Things are going pretty well so far. Before this class, I honestly had no idea what to expect, but I’ve really enjoyed learning about linguistics. I especially like hearing how everyone in class is approaching their language learning. It’s interesting to see how different all our languages are. Getting more context about how languages actually work has been kind of shocking to me. When I speak English, I never think about it, but after going to class each week, I’m amazed by how much is going on behind the scenes when we use language to communicate.
Class discussions have definitely made me think more about how I can learn Hebrew better. Right now, Hebrew is going fine. The alphabet is pretty challenging since it uses completely different letters and symbols from English, but I’m not too stressed about that because my main goal is to improve my speaking. I have also started to use flash cards for common words (fruits, colors, etc), and I have found that pretty helpful.
In the reading by H. Douglas Brown, he talked a lot about context, and that really stood out to me. I didn’t realize how important context was until I started paying attention to it. For example, when I’m listening to Harry Potter in Hebrew and hear a word I don’t know, I can usually just fill in the blanks based on what’s happening. But when I’m having a conversation with my tutor, I make different kinds of assumptions, and sometimes that’s harder because there’s less structure to rely on or she completely changes the subject.
The reading also talks about gender, which has been another challenge. Hebrew is a gendered language, and I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t really know how extensive that was before. I recently learned that even numbers are gendered. I mostly know the feminine forms because that’s what I’ve been using, but depending on the noun, you might need the masculine version. So now I realize I need to learn both, which wasn’t something I expected at the beginning of the semester.
Overall, the process has been a lot slower than I thought it would be. I’ve also been trying to speak Hebrew more with my dad just to get extra practice in. For the rest of the semester, I definitely want to focus more on speaking, since, for my personal goals, I think that’s more important than reading and writing.
Replies