105- Journal 2

[Michelle Davidson]

I have found reading in Hebrew pretty difficult, especially when reading for understanding. When I "learned" Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah, I learned only a specific portion of Hebrew that I practiced with the vowels. When I eventually had to read it from the Torah- though it didn't have vowels- it was still pretty easy because I didn't need to know what the words meant I just needed to memorize the portion and recognize it. When reading for understanding though it is much more challenging to remember not only the word with the vowels, but also what the word looks like and means without them. I also think it is hard to read since there are so more versions of the same word because there is both the feminine and masculine tense. One nice thing about Hebrew though is that most words are written the way they sound so even if I don't always know what the word I'm reading means, I will most likely be able to pronounce the word I read especially once I've really mastered my letters. I think that the more practice I get with speaking, writing, and listening to Hebrew the better I will become at reading it.