Summary of week 1:

[David R. Stevens]

This week Shir and I met on Monday and started to get a feel of where I was with the language and learn the grammatical structure of the language and pronunciation.   Something that I found very interesting was the fact that Israelis will constantly shorten and abbreviate words in Hebrew.  So, not only does Modern Hebrew not use vowels (which is how I learned in Sunday School at my synagogue), but they also abbreviate words such as School and United States of America.  We started to go over some of these commonly used abbreviations and work on my writing skills.   We decided that on Mondays we will emphasize reading and writing and on Thursday we will emphasize only speaking. For mondays, she will say a sentence, I will repeat it and then try to write it down and translate it.  Then take an English sentence written down and translate it in my mind, say it, correct my sentence then write it down.    This way I am working on my reading, writing, and speaking skills.   On Thursdays, Shir and I are going meeting somewhere for lunch and talking over food.  This creates a more creative and interactive atmosphere for conversation.  This past Thursday we met at Dhall.  We spoke about what types of food we were eating and then how to talk about things we liked, disliked, and wanted.  Additionally, we walked around Dhall and worked on recognizing lots of different foods.  I found it very interesting that many "American" foods such as pudding and asparagus are spoken the same way in Hebrew except with an Israeli accent.  Also, I thought it was very interesting to learn something about hand gestures.   As an Italian I am used to putting my fingers together and raising my hand and saying something in Italian when I am frustrated at someone.   Shir taught me that the same exact hand gesture in Israel means "Wait".   I was startled when I learned this because I immediately took the hand gesture as someone being frustrated with me.  This just reinforce my learning of the culture and the fact that I have a lot to learn :)   I want to investigate and learn more about other gestures that could mean something different in Israeli culture.