As we know, there are always going to be some things that get lost in translation. And one of those things will always - always - be the weiner hot dog.
Big Willie? Really? That’s the kind of hot dog I want to eat at a gas station rest stop on erev Shabbat?
Here’s how you know you’ve developed as a student over years of Israeli grad school:
First semester of Israeli grad school, three long years ago, you were told to write an end-of-term paper using the proper guidelines of the university’s thesis policy. You scrambled to find it after being told it was ’somewhere on the website.’
After hours of searching through the terribly laid-out university website, you find the downloadable pamphlet, print out all 42 pages, staple it, and then begin to panic. Obviously it’s a Hebrew document. But it’s so official. So wordy. So haughty.
You sit and struggle and manage to pick up whatever little pieces you deem most important and leave the rest behind; you’ll worry about it later when you really need it for the end-of-degree project paper.
And now, three years later, you’ve come dangerously close to the deadline of the last project you’ll have to do in this degree. You’ve got 40-60 pages to write, and somehow have to squeeze that in between work and the holidays before the back-to-school date. You’re not too bothered by it though and the time has come to start.
You dig out that old paper-writing manual and brush it off. You flip through the three-year-old pages and scan for details. Suddenly, there’s so much more to learn here. When to use quotes, when to skip lines. When to spell out terminology in English instead of transliterating in Hebrew (though, that’s not your problem).
This pamphlet of guidelines is quite pleasant at this point, like an old friend who you’ve been weary of but have now learned they like to bake cookies. The 42 pages that seemed scary before seem like just enough. You settle into your chair and begin.
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On second thought, that’s not developing as a student over years of Israeli grad school; it’s actually more like being the student you’ve always been, but developing as the speaker of a second language, making it your own through pamphlets, thick and thin.
Conversation between my husband and his Israeli dad:
“I’m going to the hardware store, I need to buy one of those plastic buts you put in the wall, to put a screw in - you can call it a trivet or something?”
“Eh, you ken call eet a spaghetti eef you want.”
<Laughter on our end>
“No really. Eet’s the long thing.”
“Well, the hardware store guy is called Abu Shukri, so I don’t think he’ll know ’spaghetti’ necessarily.”
“So tell him… חומוס, אבל ארוך”
I went for an interview today for an internship possibility for my conflict management course. Details about the interview and the internship itself aside… I walked away from the experience with a totally separate outlook.
After we established that I could give the internship a shot - it’s an intense task, in short organizing mediators and vaad bayit type bodies for buildings with mainly Ethiopian immigrants - my interviewer wondered aloud if my Hebrew would be a problem.
She explained that because they are Ethiopian immigrants, the non-Israeli Hebrew along with the non-Israeli accent might make it more difficult for them than it has to be. She also considered the culture clash of what type of immigrant I am.
Instead of feeling insulted, I felt relieved. I feel like no one ever acknowledges the fact that, yes, I can speak, but yes, I have an accent and my grammar is not nearly perfect. I’m either told my Hebrew is amazing and I shouldn’t worry or I have to endure the person switching to broken English, thinking it would help me. Both frustrate me because I know I can speak, and I can communicate; I can tell a story… but I’m also realistic about knowing it’s not perfect.
The acknowledgment took pressure off me; I think it was pressure I never knew I actually had. I appreciated the honesty and I’m looking forward to trying the internship or moving on to get to the point where I need to be.
I love going to the eye doctor. Is that weird?
I just love the clicking sound the lenses make when your face is in that huge thing and you have to say which was clearer, one? Or two? One? Or two? This one? Or this one?
Today I went to pick out new glasses and get my eyes checked since it’s been a while and my parnasa involves staring at a computer screen for 8+ hours straight.
First of all, Israel is really into buy-one-get-one-free deals when it comes to glasses (actually, when it comes to anything). So here I am, trying to pick out not one, but two pairs of glasses. And if you know me, I’m real picky about glasses; one out of two times, I screw up and get stuck with a pair I hate (Well, since I’m getting two here, I guess the numbers are in my favor).
Secondly - damn was I disappointed when the doctor didn’t use the big face-seeing thing and instead put this third-world glasses-device on my face to check my vision! No clicking sound. Just… awkward glasses-device.
Finally: We had been wondering if I’ll look at rows of aleph-bet or numbers or pictures or what, since we were pretty sure it wouldn’t be giant E’s. My husband guessed it would be numbers, since there are so many immigrants here. Numbers are universal and the first thing you learn in Hebrew is numbers. Clever guess, and he was right.
“Shesh. Shalosh. Neera li… tesha?”
It’s really something else having to keep up with all the instructions in Hebrew. I assumed based on what I know of years of eye-doctoring and I just hope I don’t get stuck with glasses made for someone far sighted or legally blind (though I’m close enough).
“Shmone. Shtayim o mashahu. Arba. Mashahu.”
I did that a lot - “Mashahu.” That’s not a number, folks. That’s crappy vision, in any language.
If you are an oleh in university, feel free to identify with me right now.
Today I took (what was hopefully) my very last final ever. It was arbitration law, it was in Hebrew legalese, it was painful, and now, barring any failure, I can look back and say thank you to my closest academic companion from the last two years: My Hebrew-English dictionary.
As an oleh and a student, one really must show this tome the respect it deserves. I’m sure I’ve looked up hundreds of words multiple times. It’s always been there for me.
This post is for you, buddy.
This featured pet peeve isn’t limited to being just an Israeli edition; it’s an oleh chadash pet peeve as well and it’s one of my most hated ones of all time. So get ready.
I, by nature, am not a competitive person. I think when I was younger I did have a strong competitive streak and then when I saw other people being competitive, I got turned off, shut it down and never looked back. I just don’t see the reason to get worked up about winning a game. I also don’t like accomplishing things just to win a prize.
Which is why I hate The Hebrew Contest. It goes like this:
Scenario #1: A bunch of olim chadashim are hanging out. One of them invites their Israeli friend. Everyone enters a bid to be the best at speaking Hebrew; to have the best faux accent; to sound like they’ve been here the longest. And everyone sounds ridiculously stupid and sad. And the Israeli is just rolling his eyes, even if they can’t see it. The worst part is, the Israeli has Anglo parents.
Scenario #2: An oleh chadash is hanging out with a bunch of Israelis. He is speaking in his best Hebrew and keeping up with the crew. Yet, despite this, the Israelis insist on speaking in stupid, broken English.
Scenario #3: A bunch of Anglos are hanging out. There are no Israelis in sight. Not a one. The Anglos take turns inserting Hebrew words into their sentences for no apparent reason. “That’s so, like, matiim.” “He’s being so dafka.”
Whether it’s an Israeli or oleh chadash, I don’t care. The point here is not to show off. It’s to communicate. I’m not saying Israelis shouldn’t practice their English; but when we’re in Hebrew land, let’s help the oleh speak the native language. I’m not saying olim shouldn’t speak Hebrew; but please don’t attempt rolling r’s or deep ayins or trying too hard in general.
I understand that when you first get here, you do get this weird language mix up and confuse your tongues. And I also understand that after a while, you forget words in English and so you use the Hebrew one. But let’s not be… dafka, ok?
Let’s be natural. Let’s go with the flow. There is no cash prize for sounding like an idiot.
Nevermind. I just spent 20 minutes speaking sign language with a Thailandi.
“All my life I have been inconsolably grieved about two things. I was not born in Jerusalem, not even in the Land of Israel. And my speech, from the moment I was able to utter words, was not in Hebrew.”
- Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, 1918
Ok, EBY. I agree with you - If ONLY I had been born speaking Hebrew. Then I wouldn’t have had so much trouble at the &*%$# post office this morning.
On a different note:
I noticed that me and this Israeli-Arab guy in front of me in the long line at the post office have at least one thing in common. When we step up to the teller to do out business, we say ’shalom’, hand our paperwork and money, look away to avoid conversation, and then say ‘todah’ when she gives back the receipt and change.
I wander what else we might have in common…
A ticket to the cinema on a Thursday night:
Free if you have a Cellcom line (35 shekel normally).
Popcorn and a soda:
Dunno, too cheap to buy it.
The Israeli movie-going experience.
Actually priceless.
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So… Went to see The 40-Year Old Virgin on Thursday night. First movie I’ve seen in the Israeli cinema since I saw Snatch in 2000, and I guess I didn’t remember that experience much except for wondering how the Israelis were understanding the crazy British accents.
Well, a lot of the same. Young kids at a very naughty movie (am I getting old?), but that’s not nearly the point. The climax of the movie for me was the laughing: I found myself the sole person cracking up a lot of the time. The only times they laughed was during intense cursing or during slapstick. Makes sense, really. The Hebrew subtitles did a poor job of translation, and really, you can’t translate a lot of Steve Carel-American humor.
Maybe this is terrible, but I felt a bit of pride. In myself.
But pride in a language that isn’t primary anymore doesn’t last long in a different country. Last night I was watching “Eretz Nehederet”, sort of a cross between SNL and the Daily Show for Israel. I got a lot of the jokes, but not all the references, and I suddenly remembered to put myself back in my place.
Eh, so it goes. It’s fun to laugh at TV, whether in your language or not. Hell, it’s fun to laugh at yourself, always.