On the Importance of Vowels

My brain feels like it's been doing gymnastics all day... I had four hours of Hebrew Ulpan today, and just finished with my homework.  The next month will suck, but I'm fairly confident I'll be able to read, write and speak by the end of this nightmare.

I like languages, don't get me wrong. I just can't seem to wrap my head around no vowels and the very, very odd grammar structure. In Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, French, and Italian (all languages I've at least been exposed to, if not actually spoken), there's first person, second person, and third person, singular and plural, so you end up making little charts with six sections for each verb. Adjectives pretty much stay the same, other than gender or the addition of s. In Hebrew, the subject, verb and adjectives all have the same ending, and it's based on gender and singular or plural.

So, "Sally studies a lot" translates almost directly into, "Sally estudia mucho", while "Henry studies a lot" translates into "Henry estudia mucho". Also normal is "I study a lot. You study a lot." -> "Yo estudio mucho. Tu estudias mucho."  The only thing that changes is the verb.

Ready for Hebrew? "Sally lomedet gadolet." "Henry lomed gadol."

Maybe that's not the best example, but it's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the language. It's going to be a rough couple of weeks.

The second part, and the topic that gives the title to today's post, is that there are no vowels. So, in reading, I sound out the consonants with mostly schwa sounds until I can figure it out. It's like a really bad game. "Florida" was "fa-loh-ra-dee" and "university" was "oon-yoh-rah-sa-teh" until someone figured it out. If you think it can't possibly be that hard, try this on for size:

Spkng wtht vwls s s mch mr dffclt thn y thnk. Nd nglsh s trmndsl sr thn hbrw.

Get it? Here's what it says, with vowels this time:

Speaking without vowels is so much more difficult than you think. And English is tremendously easier than Hebrew.

Oh, and everything in class is in script, not print, so that's been a ton of fun, too.

So after class, I went out to lunch with some friends, then went to find the school store. I got some cute tee shirts before heading home.

Our homework was to write three separate paragraphs using the verbs we learned today (study, work, live and speak), with different subjects to practice the different genders and numbers. I had popcorn for dinner, and now it's time to relax before bed. I get to do all this again tomorrow... yay.

Lilah tov!

PS. I added photos into the previous posts, so check them out!