(Background
below)
Thursday 5 March 2009
It's
been such a long time that I'm not quite sure what to say. I worked
hard on Assimil until December 2008 and tried to consolidate what I'd
done already. I nevertheless cannot say I worked properly on anything
past lesson 65 (65/84). I was still frustrated that my knowledge of the
verb system was so patchy. I knew there was a system and I wanted to
find a book that described it properly and in a way that was easy to
apply. I scanned various resources and saw how people reviewed them and
was tempted by two books: Contemporary Hebrew by Menahem Mansoor and Colloquial Hebrew.
I was a bit hesitant about Mansoor at first because there was no audio
material. But something attracted me to it anyway. I ordered both and
was prepared to be disappointed. I was wrong. Flicking through them,
both appeared to offer something different from the books I had
already. And Mansoor actually offered the Holy Grail of verb formation
presented systematically (at least for the most common binyanim).
Despite other commitments I've been working on Mansoor since early
January, and I'm really pleased with my progress. Finally verbs are
making some sense and it also has good exercises. Pity that there is no
book 2.
My collection of books and audio resources is now as follows:
- Contemporary Hebrew, Menahem Mansoor
- L'Hébreu, Assimil
- Colloquial Hebrew, Lyttleton & Wang
- Modern Hebrew, an essential grammar, Glinert
- A Reference Grammar of Modern Hebrew, Coffin & Bolozky
- 501 Hebrew Verbs
- Modern Hebrew for Beginners, Raizen
- Modern Hebrew for Intermediate Students, Raizen
- Pimsleur I & II
Tuesday 14 October 2008
I have
a serious weakness for this language. Despite telling myself I
wouldn't buy another Hebrew manual before getting through Assimil, I
decided I needed to get 501 Hebrew Verbs... but I also wanted a guide
book to Israel so got the Lonely Planet guide, then was tempted by the
multimedia UofTexas book by Esther Raizen and while I was about it I
thought I should perhaps get the intermediate book as well as the
beginner level book, so ended up buying four... which with the 20%
discount offered by Amazon without my even needing to ask, set me back
a few euros. I am trying to force myself to do more Assimil but it's
not too easy remembering all the words when you suffer from (hopefully
temporary) insomnia and you keep waking up in the night with Hebrew
songs going through your head! But the lack of sleep is
really
hindering my vocab memory. I'm working through the first 50
Assimil lessons now, translating all the dialogues and translation
exercises into English which I will then translate back to Hebrew once
they're a little more distant - my spelling is likely to be appalling
but I think I can remember the words in context. Otherwise I'm sorely
lacking in actual grammar exercises. That was one reason to
buy
Raizen I & II. It would be nice to find a book of only
exercises
later on, once my vocabulary is a bit better.
Friday 26 September 2008
I'd
like to give
regular updates on my progress, among other things to show myself I am
actually making progress. At about Lesson 40 Assimil (40/84) I felt I'd
hit a glass ceiling. I didn't appear to be making any headway. No
vocabulary was going in. I tried to forge ahead but was dissatisfied
that there would be a huge gap in my knowledge. So I revised the whole
of Pimsleur I and am now much happier with my grasp of that part - that
represents an 'acquis'. And now I've started Pim II now, and
whereas before when I tried it it felt scary, now it feels fine. I've
also revised more of the Assimil revision lessons (every 7th lesson) to
consolidate a bit more. I'm now getting to Assimil Lesson 50 which is
supposed to be a watershed - from then on the student is supposed to
continue through L51 and beyond at the same time as starting to revise
from L1 translating from French into Hebrew. I think I need to
consolidate the first 50 lessons first. However, I have just listened
to the first CD (L1-L28) over again and found it all much easier than
before - a clear sign of progress.
|
|
Backgound (spring
2008)
I’ve
been learning Hebrew on my own with a
multiple-resource approach. Having examined lots of the resources out
there, I
felt that I’d be best using a formal structured course at
least as the base,
then dipping into the other resources on the Internet for variety and
to boost
my understanding and vocabulary. What follows should not be considered
as
reviews – only my experience of the resources I chose. It
might be useful to
know that I’m a professional linguist, so my experience may
not be
representative.
I opted for the
Assimil course (for French
speakers), which also had the advantage of being new in 2007 so it
contains all
the latest technological vocabulary, such as computers, mobile phones,
etc. I’m
really enjoying this course. The dialogues are amusing and useful.
There are,
however, a few silly typos that should be fixed, though they
shouldn’t put you
off.
However, I was
very impressed with the
reviews I read of Pimsleur, so fancied trying that too, out of
curiosity if
nothing else. Most people mentioned that Pimsleur was excellent in
doing what
it said on the box – i.e. getting you to talk, though it
didn’t go into details
in grammar. And frankly, it is a good way of learning about 1,000 words
(in all
three levels) and how to use them in context. And 1,000 words after all
are the
basis of many people’s normal every day vocabulary. Beyond
that, you just need
to build on vocabulary. Most people say it’s
‘expensive’, though honestly,
you’d pay more for private lessons for a year in which
you’d probably learn
less.
Then I downloaded
BYKI to help me memorize
sets of vocabulary. It’s fun and takes some of the slog out
of learning by
heart.
Then I bought two
grammar books because I
like my grammar straight up too. I bought Glinert to start with but
couldn’t
resist the Coffin & Bolozky too, as that appeared to be more
recent and
would suit for when I was more proficient. Glinert has the advantage of
having
niqud throughout. Coffin & Bolozky would have gained from that,
I feel.
So far, so good.
I’m making great progress
and look forward to trying it out when I eventually get to Israel.
|