Latkes for Hanukkah

 

חנוכה

 

 

Latkes for Hanukkah

6    medium potatos
1    onion
2    eggs
pinch of salt
cooking oil  (I personally like desodorised coconut oil best it doesn't burn so quickly)

finely shred the potatos and immediately cover them with water so that they won't oxidise
finely shred the onion
beat the eggs
drain the water from the potatos
wring the potatos and onion in a kitchen towel to get as much of the liquid out as possible

mix potatos, eggs and onion and add a little salt

preheat the oil  
fry the latkes: one tabelspoon = one latke 
don't try to fry too many at one time
and make sure the dough is spread out evenly to make them really crispy

eat as soon as possible while they are still very hot

enjoy with apple sauce and/or sour cream and/or pumpkin preserve

or whatever makes you happy

בתאבון

 

bete'avon

 

bon appetit

RIP - Arik Einstein - Children of Life

אריק איינשטיין-ילדים של החיים

 yeladim shel hachai'im

 

Arik Einstein - Children of Life

 

no time for a real blog unfortunately but I really wanted to say how sad I am - he died far too soon

George Bernhard Shaw in Hebrew

 

 האנשים שאומרים שאין אפשר לעשות משהו צריכים לא להפריע
 לאלו שעושים אותו

 

 ג'ורג' ברנרד שו

ha anashim she 'omrim she 'ain efshar la'asot mashehou tzrichim lo lehafri'a

le'alou she 'osim oto

(the 'e' in 'she' is pronounced as the 'e' in 'end' )

word by word translation:

the people who say that it is not (there is not) possible to do something should not interfere

with those who are doing it

proper English:

People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it

  

George Bernard Shaw

lesson 92 - future tense first person plural

lesson 92

future tense : first person plural

                                          mah nishma'?

                                           lo ra' todah! ve at?

                                           kol beseder todah!



we already learned one future tense expression a long time ago:
mah nischma' literally means what will we hear
and it's the perfect example for the 1st person plural future tense.


we also came across boi' nikneh rak tutim in the ethnix song 'TUTIM' a few posts ago
literally come we will only buy strawberries or
come lets only buy strawberries which is a better translation because Hebrew mostly uses the future tense to express the imperative and we'll talk about this very soon.



many verbs build their 1st person plural future tense in this way:

ni + root consonats

(but of course there are other types as well which will be discussed soon. but first the easy ones)


nishma'        we will hear               ש  מ  ע               ni + SH  M   ע
 
nikneh          we will buy              ק  נ  ה                 ni +  K  N  H

nir'ah           we will see               ר  א  ה                ni + R  א   H     

nirtzeh         we will want             ר  צ  ה                ni+  R  צ  H

niktov          we will write             כ  ת  ב                 ni+  K  T  V

nilmad         we will learn              ל  מ  ד                 ni+  L  M  D

lesson 91 - listening exercise - srugim

The last few month have been quite busy, moving house and getting started with my MA Applied Linguistics are only two of the many things I had to get sorted. Even now, I am not really settled yet and I don't know how often I'll be able to blog over the next few weeks. But I'll try. And for today, just a small listenig exercise:

lesson 91

listening exercise
   

listen to the first 35 seconds of this clip several times and try to hear the words and phrases listed below. I haven't covered everything, just the simpler things that are easier to understand. The secret lies in the repetition. To train an ear to make sense of a foreign language it's important to expose it to this language over and over and over again. Children have thousands of hours of audio input before they start speaking their first words. And I belive that in modern language teaching the importance of input is hugely underestimated. So please play along and listen to those 35 seconds as often as you can possibly bear it without starting to hate it ;-)



 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7auIjNZGBs

00: 01    (atah) lo shomer shabbat?                   you don't observe shabbat?         

00:06    az atah chiloni ligamri?                       so you are non-religious completely?

00:09    smolani?                                               left winger

00:12    yemani?                                                right winger

00:13    betach                                                   sure, certainly

00:14    lama betach?                                        why certainly?

00:17    mitzta'er                                                I am sorry (masc.)                          

00:19    chilonim                                               non religious people (plural)

00:21    beseder                                                  OK

00:25    kol ha erev                                            whole the evening  =  the whole evening

00:26   mah?                                                      what?

00:29   lo seh...                                                  no it's

00:31   seh lo...                                                  it's not...

00:34    chalon                                                   dream

lesson 90: yiheyeh beseder

lesson 90

yiheyeh beseder 



 

 

hou shavar et ha regel shelo

**********

                                    Shalom Lior. Mah nishma?
                                    Shalom Dani. Shamata she Roni be bait cholim?
                                    Lo, lo shamati. Mah karah? Hou choleh?
                                    Lo, hou lo chole. Hou shavar et ha regel shelo.
                                    Mah omer ha rofeh?
                                    Amar she yihyeh beseder be'od shalosh shavu'ot.

**********

quite a few new words today:


bait cholim                hospital
choleh                        ill /sick (masc.)  
cholah                        ill/sick (fem.)
hou shavar                 he broke
et                                direct object marker
regel                           leg
rofeh                          doctor (masc.)    
rofah                          doctor (fem.)
yiheyeh                      he will be / it will be
yiheyeh beseder         he will be OK / it will be OK
be'od                          in
shavu'ah                     week
shavou'ot                   weeks

**********

 

she = that

The 'e' is pronounced as in leg.

 

the future of  'to be'

she will be / it will be   =  tiheyeh

he will be / it will be     = yiheyeh

et  =  direct object marker
the 'et' needs some time to get used to and we'll talk more about it soon
it is used to introduce a direct object
(in German you'd have a direct object ending to the noun and in Hebrew
it appears as a particle in front of the noun which it marks as a direct object)
 

lesson 89 future (1.3.)

lesson 89 future (1.3.)

Jerusalem

******************

                                     Lior:       Mah atah ta'aseh machar?
                                     Daniel:   Anee lo yode'a. Ulay 'atayel ba 'ir.
                                     Lior:       Ve Michal mah ta'aseh machar?
                                     Daniel:    Hee tikneh mechonit chadashah.

 ******************

new words:
ulay         maybe
atayel      I will go for a walk
(tiyel:  he went for a walk. A verb we'll do in a few lessons time)

*******************

 

3rd person singular future tense

 

r tz h   -   ratzah    -   rotzeh    - yirtzeh    -  he will want
                                                                                tirtzeh     - she will want

sh t h  -   shatah    -   shoteh    -  yishteh     -  he will drink
                                                                                 tishteh    - she will drink

k n h   -   kanah     -   koneh    -  yikneh      -   he will buy
                                                                                tikneh    -   she will buy

r א h   -   raאah      -   roאeh    -   yirאeh     -   he will see
                         (ra'ah)                    (ro'eh)                (yir'eh)
                                                                                 tirאeh     -   she will see (fem)
                                                                                   (tir'eh)

s ch h  -  sachah     -  socheh   -   yischeh   - he will swim (masc)
                                                                                   (yis-cheh)
                                                                                 tischeh   - she will swim (fem)
                                                                                   (tis-cheh)

and to do is not as regular as the other ones:
ע s h    -   עasah     -    עoseh    -  yaעaseh  -  he will do (msasc.) 
                         'asah                      'oseh                   (ya'aseh)
                                                                                 taעaseh  - she you will do (fem.)
                                                                                     (ta'aseh)

lesson 88: future (1.2) what will you do?

lesson 88: future

 what will you do?

ba yare'ach

****************

                          Ido:          David, mah atah ta'aseh?

                         David:       Anee atous le Paris

                          Ido:          Michal, mah at ta'asi?

                         Michal:     Anee atous la yare'ach!

****************

new words:

yare'ach   moon
atous        I will fly (a not so regular future form)

tas            he flew
tas            I, you, he flies
tasah        I, you, she flies
latous       to fly

****************

The marker for the second person singular (masculine and feminine) future tense is

 the prefix  -ti + the suffix eh/i

r tz h   -   ratzah    -   rotzeh    - tirtzeh   -  you will want (masc.)
                                                                                tirtzi      -   you will want (fem.)

sh t h  -   shatah    -   shoteh    -  tishteh     -   you will drink (masc.)
                                                                                 tishti       - you will drink (fem)

k n h   -   kanah     -   koneh    -  tikneh    -   you will buy (masc.)
                                                                                 tikni      -   you will buy (fem.)

r א h   -   raאah      -   roאeh    -   tirאeh     -   you will see (masc.)
                         (ra'ah)                    (ro'eh)                (tir'eh)
                                                                                 tirאi        -   you will see (fem)
                                                                                   (tir'i)

s ch h  -  sachah     -  socheh   -   tischeh     - you will swim (masc)
                                                                                   (tis-cheh)
                                                                                 tischi      - you will swim (fem)
                                                                                   (tis-chi)

and to do is not as regular as the other ones:
ע s h    -   עasah     -    עoseh    -  taעaseh   -  you will do (msasc.) 
                         'asah                      'oseh                   (ta'aseh)
                                                                                 taעasi        you will do (fem.)
                                                                                     (ta'asi)

lesson 87: future (1.1.) I will see

Machar anee 'er'eh

*******

                                       Matay at ba'ah?
                                       Lo yecholah lavo. mechonit sheli mekoulkelet.
                                       Mah at rotzah la'assot achshav?
                                       Lo yoda'at. Machar anee 'er'eh.

*******

new words:

achshav:    now
machar:     tomorrow

yoda'at:     I know (fem.)
yode'a:      I know (masc.)
lada'at:      to know (infinitive)
yada':        he knew

*******

3 consonants        past tense              present tense         future tense
                            3rd p. sg. masc.      masculine             1st p. sg.
r א h   -       raאah      -   roאeh     -   אerאeh   -   I will see
                             (ra'ah)                    (ro'eh)                    ('er'eh)

lesson 86: future tense (1)

future tense (1)

ha atid shel anashim?

today we'll start tackling the future tense with six well behaved verbs. To demonstrate how they work I will have to use two hebrew letters we don't have in the latin alphabet: the 'alef  א     and the 'ain  ע

So far I used the apostrophe ' to signal the presence of either 'alef or 'ain because it doesn't make a difference in the pronunciation but to understand the future tense we have to be more precise to see the underlying consonant structure of the verbs.

so, the followin examples will look a bit strange because I am mixing the two alphabets
 (but underneath each bold line there will be the usual transcription/pronuncation in brackets.)

ok, so here comes the construction of

the first person singular in the future tense:

in Hebrew the future tense is constructed with prefixes

 and the sign for the first person singular it is the

 א

the three          3rd p. sg. masc.   1st p. sg. masc.       1st p. sg.                 
consonants      past tense             present tense          future tense

X X X  -  XaXaX       XoXeX       אeXXeX

r tz h   -   ratzah    -   rotzeh    -   אertzeh   -  I will want
                                                                                       ('ertzeh)

ע s h    -   עasah     -    עoseh    -    אeעeseh   -  I will do
                         'assah                      'osseh                   ('e'esseh)

sh t h  -   shatah    -   shoteh    -   אeshteh      -   I will drink
                                                                                    ('eshteh)

k n h   -   kanah     -   koneh    -   אekneh   -   I will buy
                                                                                     ('ekneh)

r א h   -   raאah      -   roאeh     -   אerאeh   -   I will see
                         (ra'ah)                    (ro'eh)                    ('er'eh)

s ch h  -  sachah     -  socheh   -   אescheh    - I will swim
                                                                                   ('es-cheh)



look closely at the very regular 3 root consonant structure of these verbs and how the vowels show wether its present, past or future

vowels for the past: a - a
vowels for the present: o - e
vowels for the future: e - e


now wouldn't it be great if all verbs adhered to these rules? Unfortunately they don't. They do all sorts of things and take different vowels and what have you, but it's not as bad as it sounds and we'll do it very slowly with lots of examples.

lesson 85: at the airport

at the airport
 

ba nemal te'oufah

נמל תעופה

                                       Darkon ve chartis tisah, bevakashah! Le'an atem tassim?

                                       Anachnou tassim le Tzarfat. Achot sheli garah be Paris.

                                       Paris! Seh nechmad me'od! Tisah ne'imah!

                                       Todah rabah. Lehitra'ot.



new words:

nemal te'oufah                airport
darkon  - darkonim         passport   -  passports,
chartis   - chartisim         ticket  -   tickets
tisah                                flight
tassim                             you are flying       (tass    he flew)
achot                               sister
nechmad                         nice, lovely, delightful, charming, pleasant, pretty
ne'imah                           nice, pleasant, comfortable, enjoyable

amazing Israel: 3 ted talks

Amazing Israel

 

3 Ted talks about inspiring things happening in Israel

Shimon Schocken: Rides of hope:

 

 

 

Eli Beer: the fastes ambulánce is a motorcycle

 



 

 

 

 

Shimon Steinberg: natural pest control

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why is learning a language so difficult?

Last May I applied for a MA Applied Linguistics at a London University. Yesterday I got the official offer for a place this autumn.

As part of my application they made me write a so called admissions task and this was the question and my answer:

 ' Why do you think learning a language is so difficult?'

The question, why language learning can be so difficult leads to a number of  other questions. Who wants to learn a language? Which language do they want to learn? What methods do they use to learn it? Why do they want to learn this language? How difficult is 'so difficult'? Many factors need to be taken into consideration when trying to find an answer to why language learning seems to be so difficult. This essay will only be able to mention a few aspects of this very complex subject. Part one will look at linguistic challenges, part two at didactic and and methodological problems and part three at psychological, sociological and political factors that play an important role in language acquisition.

     
        While the acquisition of the native language is generally considered relatively easy, the attempt to learn a foreign language later in life seems to be a different matter. However, not all foreign languages are perceived as being equally difficult. For an English speaker Swedish will be relatively easy and Turkish relatively hard. The determining factor regarding linguistic difficulties is the relative distance between the target language and the native language of the learner. Unfamiliar phonetic features, like the French nasal sounds, new morphological concepts like the Russian aspects in verb conjugation or different syntactic structures, like the Turkish in- and suffixes condensing whole sentences into one word, can be quite challenging. Likewise, semantic, pragmatic and cultural implications in the use of words and expressions, like Chinese family relationship titles, can demand a new way of thinking and pose many problems for language learners.
     
         Different methodological and didactic approaches are also a fundamental factor making language learning more or less difficult. In my experience as a teacher and a learner most language course materials do not teach the grammar properly, suffer from a very steep progression, demand high levels of transfer, introduce far too high a volume of vocabulary for any one unit, do not contain enough exercises and do not represent the cultures associated with the languages very well. Financial considerations often lead to large groups and limited teaching time. Modern media like YouTube clips, DVDs, web sites, blogs and games which could compensate for the very limited input both linguistically and culturally could be used a lot more. Also, discussions on the meta level are generally not part of the teaching process, even though knowledge about how languages work in general and in particular, information about how the brain processes new languages and advice about learning techniques could considerably lessen the difficulties most learners of foreign languages experience.

       The third group of difficulties arises from a combination of psychological, sociological and political factors. Language learning can be more or less difficult, but even languages experienced as relatively easy still demand quite a lot of work and a number of other things: accepting new concepts, dealing with delayed gratification, tolerating frustration and taking in new views of the world, to name but a few. Only a very strong and sustained motivation will see a learner through all these difficulties. In the case of English native speakers, the role of English as the lingua franca of our modern world seems to reduce the motivation to learn other languages considerably. The argument that languages open up fascinating new worlds full of new friends and stories, thoughts and ideas, is less likely to motivate than economic necessity. From Bangladesh to Finland, from Brazil to China, nobody questions the importance of English, and difficult or not people simply go ahead and learn it.

revision: 23 verbs present, past and infinitive

23

Hebrew verbs

we did since the beginning of this course

 

 

 

Nazareth

we have learned quite a few verbs in detail in the present tense, the past tense and the infinitive. The 20 verbs I talked about at the start of the course plus two or three that slipped in when I wasn't looking.

So here's an overview, all checked twice at: http://www.hebrew-verbs.co.il/ and the 3rd person singular past tense masculine is coloured in red:


present tense   present tense      past tense        past tense          infinitive      English
masculine        feminine            3rd p.masc.     3rd p. fem.


lomed             lomedet              lamad              lamadah             lilmod           to learn
'ohev              'ohevet                'ahav               'ahavah               le'ehov          to love
'omer              'omeret               'amar               'amrah                lomar            to say
holech            holechet              halach             halchah              lalechet         to go / to walk
'ochel              'ochelet               'achal              achlah                le'echol          to eat
kotev              kotevet                katav              katvah                lichtov          to write
'oved               'ovedet                'avad               avdah                 la'avod          to work
choshev          choshevet           chashav          chashvah            lachshov       to think
medaber         medaberet           diber              dibrah                 ledaber          to speak
mevin             mevinah              hevin             hevinah               lehavin          to understand
gar                  garah                   gar                 garah                  lagour            to live/reside
tzarich            tzarichah              tzarich           tzrichah              lehitztarach   need/must/have to
yachol            yecholah              yachol            yachlah              --------           can/be able to
ba                   ba'ah                    ba                   ba'ah                  lavo               to come
koreh              koret                   kara'                kar'ah                likro'              to read
shome'a          shome'at             shama'            sham'ah              lishmo'a         to hear
rotzeh             rotzah                 ratzah             ratztah                lirtzot             want
'osseh             'ossah                  assah              assitah                la'assot           to do
shoteh             shotah                shatah             shattah               lishtot             to drink
socheh            sochah                sachah            sachtah              lis'chot            to swim
koneh              konah                 kanah             kantah                liknot             to buy
ro'eh                ro'ah                   ra'ah               ra'atah                lir'ot               to see
------               -------                  hayah              haytah               lihi'ot              to be



so, here we are having accomplishhed quite a big step toward learning Hebrew. Kol hakavod, congratulations, well done everybody! And from now on we'll learn lots more verbs and the furure tense and heaps of vocabukary and more grammar and hopefully have a bit of fun also along the way.

kadima!