Starting out reflections 1

[Elliott Hammer]

First, why I am learning Hebrew: I'm want to learn Hebrew so that I can communicate with my family in Israel and hopefully travel there again in the future. I don't plan on living there permanently but I would like to stay there for a considerable amount of time and get to know my family better. Writing/Reading aren't priorities for me but I suppose at some point in the future I might need to learn how.

I had my first meeting with Haya recently and it went really well. Haya is a really good language partner and we can tell that she genuinely wants to help us learn. Because I have somewhat of an ear for Hebrew from hearing my dad and grandparents speak, my pronunciation is very good for a beginner. I do know some words and phrases, but they are limited and I don't know any of the rules or context behind them. This makes it seem like I know more than I actually do so I have to make a point of establishing myself as a beginner (0 level) so I don't get over my head.

In the first lesson we learned a considerable amount. It is a little frustrating that I don't know/understand the rules behind what I'm doing although that may be too ambitious for the first time. Hopefully I'll start to put the pieces together on how to change the form of words within the next few weeks.