Right now in my journey of learning Hebrew, I’ve been taking lessons on italki with my online teacher Patriz, who lives in Israel. These lessons have been a really helpful part of my routine. During our sessions we go over basic phrases like “I love to run” or “How is your family?” and repeat them a lot so they actually stick in my brain. We’ll practice the same structure multiple times with different words so I get used to how sentences work in Hebrew. Along with phrases, I’ve also been learning vocabulary that I can plug into sentences, like colors, fruits, vegetables, and simple descriptors like “sweet” or “sour.”
Outside of my lessons, I spend time memorizing the words we learned and trying to make my own sentences. For example, I might write something like “I love sweet red apples” just to practice combining vocabulary and sentence structure. Having italki lessons with Patriz has been great for focusing on speaking and listening skills. One thing I’ve definitely realized is that speaking is much harder for me than listening. When I hear Hebrew, I can often recognize words or get the general meaning, but actually forming the sentence myself takes a lot more effort.
Another challenge I’m running into is that Hebrew is a gendered language. Verbs, adjectives, and sometimes even sentence structures change depending on whether you’re speaking as a masculine or feminine speaker. I grew up hearing my dad speak Hebrew, and he tends to use the masculine form for everything. That’s pretty common in casual speech, but it’s a bit of a problem for me because I need to learn the feminine forms. Sometimes I know the word I want to say but realize I don’t know the correct feminine version of it, which slows me down a lot. Still, working with a teacher has helped because she can correct me right away and explain the pattern.
Another big part of my learning right now is the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew uses a completely different writing system from English, so it feels like starting from scratch. Instead of 26 letters like English, Hebrew has 22 letters, and they are written from right to left. Some letters also have slightly different forms when they appear at the end of a word, which adds another thing to remember. I’ve mostly been watching videos to learn the letters and then practicing writing them on paper.
Writing the letters has been surprisingly stressful because they look so different from English letters. I go very slowly and try to copy the shapes carefully because I’m worried about learning them wrong. It definitely feels like a slow process, but I think I’m gradually getting more comfortable with it.
One thing that makes the Hebrew alphabet especially interesting is that the basic letters mostly represent consonants. Vowels usually aren’t written the same way they are in English. Instead, there are small dots and marks called nikkud that are placed above, below, or inside the letters to show vowel sounds. These are mostly used in textbooks, children’s books, or language learning materials. In everyday Hebrew writing, people usually don’t include them, which means readers rely on context to know how a word is pronounced.
Because of that, learning the alphabet feels like an important step for me. Honestly, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to start practicing the alphabet with my italki teacher as well. Having a real person guide me through the letters and help me read simple words could make the process a lot easier—and it would also help me keep building sentences and improving my speaking at the same time. Overall, it’s definitely challenging, but it’s also exciting to slowly see everything start to come together.
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