My failing hebrew grade

My hebrew is pathetic. I have lived in Israel for six and a half years and I speak the native language with the finesse of a five-year-old. Don't bother trying to placate me with you niceties. I have proof.

Here are a few examples of things I have said (unintentionally, of course):
• To the kids in my carpool: "if rain is falling after school, rise up under the roof because I am on the way"
• To strangers asking for directions: "I don't know but ask the guard at the church" (remember, this is Israel, there is no abundance of churches, and the word for "church" and the word for "entrance" are almost the same – at least to me)
• To the butcher: "I fell from my bike and I hurt my wing"

I have no qualms about changing tenses mid-sentence. I am also the queen of transliteration. In other words, I think the sentence through in English and then translate it directly into Hebrew. Let me save you some thinking time: IT DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT.

When native born Israelis ask me how long I have lived here and I say six and a half years, their inevitable next comment is: "Why can't you speak (decent) Hebrew? The Russians speak excellent hebrew." (Like I want to be compared to the Russians. Forget that; I have already elaborated on my theories about them in previous posts.)

So, why don't I speak a better hebrew? This is a fair question, but it also happens to have a fair and reasonable answer. I live in what is commonly called in Israel an "Anglo" area. I speak almost no Hebrew on any given day. The only people I speak Hebrew to with any regularity are the cashiers at the grocery store and some Arab laborers I know (that's a story for another day). Suffice it to say, that in each of these instances, the Hebrew on both sides is pretty pathetic.

And if all of that isn't enough, my fluently Hebrew-speaking husband will no longer bail me out of tricky Hebrew situations. He figures that after six and a half years I am on my own. Since I know it is impossible to change his mind once he has given his edict, I just go forth and babble away in bizarre Hebrew. I figure that it is up to the capable Hebrew speakers to interpret what I am saying.

When that fails, I wait for one of my kids to come home from school and deal with my Hebrew situation of the moment. Zeve makes a lot of calls on my behalf. Generally this is a good thing until he starts to ad-lib and add his own comments to my dictated conversations. It's the price I pay when I hand over control to an 11-year-old with opinions.

One of my fondest (not) memories of my first year in Israel involved driving a gaggle of 7-year-old boys to a birthday party. As they all entered the car, my then 7-year-old son Ari said to me: "Mom, please don't talk to anyone. Just drive the car."

I did, but in the future I am going to hang my university degrees on the sun visor so that his friends know I am capable of something – just not in Hebrew.