Abjad Hawaz Hoty Kalamon

Last week was an interesting week, for several reasons. One was that we got our first lesson in Arabic. Learning the alphabet will be the worst part. How worst I don't know yet. I'll just take it a day at a time.

Abjad Hawaz Hoty Kalamon is a way of remembering the first 14 letters. They are similar to the first 14 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. There are 28 letters in all.
Street signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. At first glance it is 2/3 gibberish. I wish I had started 30 years ago. It's getting better, though. Arabic looks a little bit like shorthand, sloppily written, which I find intriguing. I am looking forward to deciphering the code.

Sometimes when I am speaking Hebrew, I wonder if what I am saying is gibberish. But usually you can tell you said something wrong when people give you a funny look. The funny look they give you is itself sort of funny. It's so automatic they don't even know they're doing it.

I found some you-tube videos that I hope to listen to soon. They are the Tanach in cartoons. The Hebrew spoken in them is very clear and easy to understand. And since I already know the stories, I can guess from context the words I don't know. And I can back up and re-listen as many times as I need to. In real life you can only test someone's patience so far. You can say, "Once again, slowly." Or "Did you say...?" Or "What does .... mean?" Or "Anglit, bevakasha?" "English, please?" but that's kind of a cop-out.

Something else really interesting happened last week. I'll save that for the next post.