Over the course of this last semester I have enjoyed the opportunity to study the Hebrew Language. Going in to this MLC 105/110 course I did not a single Hebrew word except shalom. However, even with shalom I did not know what it meant in English, just that it was used in movies like “Wedding Crashers.” My beginning style made it hard at first trying to speak the language. In Hebrew there are many sounds one has to produce that do not have sounds of the equivalent in English. This makes it hard to understand without the help of a native speaker to explain it to you. That is where my excellent tutor Maya Tatro came in to play.

            Maya is a second year here at UR who has a strong background of the Hebrew language. Anything my fellow learning partner JT and I asked of her she could answer. If she for some reason could not answer it then we would call her mom who was a fluent speaker that loved talking to novice learners like ourselves. Before we started our language learning I first drew up a list of goals I wanted to accomplish. As the semester winds down I am proud to say that I was able to accomplish my goals. I can say months and days of the year, count, introduce myself, talk about weather, hello/goodbye, family members, etc.

When we were learning the only thing I was worried about was how to say the words, not necessarily how to write them. I just wanted to be able to communicate with somebody who spoke Hebrew to me, so if you were to ask me how to spell any word or to provide the correct calligraphy writing for any word, I would not be able to do it. However, if you were to ask me how do you say awesome in Hebrew I would tell you it sounds like sababa!

Attending the classes for MLC 105 was also helpful. Within that class there were at least 5 different groups of people that were studying entirely different cultures and languages. It was interesting to hear other people’s opinions of what language and the culture they are studying really means on an individual level. I know we liked to complain about the book and how it really did not do much for us, but the book was somewhat helpful if you really read in to it. By understanding the nature of the language and how language is developed it is much easier to understand the background of Hebrew since it is an ancient language.

Another part of the class that I liked was the culture projects at the end of the semester. I know I already touched on how much I enjoyed certain presentations in an earlier blog post, but I wanted to make sure I briefly touched on the benefits of watching other culture projects. Sure I loved the food that people brought in, but I also loved watching people come out of their own shells and confidently talk about their specific culture project from the baths, to the Israeli army, to tea, to the difference in Thai city and country folk.

I loved this course and there would not be many things I would change about it. One recommendation is maybe make it more online like a lot more Rosetta Stone than tutors. Without a set time to meet every week with your tutor it can be extremely difficult to meet and learn. Just even in a group of three people, Maya plus JT and myself found it very difficult to find a time where everybody could meet. I still think I was successful in my interactions with Maya and she did a great job, but had I the option to meet twice a week instead of once a week, perhaps I would have learned even more about the Hebrew language. In only getting to meet once a week we really had to cram two different days of information in to one. This learning style works for me, because I am like a typical college student that can cram for anything with a little bit of caffeine and a library open 24/7. It also helps that I lived with my language partner. JT and I were at the same level of language competence so if there was something I didn't understand I could just talk to JT and hopefully we could figure it out without having to call and bother Maya. Most semesters you may not find the scheduling conflicts that our group had experienced but perhaps the set time designated towards meeting with a tutor would allow for avoiding these conflicts. At the same time meeting with Maya was by far the most helpful part about the semester. She could explain everything on a personal basis and could also find anything for you in Hebrew whether it was stupid Hebrew videos on YouTube or great Hebrew websites informing one of the culture and language. 

All in all this was an awesome (sababa) class. I would certainly recommend it to anybody interested in broadening his or her horizons. Dr. Grove and Dr. Scinicariello were great teachers that were respectful of student’s times and flexible with our busy schedules that many seniors are experiencing now as we look for jobs. Thanks for the class it was a pleasure having you both as teachers. 

This past week was my last meeting with my tutor Maya. This week instead of really studying Hebrew we went over my presentation for my culture project and made sure everything was perfect. She helped me implement new words that were more easily relatable with the subject matter I was talking about. Besides placing the words in she helped me go through my presentation and was my receptive audience. Then she gave recommendations as to what else I should add and take out of my presentation. For instance, I was only planning on speaking of the good things about Birthright, but Maya mentioned there are many critics. I had not even thought about that. By adding the negatives about my topic of interest, people were better able to understand and get a feel for everything that Birthright stands for. It has been very fun working with Maya this semester as my tutor. She was flexible enough with my demanding schedule to allow for me to meet at least once a week to learn Hebrew. 

From attending and watching all of the culture presentations there are two presentations that really stuck out. Dan Hebert’s presentation and the Andrew Lyell’s presentation on tea’s in Bangladesh. Dan’s presentation was so memorable because what he did was actually applied and helped the people of that area in Thailand. The presentation talked about the differences between the city people in Bangkok and the country people. Essentially the country people are treated like second class citizens and their opinions do not matter when it comes to the Thai government running the country. The presentation was great but what really impressed me was the fact that Dan created a 30 minute video highlighting the problems with treating these citizens as second class citizens. That video is now used by the people living in Thailand to support their push to have their voices heard.

Andrew’s presentation was very good too. He talked about tea in Bangladesh which would seem like a boring topic but it was actually very interesting to hear about. He talked about the types of tea and also had one on one interviews with the people that run the tea stands. A tea person essentially is not smart enough to do anything else as they explain to Andrew when he asked the question of “so why did you want to make tea?” What is even more depressing about these tea stands is that these guys are only making at most $7.50 a day. $7.50! There is no way you can live off that if you have a family or any other person you are taking care of. I know it is Bangladesh and that the cost of living is much lower than in the United States, but $7.50 a day when working at least 16 hours is absurd. 

The rest of the presentations were fantastic as well. I really loved it when people brought in food for their presentation. I always enjoy food to eat during presentations. And the youtube links helped make presentations more understandable. It is clear that everybody knew what they were talking about and had a passion for that subject matter, which I could sense through their presentations. I really enjoyed watching these presentations over the last three weeks and will miss taking this class. 

Earlier on in the semester I wrote briefly on Birthright in Israel, but now after doing my culture project on the subject matter I can delve much deeper in to the subject. Birthright is a great opportunity for several Jews around the world to travel back to Israel on a free ten day trip to experience their heritage and bond with the local Jews. Nearly 70% of the people, aged 18-26, that participate in the program are from the United States. This is partly because the generous benefactors that make this program happen are from the United States and they give back to the program, as evidenced by a recent donation of $25 million from an American couple. The birthright trip varies on a group basis. The program is run by several different groups that will lead tours based off of what the tourists want to see. If the group is orthodox Jews then the 10 day trip may be more faith based. If the group is just college aged kids from Richmond then they may be looking for a more social interaction during that trip. Both groups are guaranteed to attend the Mega Event which has very important people (called machers) attend the event with musical artists like Lenny Kravits performing for the guests. There is another interesting part of the trip called a mifgash or encounter with Israeli soldiers that are the same age as the guests. The purpose of this 5 day mifgash, in which the soldiers travel around with the others, is to develop rich discussion and learn about such things of what it means to be a Jew in Israel and what it means to be a Jew in the rest of the world or what it means to serve in the Israeli army etc.

If you were a Jew that has graduated from high school and has at least one parent still practicing their Jewish faith then you qualify for Birthright. However, it is very difficult to actually get in to birthright. As of right now they are taking 37,000 Jews from the ages of 18-26 each year. That means for each spot available there are several thousand applicants. You almost have to be lucky in order to qualify and hope that the pre screeners do not take you out of the group because you are believed to have a hidden agenda. This hidden agenda has been complained about by several people because Birthright does not explain why they will not allow you on the trip, just that they think you have a hidden agenda so they will not let you come. Other complaints about Birthright is that the trip is extremely biased and only gives the story of the Jewish people through a pro Israeli perspective. This propaganda is only hurting the relationship between the Jews and the Arabs in that Middle Eastern environment. Another complaint by the local Jews in Israel is that the funds used to pay for Birthright could be used elsewhere to help others. For instance, would you rather use the money to help take care of the elderly or to allow for college aged students to come over and have fun?  Most would say the first option is more honorable so that is why some people complain about the use of the funds.

Overall, I believe birthright is a great idea. Although I am not Jewish I think a trip like this to discover ones Hebrew ties would be a fantastic opportunity and something that would certainly enrich my personal faith.

Of course that seems like a silly question to ask in the Western World where people understand and remember the horrendous time of the Holocaust. There is no doubt to accept that the Holocaust is real with such concentration camps like Auschwitz, in Poland, still standing to remind people of the past in order to avoid such a horrible future. Unfortunately, despite how real the Holocaust was, certain groups of people in the Middle East refuse to believe that the Holocaust was in fact real. This false belief began in the 70’s when a German born Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, published a four page paper entitled “The West War, and Islam” and sent the paper to several heads of Middle Eastern Countries. From that time on this ridiculous belief has grown. Today, we have the Iranian President Ahmadinejad constantly denying the existence of the Holocaust. How can such a smart man that is capable, or at least believed to be capable of running a country hold such a belief? Does he not understand history or is he just being blind with hatred? I am not Jewish, but it is despicable that there are people running countries that preach such hatred, does the world not remember Hitler?

To make matters worse the Union of Arab Workers went on strike because the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East was planning on placing the Holocaust in children’s elementary books. The strikers wanted to erase this history because they wanted to teach students about the Right of Return to coincide with UNRWA’s war curriculum. The five areas that this teaching will occur in is Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Syria. Political organizations such as Hamas have shown strong support in following these teachings which only makes it harder to correct these false beliefs. This problem will only get worse and is something that will not go quietly in to the night until someone educates these people. 

While I watching youtube videos to learn more about Birthright, I stumbled upon an odd trend related to Hebrew music. They love listening to music that is rather dance oriented. I looked in to popular music in Israel today and I found one particular group that I really liked listening too. Their name is Shotei Ha’nevua or “The Fools of Prophecy.” Shotei Ha’nevua is an Israeli musical group that was named as Israel’s band of the year in 2005. They described their music as a mixture of reggae with hip hop and dance music, under the direction of some eastern Mediterranian flare. One particular song I like is Ein Ani, that I will provide a youtube link on my wall so that you may enjoy it as well. The music you hear created from the group is happy and fun despite being able to understand all of the Hebrew lyrics. Although I love listening to Shotei Ha’nevua they are not the only Israeli group that plays this type of music. Other groups you might be interested in listening to is the High Windows and Eviatar Banai. Unfortunately the groups egos got to big as is the case with many musical groups and they broke up in 2007. The lead singer Avraham Tal went on to do a solo career and the other two members Gilad Vital and Roi Levi continued to play together under the name of Pshutei Ha’am or the Simple People. If you like listening to fun energetic music check out my favorite song by Shotei Ha’nevua right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr4klMWTRAM

For my final cultural post I am going to talk about Passover. I feel as if this is the perfect time to talk about Passover with it coming up in the next couple of weeks. In fact, I am slated to give my final presentation during Passover on April 18^th.  Passover has been around since the beginning of the Jewish religion. It commemorates the story in Exodus in which Moses instructed the Israelites were told to put lambs blood on the door posts of their homes so that the spirit of the Lord would pass  over these homes and not kill the first born child. Of course the Israelites listened to Moses, but the Egyptians did not and their first child died in the middle of the night. This miracle was just one of the numerous events that God performed in order to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelites have their freedom. Passover, along with Pentecost and Tabernacles, are the three pilgrimage festivals in which many Jews go on a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.

A particularly interesting thing I learned about Passover is how they remove all chametz from every dish. Chametz is any form of grain, so bread, most alcohol, corn syrup, essentially a lot of things.  Some Jews are so strict with this Chametz that they have special dishes specifically used for just Passover. They keep these dishes separate so that it does not have any traces of chametz on it. In addition to that they boil the dishes in hot water to remove all traces of chametz. They even do a traditional search the night before Passover for all Chametz in the house. All chametz must be found and rid of or else it is unholy to celebrate Passover.

Since Judaism is still on a Hebrew calendar, the date of Passover is constantly changing. The day is celebrated on the 15^th day of the month of Nisan. Nisan is sometime in the Spring but does not have a set date and is not transferable to say it is always on April 17^th. 

Hopefully all of my cultural posts have been informative and insightful. I learned plenty of things interesting things about the Hebrew language and the Jewish people in all of my culture posts and look forward to learning more in the last few weeks. 

With the year winding down JT and I are approaching our final goals in the Hebrew language. This week we met with Maya and finalized the topic as to what I want to do my cultural project. As mentioned last week we brainstormed ideas and then over the past week I let those thoughts marinate as to figure out what would be my best cultural topic. I have chosen that I will do an in depth analysis of Birth Rite. I have written a brief cultural topic on it before but this time I will gather the full information. From here on out when we meet Maya will be helping me put together the project to make sure I touch on all of the important topics of interest and to make sure I apply the necessary amount of Hebrew spelled words in my presentation and paper.

In addition to finalizing the cultural topic we learned about how to describe a house from the bathroom to the garage and everything in between. Hopefully I can add these words in to my repertoire of Hebrew words. 

This week Maya and I met to start thinking about the Final cultural project I have generated a list of things I can possibly work on and now I will think about it over the next week. My final three topics of interest are birth rite, the army, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Hopefully by next week I will have a better idea of what I want to focus on.

In addition to the cultural topic discussion I was able to record another Voki with Maya’s help this time about a weekends weather forecast. This will put me over the required amount of Voki’s hopefully exceeding class expectations. So hopefully the freshest beat off my Hebrew Meow Mixtape is pleasing to the listeners ear. Warning rain might be coming. 

From this week’s reading I learned about cultural competence and how to properly evaluate dialects. There are two main areas of spoken language a person recognizes on a regular basis, a person’s accent and a person’s dialect. An accent is easily recognized in the States through how a word sounds, for instance a Boston accent is relatively distinct with how people from that region say several words. A dialect is how words are framed, like “he did it” compared to “he done it.” In studying dialects it is important to note that no dialect is the correct dialect. We are known to say things such as he or she speaks the correct English dialect. Who are we to decide what is the correct English dialect? Just because someone’s spoken language does not sound like the language we were taught in school, it does not necessarily mean it is wrong.

Another interesting thing to note about dialect is that it is becoming harder to recognize where a person is from based off of what they say. Decades ago people could figure out where another person was from based off of what they said. Today that is not the case with the increased social mobility of nearly everyone. I am from Cincinnati, Ohio, but I go to school in the south and routinely converse with people from the Northeast. These are three different dialects I am exposed to everyday for the last four years. Because of this I have acquired language that I never would have previously known had I stayed in Cincinnati my whole life. Now I use words such as wicked and nice in describing whether a person is really good at something. In Cincinnati when we describe somebody as being good at something we say they are sick or awesome.

Modern dialect studies focuses on the socioeconomic status of a person. It is much more helpful to understand a person’s job, income, or education, than where they are from. Although we like to believe there is no class divide in the United States there unfortunately is. The upper class tends to hang with fellow wealthy people and occasionally middle class people, but never lower class people. Since there is such a drastic difference in lifestyles and life experiences, different dialects emerge. Education may have a factor, but the context of the situation also plays a role. For instance when meeting with the President of the United States the language interaction one should expect is that of something proper and not some street jargon. However, when relaxing among some peers the setting is entirely different and a person can return back to the language and dialect they are most comfortable speaking.

The last thing I want to touch on was the question of why does language cause so many problems? The book answers it by explaining that by choosing one language over another is a universal sign that you identify more with this cultural group. The dialect chosen also provides a clear link to the past. Finally, it is a natural barrier between cultural groups that typically encourages conflict rather than cooperation. Even with my Hebrew language there is a clear difference between certain dialects. The Sadducees were the more recognized and distinguished Jewish people with their priest and wealthy person roles, while the Pharisees were the laymen in the Jewish community. These different Jewish sects developed different dialects and also created a sense of hatred towards each other because neither sect budged on their stance or their form of communication. So language and its dialect is not just a problem today, but something that has been causing problems for 2000 plus years.

            Staying true to my promise to continue to churn out more Voki’s past the required amount, I was able to create a Voki with Maya talking about my Spring Break. Since we could find no information on the Internet regarding how to talk about one’s Spring Break in Hebrew, we resorted to calling Maya’s mother who is fluent in English and Hebrew. She was able to generate all the terms and Hebrew lingo I wanted to use in describing my exciting Spring Break to the Dominican Republic where I was not kidnapped. (Ve lo mich pastee!!!!)

From this past weeks reading I gathered a few things. First there are far too many language families and its roots to really keep track of or remember it. Also, there are two main ways to evaluate a language and its family. Finally, one can evaluate where a language comes from based on what is not found in the vocabulary.

My first point of too many language families to keep track of is evident through Africa, which has 480 million people and over 2000 different languages. Of course many of these languages might share a commonality but overall it does not help me better understand my current language I am learning.

The two perspectives of evaluating language are genetic and typological. Genetic evaluation is a historical analysis derived from any ancestor languages. This can be traced through the Latin language, which has the romance languages that grew out of it. The other perspective is typological. In which a formal comparison of similarities found between two languages is done. This is less helpful than the genetic perspective but is nonetheless somewhat effective.

The last thing that I found very interesting was how a person studying a language can trace where it came from. For example by looking at an ancient language and noticing that the word “palm tree” is not in the language one can easily note that the language must not have originated from the Mediterranean where palm trees are normally found. Although it does not necessarily zero in on the exact location of where the language started, it can still narrow down the options through process of elimination.

Overall, I did not think this reading was very beneficial. The roots and history of a language does not help me as a language learner understand Hebrew any better. The roots of an ancient language that does not exist any more has no effect on what the present language is trying to teach me. Only studying the origins of Latin, which has the romance languages growing out of it is beneficial to know, because it does have some commonalities amongst each other.  However, knowing the other ancient families that some languages have grown out of does not help me in studying my Hebrew language. 

From my meeting with Maya I was able to learn words to describe weather as well as more than ten plus animals. After learning all of those words I was able to work on an introduction for myself about who I am, where I am from, etc. By completing this introduction I have fulfilled all of my voki requirements, but I still plan on completing more Voki’s.

Does language really need saved? The book believes that all 6,000 languages in the world need to be saved in order to keep the diversity of the world intact. They compared it to an endangered species on the wildlife list. However, I disagree with the book and do not believe that every language needs to be saved. Having to save every language is extremely time consuming and not worth the effort. Having so many languages makes communication complicated. The world already has enough problems in its interactions with the other people, there is no need to make an interaction more complicated by not being on the same wavelengths with communication.

Coming from an English background and traveling abroad to cultures that do not have English as a native tongue, I have seen the difficulties in properly communicating what one wants to say.  One can become frustrated when he or she is trying to convey something to another person that does not understand what he or she is saying. What saved me while I was abroad is that many people spoke some form of English. These people were interested in adopting the English language because to them it was seen as the language of the world. Since I speak English I like to think that everybody would like to speak that language. I respect people for wanting to maintain their own culture by speaking their own language, but I do not want to have to do a business meeting in their language. Whatever the majority speaking language in the world is at the time should be the basis as to what should be learned by everybody in the world. For instance, since there is a large influx of Hispanic people in the United States, I have worked hard in speaking the Spanish language because a large portion of people I could potentially come across might only speak Spanish.  Yes it is important to keep your own culture and own tongue. However, it is more important to be able to effectively communicate with other people in the world. Communication is the basis for successful interactions and relationships. That is the primary purpose for why we study a language. Having to understand possibly 5000 different languages in order to communicate with all 6 billion people on the planet is unrealistic and absurd. We should all agree to understand one universal language and then go from there on whether we want to speak another language.

Although I went on a rant here about language needing saved, I just wanted to briefly touch on how languages are created. The book gave so many theories and scientific explanations as to how language came about that it proved that nobody really knows how language came about. There is always a hypothesis but nobody can actually prove how language came about 4000 years ago. 

In addition to wanting to learn the Hebrew Language, I want to also learn about the Hebrew culture. This week I looked in to retracing the history of the Hebrew culture and it is land. It started approximately in 1000 BCE with a nomadic group of people that lived off of the herds and flocks they tended to. Included in this group of early Hebrews are those mentioned in the Bible, such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and David. This group of people has provided the earliest archives of mankind through which people today can read their stories in the Bible.

In the early days there were two types of cultures, the Hebrew culture in the east and the Greek culture in the west. The Greek culture came about in 800 BCE, but did not really begin to interact with the Hebrew culture until 200 BCE, when the Greeks began to push south in to the Hebrew’s territory. The Hebrews did not take this kindly and for hundreds of years a battle waged between the two sides. Eventually the Greeks won out and the ancient Hebrew culture was destroyed. From there, the Greek perspective influences all that we read through the Bible. For instance, the Tanakh is the Hebrew word for Old Testament, but we recognize it as the Old Testament. Within the Tanakh are the three sections of Hebrew scripture called the Torah, Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim.  These three parts are divided up from the Pentateuch, to the prophets, and then to the writings.

As we are all aware, in today’s world there is a battle between the Israelites and the Palestinians over who owns the land. Based off the mere fact that the Hebrew culture has been around forever, one can easily say that is should belong to the Israeli’s. However, since the ancient culture was virtually destroyed the Palestinian’s may have an argument. In 63 C.E, Pompey, a Roman General, reduced Canaan to a Roman tributary, known under Roman governorship as Palestine. That is the first mention of Palestine and around that time the Jews were being severely repressed by Herod the Great. It was then around 66-73 CE that the Jewish revolt occurred against Rome and eventually was successful. It seems that the land should go back to the Jews, but during that time land was stolen from other cultures and nations seemingly every 50 years. It was such a common occurrence that it is hard to argue whose land it was first when each side can claim that they stole it back most recently. Since no side is willing to make amends, the struggle lives on today with just as much bloodshed occurring now as it was 2000 years ago. Despite all this controversy involving the land it is still cool learning an ancient language like Hebrew. 

This just in there are celebrities that can speak Hebrew. I remember a few weeks ago in class I joked around that I would never want to watch a movie done in Hebrew because the acting is c Level at best and could never compare to the great acting of Hollywood movies. Now although it is true that the United States does have the best actors in the World, it is not true that a Hebrew film would be that bad to watch because some of the best actors in Hollywood come from a Jewish/Hebrew background.  Barbara Streisand, Harrison Ford, Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., Natalie Portman, and Bar Refaeli all come from a Jewish background where Hebrew is spoken. Natalie Portman and Bar Refaeli still continue to do some interviews in Hebrew to not lose contact with the world they came from.  Both women are extremely attractive and great to watch on the big screen. I became aware of this when I was watching “No Strings Attached” with my girlfriend last week and she mentioned that Natalie Portman spoke fluent Hebrew. After gaining this insight I looked in to other big name actors that were similar to Portman and I was shocked to see such a great list of A list actors in Hollywood. Now I stand corrected from the statement I made two weeks ago in class, I would certainly watch a Hebrew film staring Natalie Portman and Bar Refaeli any day.  The Hebrew world just needs to make it so I can watch it. 

This past week I had a review session with Maya. The entire goal out of the review was to make sure that I knew how to properly pronounce every word that I would later be using in the Voki's I completed. My first voice recording was a minute long introductory conversation between a man and a woman. I had the fantastic time of playing both sexes although my voice could not hit the higher octave of my female character Lisa. In the conversation Dan met Lisa and they began a casual conversation in which Dan finds out it is Lisa's birthday. Dan is an American in Isreal and is new to Hebrew so the conversation is relatively elementary. In the second Voki recording I recorded myself doing the Hebrew alphabet, since I know that is one of the set in stone goals of an introductory Hebrew learner. In my third Voki, I did a combination of counting, months, and days of the week. I counted to 20, and then listed the 12 months, and 7 days of the week. The difference between Hebrew and English is that the week starts on a Monday in Israel, where as it starts on a Sunday in America. So I would consider this week as very successful since I was able to get three voki's complete. Now I just have to be able to figure out how to get those voki's posted on to my wiki page.

From the How Language Works book, I learned on reading and writing in a foreign language. Although I love to view the English language as the model language for every other language, I must have a broadened perspective on languages in that English came around much later than other languages and is not emulated by everyone. Language as in written language did not come about for a thousand years after versions of language were conveyed through pictures etched in stone. Then in BCE, closer to AD pictures started shifting in to letters and the written language of letters and alphabets began to be formed today. In these alphabets it is important to note that the amount of letters in an alphabet is a great predictor as to how hard it is to understand the language. For instance one of the most elementary languages is from the Solomon Islands where it is only eleven letters long. On the other hand a more difficult language is Khmer and it has 74 letters in its alphabet. The English language has 26 letters in its alphabet.

Another cool thing about writing is that nobody has the same writing style. It can be eerily similar, but never exact. Every person has a different slant, spacing, size, etc in their writing.

When reading it is important to note the direction in which one is to read. English is left to right, top to bottom. Hebrew it is right to left top to bottom and some other languages are bottom to top. A beginner in a language should be mindful of where to start their reading.

At a young age in America a child learns how to read and write. When beginning I would argue that reading is with the ear, because you have to first start by sounding out the words, before you can start smoothly reading the words. The text debates whether reading is with the eye or ear and I would argue that it starts off with the ear and then as we become well versed in that language moves in to the eye. As a child it is also imperative to have guidance and encouragement from someone to keep pursuing the mastery of the cognitive, motor, and linguistic skills.

The final part I really pulled from the text is how quickly one can lose their written or reading ability. There are several diseases out there that can rob someone of this knowledge. At an old age it could be an accident or a stroke that blocks that part of the brain from working. At a young age a common learning disability is dyslexia. My girlfriend actually suffered from dyslexia, but she has been able to overcome that to be a person much smarter than myself. In fact she can read and write faster than I can and she has to see the letters and shape them in to real words, where as I already see the words in the correct letter shape and it still takes me longer. Overall, I learned that reading and writing is a gift that we should be grateful to have and something we should continue to work on to become experts in several languages. 

This past week JT and I had the opportunity to learn more Hebrew with our tutor Maya. This time we learned about days, months and numbers. By the end of the session we had learned all twelve months, the seven days of the week, and could count to ten. Months in Hebrew are one of the easiest things to learn. Take for instance January is pronounced “Janwell” and August is pronounces “Awegoost.” We are lucky that we only had to know the 12 months, as the ancient Hebrew calendar has 20 or so months. The seven days of the week basically all consist with the first word “Yam” and is then followed by another word. We were able to count to ten, but were not able to get all the way up to the 31 days in each month.  So far we did a great job learning what we set out to learn for the week.

During the week I also had a follow up meeting with Dr. Scinicariello to track our progress. Due to our group’s scheduling conflicts we are only able to meet once a week, but it still works out because JT and I live with each other so we are able to test our Hebrew out on each other on a routine basis. As we discussed in the meeting sometimes the best learning is between a novice learner and a novice learner because we are going through the same struggles of learning what we are really trying to understand when learning the language. 

The reading Figuring Foreginers Out was more of a refresher for me than new information. I learned similar things about cultures and their various make ups from my classes in international marketing and from my classes that I took abroad. In fact I took a class abroad that only talked about Hofstede's principals. In it we talked about individualism vs collectivism, power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance. The United States is known as an individualistic society in which there a big difference in power in the corporate world. Men must always act manly and are thought of as soft or homosexual if they show feelings that are typically associated with women. On the other hand in numerous culteres around the world the behavior is the exact opposite. Take for instance Sweden, where IKEA is from. In Sweden a customer can contact the CEO of the company, if they want to talk about something. That is unheard of here, but the power distance is so low in Sweden that just because a person has the title of CEO does not mean they are far superior to the other workers. Also, in that society the people win and lose as a team, not as individuals. There are no bonuses for superior performance at the end of the year, unless the company reaches its goal at the end of the year. 

What I did learn towards the end of the article was about the non verbal cues that are accepted in one culture and disdained in another. In a culture like America, we like our distance, we are firm with our speaking and handshakes, and always maintain eye contact. In an Asian culture, distance is less of an issue and speaking and handshakes are more soft, and eye contact throughout a conversation is un heard of and almost considered rude. A person from culture one that is encountering a person from culture two needs to recognize these differences so that the interaction will not be awkward or interpreted as disrespectful. As long as one is aware of the difference in values and behavior, there will be no problem in bridging the gap between cultures and getting along with everyone. The problem is few are that cultured, that they know everything about an entirely different culture's behavior. 

Although I have already made this post elsewhere just to make it easier to find my learning plan and goals I will make a separate and individual blog. The main goals I want to accomplish as a novice learner are:

Greetings / Farewells (formal/informal, for different times of day, etc.)
Introducing yourself (your name, where you are from, what you are studying, something interesting about yourself)
    --Eliciting this information from others
Identifying and talking about family members (names, relationships, professions, something interesting)
    --Eliciting this information from others
Telling time / asking the time
Asking / saying the date 

In addition to these goals JT and I established with our language partner we wanted to learn to talk about sports, weather, and be able to ask for directions. 

The primary way we plan on reaching these goals is meeting with our partner to reach one goal a week. During this meeting we write down and speak every word that we note as very important to learn. Then after meeting with Maya, JT and I try our Hebrew out on each other over the course of the week. Since we are roommates it is easy to practice our Hebrew on each other. So far we have been successful in reaching our goals. 

From this weeks reading I learned several key things attributed to effectively learning language. I was not aware how much effort and how difficult it is to speak consonants, vowels, and recognize syllables. For instance the mouth changes from front to back of the throat as well as the tongue changes shapes in its various pronunciations of the primary and secondary cardinal vowels. I believe there are 10 different parts of the mouth or throat that produces the sounds necessary to formulate words and sounds.

In hindsight I guess it is harder than imagined to find syllables. At my ripe age of 22 it is no longer a challenge, but I can see how it can be hard with a syllable usually being larger than a single segment, but smaller than a single word. Now that I am trying to learn a foreign language like Hebrew I recognize the difficulties in finding the syllables. Having a familiarity with a certain language helps finding these syllables and currently I have no idea how to formulate words properly in Hebrew.

I completely agree with the text on its discussion of tone of voice having an impact on how one interprets the other person speaking to them. You can quickly decipher whether the person talking to you is being friendly or stern, just by the inflection and tone of their voice. If it sounds booming and authoritative they are acting stern, if it is softer and is accompanied by a smile then the person is acting friendly.

The section talking about babies and their auditory skills was also very interesting. I have a niece now that is nearly 2 years old and she has been very receptive to voices that she has heard over the last two years. The text argues that babies only respond and take in voices that they are familiar with. Rowan always responds to my family members, but rarely responds to me because she rarely sees me. I am thought of as a stranger in her mind, so she does not actively listen to me. There is also a correlation between her babbling and spoken language. At her age she has maybe 100 plus words in her vocabulary, but she has about 500 babbling words. I have confidence that as she increases in age those babbling words will translate in to words we actually recognize.

Finally is the sad truth that speech can wrong at any point in one’s life. You can have 60 years of great speech, but one stroke can cause a person to lose everything they have accumulated over those previous years. Speech is a very fragile thing, it is great to have so we must all be grateful for it. Hopefully none of us will ever have to experience the problems mentioned in the text with speech problems and acquisitions. 

This past week in my meeting with Maya I learned more Hebrew words, but more importantly learned about the culture of Judaism.  In our hour long session we learned of the difference between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. The Ashkenazi Jews come from Europe, while the Sephardic Jews come from Africa. The Ashkenazi are the elitist group of Jews, while the Sephardic are treated as a secondary group of people. For several years the tensions have been high between the two religious sects. At least 20 years ago the tensions were as high as the civil rights movement seen in the United States, with the Sephardic Jews wanting to be treated as equals. Much like the relations between whites and blacks have become peaceful, the relationship between the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews is less tense. However, from my tutor’s personal opinion the Ashkenazi still feel like they are better then the Sephardic’s.

Another interesting thing about Judaism overall is that the Jewish religion represents less than 1% of the world population. Christianity is the leading religion with 2.1 billion members, while Judaism makes up only 14 million people. It is clear that such tragic events like the Holocaust put a severe damper on the growth of the religion.

Each week I have made it a goal to learn one new interesting fact about Israel, the Hebrew language, or the Jewish religion. So far I have been successful in accomplishing this goal. 

Besides wanting to learn the Hebrew language, I am also interested in learning more about the Israeli culture. In my first tutoring session I was able to learn many things about Israel and its Jewish people. My peer advisor Maya Tatro explained Israel to me as a “Little America, with better food.” They still have the fast food restaurants that we of course have in the States, but they also have better local food over there. I had always known that Israel was an ally to the United States of America, but I did not know that Israel is by far the most western state in the Middle East. Because they act like a western culture, in an area that does not look kindly upon the west, they are commonly seen as the enemy by their unfriendly neighbors. This is one of the reasons that Palestine and Israel do not get along. One can only hope that the struggle between Palestine and Israel can find a peaceful endpoint within our lifetime. However, as much as we hope for world peace, it narcissistically is not possible.

Another thing I learned was a Jewish American’s birth rite. In one’s late teen years or early twenties, they have a 10 day trip paid for to go back to Israel and its culture. The person doing the trip pays no money and is arranged through the Taglat, a wealthy group of Jewish people that feel as if the birth rite is so important that every Jewish American should experience it. Although Maya has not been on her Birth Rite yet, she explained it as an almost rush week sort of thing. Where the visiting party is showered with happiness and enjoyment, to encourage that individual to join that group. Throughout the ten day trip people are selling the idea of staying in Israel and not going back home to the US. I do not know how effective this is in keeping people in Israel, but as a young adult this sounds like an awesome trip to take part in.

The final thing I learned about the culture in my discussion was about the Israeli Army. Unlike in America, where we do not have to join the army, in Israel every person must join the army for 2 years. It is typically done between high school and college. Israeli’s like Maya still technically have to join the army if she were to return, up to a certain age. If Maya wanted to go back to Israel, she could only be there for less than 6 months lest she be put in jail for avoiding military service. From what I gathered, it is an honor and commonality to join the army when one reaches a certain age, so it is not like people are searching for ways to avoid fighting for its country and culture. As I briefly touched on in the first paragraph, Israel is constantly at war with its neighboring countries, if they were to find peace with these other areas, then perhaps a mandatory service in the army would not be necessary.