עברית

שלום!

So...It's almost 3 in the morning..And I JUST finished my Hebrew lesson. I started approximately two hours ago, and now, my head is SPINNING. I've been doing Hebrew for awhile now, but now that I have the resources to write what I'm learning in the actual Hebrew letters, I'm taking the time to master the Aleph Bet. 

That's also why it took me an extra hour and a half and not just a half an hour. Tonight I learned how to say "at the hotel", "with you" and "with me" (they differ based on who is speaking), refreshers from before, more verbs, and of course, the writing.

In case you didn't know, Hebrew (like Arabic) is written from right to left, so I had to get used to switching everything. Now I know how lefties feel. It was awkward, but I got the hang of it after a while. Since my audio course doesn't show me how to spell what I'm saying, I've had to be a little more enterprising. I purchased two books: Webster's New World Hebrew Dictionary by Hayim Baltsan and Teach Yourself to Read Hebrew by Simon & Anderson. I had to look up each individual word, write down the proper phonetics, and then write the proper Hebrew spelling. 

You can imagine how much time that took, but like I said earlier, if you want fluency, go get it. I'm not fluent in any languages yet, but I promise you I will be fluent in at least 7 by the end of next year.

The two books are incredible. The Simon & Anderson book shows you each letter, the sound it makes, and gives you exercises to practice. It uses a vowel system that apparently is only found in prayer books, which is different than the Hebrew you would write with. It gives the reader a great grasp of the Aleph Bet, and I'll definitely be going to it again and again.

The dictionary is well..a dictionary. It is HUGE, and I love it. It has phonetic pronunciations, Hebrew spellings, and two dictionaries (Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew). It's really helpful when you think a word starts with a letter only to find out that you were wrong. If the book wasn't bilateral, I would have been stuck searching, which would have probably caused me to be still working. 

My throat is dry from all of the "ch" sounds, but discomfort has to correlate to SOME progress, right?

I'm going to get some apple juice (Mott's all the way!) and head to bed. You all be safe, and hopefully I can tackle Thai, Tagalog, and Vietnamese tomorrow, which are monsters in their own regard.

לילה טוב,

Your Favorite Polyglot

P.S. If there are typos and grammatical mistakes, you're just going to have to let me be. It's now 3:15 and I could care less about if it could get past my old English professors, lol.