Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
The dirty secret of Jewish Hebrew studies. 
Skill levels vary. Although I learn talmud and scripture, a large part of that involves discussing talmud, outside of reading it, in English. (Because we aren't silly enough to spend te entire day engaged in casual back-and-forth in a non-ntive language.)
Oh, I can read and understand a fair bit, but speak it? A whole 'nother story.
Interestingly, my Yeshiva has several Mexican students, and one of them who doesn't yet know much English is in my shiur. He learns with his chavrusa in Hebrew, because is something they both know.
It is mildly amusing to listen to, as neither speak it fluently.
Yeridas HaDoros -- the generarions get weaker.  Once upon a time, the stupid students were the ones who only went through all of talmud once or twice, and didn't know the Maharam Shif by heart. Now we struggle with a few tractates and forget half of what we learned over the summer. 
(Yes, back in the day it was fairly common for Jewish talmudical students to memorize whole tractates to the point where they knew it cold.
I suppose it could've been their work ethic...) |
That's very interesting - thanks for explaining it!
Sounds like a similar situation to that of one of my work colleagues, who is a British-born Muslim of Pakistani heritage. He uses a bilingual version of the Koran - English and Arabic on facing pages - and knows enough Arabic to be able to follow along when the Koran is read, but when I try to practice my Arabic with him (my Arabic is far from fluent, but it's sufficient to get by with in Egypt for everyday stuff) he gets rather lost. But that's probably down to that fact that neither of us speak Arabic terribly well
.