODAY! ALMOST! KIND OF! See, Gila went with me, just to make sure that I didn't crash and burn. And I didn't. Next time I will be completely on my own, I promise.
I also started shopping for Pesach. I learned quickly to check each package for the note that the item has no "chashash shel kitniyos." Speaking of kitniyos, I'm thinking that it's worth paying someone to do some serious ancestry research on my family and my husband's to find the Sephardi ancestor that I'm SURE is out there, begging to be discovered so that his or her precious great great great whatevers can eat kitniyos on Pesach. Sounds reasonable, right?
Haha - I wrote that in the days when Ulpan was easy. Now we are in the big leagues and brother, are we confused. So let's make that ten years.
For example, today our teacher gave us a list of words that include the letter aleph. OK, we all assumed this would be words that START with an aleph. Nope, these are categories of words that HAVE an aleph. Confused yet? Me too.
In the end we think she was giving us spelling tips, but none of us is sure exactly what was the point of this lesson.
And in another lesson we were learning about two words together in which both are nouns (as in water bottle), and two words together in which one is a noun and one is an adjective (big bottle). OK, not so bad right? Just wait. There are all kinds of rules about plurals, singular, using a letter "heh" sometimes, standing on your head and whistling Dixie (or Hatikvah), patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time, and more. At least that's what it feels like.
At this point, we just look at each other and say, "Whatever she writes on the board, put it in your machberet and don't ask why." When a class of twelve adults gets into a giggling fit, you know something is going wrong.
Don't get me wrong, the teachers are dedicated and caring, and very knowledgeable. It's just us students who, with everything else we are experiencing as new olim, feel quite inundated with information and things to learn and figure out.
Now I know that English is a much harder language to learn than Hebrew. So for all of the people I have ever known who had to learn English (including my own grandparents, a"h), I am sorry I EVER mocked your accent, your sentence structure, or your reticence to speak in English.
Anyway, on to other things.
Let's discuss self-serve gasoline.
Let's discuss how I DID IT BY MYSELF TODAY! ALMOST! KIND OF! See, Gila went with me, just to make sure that I didn't crash and burn. And I didn't. Next time I will be completely on my own, I promise.
I also started shopping for Pesach. I learned quickly to check each package for the note that the item has no "chashash shel kitniyos." Speaking of kitniyos, I'm thinking that it's worth paying someone to do some serious ancestry research on my family and my husband's to find the Sephardi ancestor that I'm SURE is out there, begging to be discovered so that his or her precious great great great whatevers can eat kitniyos on Pesach. Sounds reasonable, right?
I think anyone who makes aliyah should be able to eat kitniyos on Pesach!
ReplyDelete