It is sobering to realise, reluctantly, that brain cells really do die or play hide and seek as you get older. I don’t consider “almost 46” old, but I sure don’t retain things in the cranium the way I used to. Supposedly, you can keep the brain agile with crosswords and sudoku. I am hopeless at both, so I’m trying the next best thing – Hebrew.
It’s a pretty language – all those squiggles, and for someone who is left handed, amazingly comfortable to write. Also, for a mobile txt freak, the absence of vowels is comfortingly familiar. At the moment, I have 100 words to play with, a bit like the magnets you see on some fridge doors. I hope to be able to string a sentence together by the New Year, but it is unlikely that I will be able discuss Coleridge, let alone find my way safely out of a paper bag.
In order to attend a language school to study this language, I had to fill in an online questionnaire about the level of my language skills. I dutifully filled it in, but put in the comments section. “I am a complete beginner, I know NOTHING. The only two words I understand are Shalom (Hello) and Balagan (Chaos/Nightmare). I believe both words are quite well used, so I started with them first.”
I think they got the picture, and are probably digging out their kindergarten books for me as we speak.
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