So how's your Hebrew?

You think you know Hebrew because you review the parsha each week. What are you going to do when a business document comes your way? Can you read this? 

How about this? It's an insurance accessors report. Is your Hebrew good enough to figure that out?

You have one minute to read it as the accessor sits in your living room. 

Does that stress you out? You get a document from the insurance carrier, tax authority, city, or military and you have no idea what it says. 

How about instructions on a new appliance that isn't going to last long anyway.

Don't expect your neighbors to translate this for you. Firstly, they might not know English. Secondly, they won't have time for you. I have been down this road. 

And don't expect to learn all these business terms in Ulpan. There, you'll read Zionist poetry or maybe politics. They don't teach business words. 

Oh you'll teach yourself? No you won't. You'll sit with a dictionary and spend two hours trying to decode this and you'll fail. You'll try it five times and then give up. 

You are thinking that the only reason you haven't learned spoken Hebrew until now is because you don't live in Israel, but once you are immersed, it'll be a snap. Isn't that what they told you about Spanish and French? First of all, you won't be immersed if you move to an Anglo neighborhood which you may need to do. Secondly, you still will not necessarily pick it up. Israel's talk quickly and they mumble. And if you are over 35, you brain will likely be passed language learning age. 

Even some at age 20 can't learn a language. I spoke recently to a young woman whose mother is Phd MD but this young woman says she is terrible with picking up languages. 

This is the kind of thing that hotshot Zionist evangelists don't tell you when they give you a guilt trip for not living in Israel or declare erroneously that the Torah demands you live there or tell you geulah has come.