lesson 72: asking questions

lesson 72
asking questions

 

 

That's the questions we already learned how to ask a while ago:

mah?             what?                  Mah seh? Seh meetz tapouchim.

mee?              who?                    Mee at? Anee Anna

aifo?              where?                Aifo Itzhak? Hu be bait.

le'an?            where to?            Le'an ata holech? Anee holech be hof ha yam.

kamah?         how much?         Ben kamah ata? Anee ben shloshim.

matay?         when?                  Matay atem yecholim lavo? Ulay (perhaps) be yom rishon.

this one is relatively new and has a masculine and a feminine form:

eizo?              which? (fem.)      Eizo shvitah? Ha shvitat aotobousim.

eizeh?            which? (masc.)    Eizeh beit? Ha beit sheli.   


and here are three new ones:


eich?             how?                    Eich omeret 'strawberries' be ivrit? Tutim.

lamah?         why?                    Lamah lo rotzah lavo? Anee ayefah me'od.

me'ayin?      where from?       Me'ayin ata ba? Anee ba mee London.


For fellow fans of Srugim
At some point in season one Amir is told by the Rabbi that he's still considered married according to Jewish law and totally taken aback all he manages to say is: 'mah? eich? lama?'

Tutim by EthniX

תותים

by ethnix 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C2LJE2SYfE

TUTIM	STRAWBERRIES
Hakor shebeganeach mul hachom hebegani, habunker lismolech mul hapagaz shebeyadi, harimon shelach lo pri vehu muchan etslech bayad, etsli bamachsanit hem muchanim echad echad. Chorus: Or oleh min hamizrach, yom hadash higiya, shneynu nitgaber al ha eima, tutim, tutim, boi nikneh rak tutim, Bimkom od mechonot shel milchama.  Et hamitah chasamt beharbeh sakim shel chol, ve'al roshech kasdah min habunker shemismol, ratzit shenishmati tihyheh tsrurah la'ad, etsli bamachsanit hem muchanim echad echad. Chorus:Or oleh min hamizrach, yom hadash higiya, shneynu nitgaber al ha eima, tutim, tutim, boi nikneh rak tutim, Bimkom od mechonot shel milchama.	The coldness in your garden against the warmth of my garden the bunker to your left against the artillery shell in my hand your grenade is not fruit and it's ready in your hand here, they are each ready in my rifle magazine. Chorus:  The light goes up from the east, a new day has arrived. The two of us will overcome the terror Strawberries, strawberries, come we'll buy only strawberries Instead of other war-machines. You blocked the bed with many sandbags, and on your head is the helmet from the bunker on the left You wished that my soul'd be bound forever, here, they are each ready in my rifle magazine. Chorus: The light goes up from the east, a new day has arrived. The two of us will overcome the terror Strawberries, strawberries, come we'll buy only strawberries Instead of other war-machines.

lesson 71: A few words you won't have to learn

lesson 71
English words in Hebrew


After much theory let's take it easy today

Hebrew like most languages has taken in quite a few English loan words. I asked a friend from Israel and she came up with a list of English words that are used frequently in Hebrew:


bye, blind date, cool, deadline, deodorant, fair, feedback, freelance,  microscope, 
psichopat, salat, snob, student, telescope, telefone, underdog


and words that have changed a bit:
alkoholist, composizia, chooligan, digitali, dramati, gitara, histeri, iformazia, intuizia, itelegenzia, idiot, idioti, normali, prakti, proporzia, proiekt, sirena, sveter,


and words that have chaged a bit more:
anbreks (handbreak), aoto (car), egzoz (exhaust), tremp (hitchhike)


and this is how they are used in real life: seh lo fair! ata lo normali! seh dramati midai bishvili. ha composizia shel ha tmounah. lo shamata ha sirena?


(and some grammar since I can't resist:
digitali, dramati, histeri, idioti, normali, prakti are adjectives in the masculine form.
The feminine form just adds a -t because they are treated morphologically like any
other 'indeginous' Hebrew adjective ending in -i,
like for example tapuach m'komi (local apple) rofah m'komit (local doctor (fem.))
i.e.: yaldah dramatit, tmounah digitalit, be'ayah idiotit ...)


There are a lot more of course but that's what she came up with in a few minutes and then she asked a few freinds and they added some more. And I|ll updte this post whenever I find a new one. Luckily not all vocabulary learning is blood sweat and tears...

why superlearning methods are so problematic

where are words stored in the brain ?

In my last post I said don't use superlearning techniques, like the creation of crazy mems on memrise, unless it's unavoidable and since I have used these methods myself for a while here is why I think that one should avoid them:

The first problem is:
There seem to be two types of memory, one is an integrated interconnected one and one is a separate storage facility. Michel de Montaigne already wrote about this in the 16th century :  he said things you learn by heart are as useful as a crate of book tied to the back of a donkey. Don't you just love this image?
Modern brain science has confirmed his thoughts. For example people who had strokes or brain injuries and who suffer from aphasia can often still recite long poems they learned in their childhoods but cannot find the words for things in their everyday lives.
When learning a new language you want to get the new words into the interconnected memory not in the off site store. But learning words individually and only from the point of view of your native language makes this a lot harder. Of course brains are about as complex as the endless multiverse we live in and my sorry little drawing can not capture what happens in a brain. But embarrassingly simplified, you want the second structure not the first:

                                                                                                                                

     


this is more like it and it's still millions of times too simplified




 

The second problem:
You'll be left with an avalanche of absurd images in your head. Ideally you want to associate more or less the same things with the new words as the native speakers of your target language, not some crazy things that are only related to your mother tongue. And believe me it is difficult to get rid of those crazy associations. For example I used the image of someone riding a hog to learn the verb linhog (to drive). It worked instantly but now I've got this image every time I use the word and even though it's quite funny it starts getting on my nerves. And it's not a direct thing either you always have to make the detour in your head: to drive > to ride > Harley > hog > +lin > linhog > to drive

 

linhog  (to drive)


or the word
cream:
katzefet
 And yes it works really well to think: cream makes a cat fat. and again your head has to think
cream > fat/fet + kat/cat > + ze > catzefat > katzefet > cream
and you'll be stuck with this image:



and I think it would be more appropriate to have this image in your head

:


toutim ve katzefet

which reminds me of one of my all time favorite Hebrew songs:

 

toutim - תותים

the band: Etnics - אתניקס

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAh_JaVLHK0

(By the way, songs are great for learning vocabulary. I think I'll write a blog post about this one soon)


If you use superlearning techniques to learn individual words in your target language your will stay locked in. You will think and say everything from the point of view of your native language and never step over the gap on to the other side. And that's a shame because what you really want is for the new language to become alive in you.

How to learn vocabulary

How to learn vocabulary

Languages have a lot of words (and this is quite an understatement) and there's no way around it. Of course, if you're French and want to learn Italian you get 80% or more of the vocabulary for free, you just need to learn about different endings and false friends. Likewise, if you're German and want to learn English, vocabulary won't be your first concern. You'll be struggling a lot more with the tenses. But for Hebrew it's different. Vocabulary is an issue. I assume (from the statistics) that most readers of this blog come from Indoeuropean native languages. And thus we have no etymological connections, as for example speakers of Arabic would have. This makes learning vocabulary relatively difficult and as I wrote in an earlier blog one needs at least 3000 words just to get started.

My advice comes from personal experience and from reading lots of stuff about the brain and how it handles and stores languages:

I'll use five new words to explain

mekoulkal      broken       (adjective)
kachol             blue            (adjective)
meetz                juice            (noun)
al                     on, about    (preposition)
linhog             to drive       (verb)

1.1. always learn words in small sentences of 3-5 words. Brains are highly connective organs, everything is interconnected, isolated items just do not exist and therefore it's much easier to remember things in context. And it's a buy one get three free situation: you get to train syntax, morphology and normal usage of the word at the same time. 


1.2. make sure the new word you want to learn is the only new word in the sentence. It doesn't work well to learn two new words at the same time in the same context. The brain gets confused.

1.3. choose a sentence that is very typical for your new word, even boringly so. This will make it a lot easier to remember your new word. And most importantly it embeds the new word into the context of its own language. Your new word will be linked to more than just the word in your native language. You will no longer have to translate what you want to say word by word in your head before saying it. The connections in your brain will in time allow you to go over the wall.

That's why I link the new words to words I already know really well. And I link it to statements or situations that are very common. Ideally the new word also gets an unabiguous image (memrise is great in this respect)



Machshev sheli mekoulkal




Ha yam kachol




Meetz tapouchim bishvili bevakashah





Medabrim al politikah






Anee rotzah linhog le Haifa


2.1. Write flashcards or use programms like memrise (great especially because of the pictures you can use). Writing your own memrise lessons is by far the best way to learn vocabulary because the writing in itself is worth at least three repetitions.

2.1. only learn 5 new words at once. The brain does best with no more than 5 new items at a time. If you want to learn more than that in one day, space your groups of five by 3-4 hours. I've tried it and I can learn up to 25 words in one day if I respect the spacing. If I don't it's much less effective.
(for memrise lessons make sure you only pack 5 words into one level)

2.3. Accept that learning vocabulary ultimately is a lot of work and takes time and effort. It'st not necessarily difficult but it's quite a bit of work.

2.4. but it does get easier over time. The more words you know the more connections your brain will offer for more words. And once you've cracked morphology one new word will give you dozens  more. I.e. you learn a new verb and you get all the past and present and future forms for free. Or you learn how to make composite nouns or how to derive nouns from verbs or vice versa.

example:
linhog = to drive, nahag = he drove,
nehag =  driver (male), naheget =  driver (female),
nahoug = driven

2.4. make sure you learn your words in both directions:
passive: from Hebrew to English. And active: from English to Hebrew
Memrise will automatically do this for you. When using flash cards you just turn them over. But you'll have to sit down and write your answers from time to time to reinforce your memory.


2.5. search for the pronunciation of your words online and listen and repeat really often.  There are heaps of reources on the internet. Websites and blogs and dictionnaries and of course YouTube with beginners lessons and songs and whatever...


and if you still can't remember a word then and only then use superlearning methods

because they have a lot of drawbacks

I'll discuss those in the next post.

lesson 70: mini dialogue 3 'erev tov'

lesson 70
mini dialogue number 3

erev tov

Erev tov. Mah atem rotzim?
                                                       Shalom.
                                                       Kafeh ve ougah bevakashah.
 
                                                                                                           Yesh ougat gvinah?

Ken. Ougat gvinah ve ougat shokolad.

                                                                                                           Ougat gvinah bishvili
                                                                                                           ve kos ma'im.

Tov. Ve bishvilcha?

                                                       Ougat shokolad ve kafeh im chalav.



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

now take a minute to try and remember all the words we already learned

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


and here are the new ones:

erev = evening
kos = glass
ma'im = water

bishvil
bishvil means for
and then you just add the personal ending
(it's exactly the same method as with the direct object endings: oti, otcha, otach, oto, otah ...)

bishvili                  for me
bishvilcha             for you (masc.)
bishvilech             for you (fem.)
bishvilo                 for him
bishvilah               for her

bishvilenou           for us
bishvilchem          for you (plural masc.)
bishvilchen           for you (plural fem.)
bishvilam              for them (masc.)
bishvilan               for them (fem.)


                                                                                                         

lesson 69: present tense plural (3)

lesson 69

 

achshav anee mevin!

now I understand (masc.)

to complete the plural forms of our twenty verbs in the present tense, we still have to do five more.   Again they work in the same way and again they have a few quirks as verbs just tend to have in any language:

mevin - mevinah - mevinim - mevinot             understand

gar - garah - garim - garot                                live / reside

tzarich - tzrichah - tzrichim - tzrichot             need / must / have to

yachol - yecholah - yecholim - yecholot           can

ba - ba'ah - ba'im - ba'ot                                  come



and some examples:

anachnou ba'aim

aten garot be Tel Aviv?

hem tzrichim lishtot ma'im

anachnou mevinim aval lo rotzim lavo

hen lo yecholot lavo be yom rishon


future lessons:
over the next few lesson we'll be doing the plural forms of verbs in the past tense, quite a few dialogues and a lot more vocabulary. And then after a while the future tense of our 20 verbs.