With the decision to move to Israel came a lot of prep work, like getting all the right paperwork signed and processed, getting the kids their Israeli passports (because my husband was born there making them automatic citizens), and finding out what I required to transfer my American nursing licensure.
Besides for paperwork and proof of employment from every job I have ever had, I would need to sit for a nursing exam, as well as a Hebrew language proficiency test!! Simple right?! After all I received a Jewish education – Hebrew letters and all – but I have never been good at conversing in another language.
In school I was an A student in Dikduk (Hebrew language grammar) but when it came to the speaking portion of the language forget about it!!!!
I am actually really good at understanding the language. At any of our many visits to the Israeli consulate and Jewish agency they would perform regulatory interrogation questions and I was the one in the bunch that could understand what they would be asking, not my husband, the man that spoke to every taxi driver he got into a car with and was able to navigate us on our entire trip in Israel striking up conversation with any of the locals interested.
In Spanish class I was an A student when it came to tests and understanding the logistics of the language but as soon as it came to conversational speech I was at a loss.
I currently work in Head Start program that services an Utra-Orthodox population. I have been there for four years and can successfully conduct visual and auditory screening with the few words I had to learn. I can get the gist of a conversation that people are having around me in the office so they all think I must be able to speak the language. Hahahahhah!!!
I don’t know what happens from understanding what I want to say to actually saying it but somewhere in there my brain just grabs any word from any language I know and it all comes out as one fluent dialect – a little Hebrew, some Yiddish, a bit of Spanish. With my language we could solve world peace!!!
I decided I wanted to start tackling the language while I was still here and not wait till we actually were there and I could enroll in a language class.
The Habit: Do one lesson of Duolingo a day
Bank: For each bonus lesson I did
the duolingo app
I have been successfully keeping up with the habit but I have gotten a bit frustrated over time. The app is set up to gamify the process of learning a language moving up as you successfully complete the various lessons. However, it also requires you to re-up your life by reviewing old lessons, which sounds great, but if you don’t keep up on a daily basis you can come back to the app with tons of old lessons reopened and feeling further away from advancing in levels.
This shouldn’t be a problem after all this is what the a.bud system is all about and I really can’t go a long time without doing it before running out of banked will catch up to me. Like my husband who was so ahead of me, having started the app before our trip, but without an a.bud has totally fallen off and its as if he’s starting all over. He feels defeated and is questioning if its even worth jumping into again. While I am still actively participating in the app on a regular basis, I was finding myself too busy to do it daily and had to use a lot of banked and therefore have a lot to re-up and it is a bit frustrating.
I will not stop using the app, because as my husband points out, it really does a good job at introducing you to new vocabulary and how it should be. However, I did morph the habit a bit to make it more accommodating to my busy life and a way it can be more enjoyable.
During all this time, my husband and I began watching Israeli TV, as all our Israeli family said they learned English watching Friends. So we found a simple premised show, Srugim, and began. In the beginning all I could see were the subtitles – no scenes. I could not look at the actors because I would miss the words. But as time went on I have noticed my brain is getting faster and is differentiating between the language and the subtitles and I am actually beginning to enjoy myself.
So, it was on a day that my bank was dangerously low, I asked Sarede if it was ok to add watching TV to the habit. She said definitely!!!
Fast Forward to Now: We began watching some new shows that my husband is enjoying way more than I am like Fauda and Prisoners of War (which is what the show Homeland was based on).
I also became more aware of why I have such a block when it comes to speaking the language which is in such stark contrast of me understanding it.
I don’t think before I speak! No literally I don’t think!
I speak AS I think!
I have a very extroverted energy and I do all my thinking as I speak. Most of my conversations with my a.bud are of me talking in a stream of consciousness, asking questions, that I, myself, answer as I continue to talk it out on my own.
When you speak a different language two things happen – you think of what you want to say and then you have to think of it in a different language!! This is too slow for my Type 1, extroverted, high octane energy that just flows from idea to idea.
I am hoping the more I am immersed in it the more it will become natural for my brain to automatically think of so I can speak as I think in Hebrew.
Here’s to hoping – a trait a Type 1 is good at – and hoping my Type is also good at picking up languages.
a.bud project 