Overall, I have very little experience learning new languages. The only language anyone in my family speaks is English, and there was never any encouragement to learn another. I took my required Spanish courses and disliked most of them, because my high school teacher was rude when someone didn’t understand what she thought they should, and because a college professor taught the language lecture-style, which meant my learning was at about ground zero for that course. I’m primarily a visual learner, but while auditory instruction via spoken word is challenging to me, it’s much easier for me to learn when things are set to music or occasionally if I can come up with a trick to remember them in that way. This is where I think the trick about using mnemonics to my advantage will come in handy.
I’m going to try to start working on several of the learning activities listed in the “12 Rules for Learning A Foreign Language in Record Time” article, and have these steps inform my plan to learn Hebrew. Using this article is very helpful in trying to develop a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goal. First, obviously, I must start with the alphabet, and use repetition and continual visual reinforcement to get that down. I also imagine there’s some sort of alphabet song somewhere, which will help; I still have the Greek alphabet memorized because I can remember the tune the alphabet was set to. I’ll focus on the words that I know I’ll need to use frequently, some of which I already know, along with common phrases and conversational words to develop a realistic plan that’ll have me getting through conversations, even if haltingly. As I said, I know common words already, so while learning the alphabet I’ll try to use them to my advantage to distinguish between certain characters. I’ll try to interact with the language daily, whether through listening to music and podcasts, the Duolingo app, or eventually trying to read the weekly Torah portion in Hebrew instead of in English. This will be helped along by my Hebrew partner, who will assist in real-time language speaking and guide me in what word selection will be most helpful to learn first, and how the grammar works.
My end goal will be to present (i.e., sing) the Kiddush at Shabbos service near the end of the 2022 school year in Hebrew, which is something I’ve never offered to do as I’ve always been worried about getting the pronunciation wrong. Before that, I want to make smaller goals to continually mark progress. I’ll likely adjust these after meeting and discussing with my language partner and making sure they’re realistic, but some of my basic benchmarks will be reading, reciting, and writing the alphabet; memorizing lists of common phrases/words; reading a simple prayer; reading a Torah portion; holding a cursory conversation in Hebrew; reading the Kiddush. While they are small goals, given my current status as a language learner who can recognize some things audibly but is unable to read the language, I think they’re reasonable enough for one semester of learning.
Replies