Lizrael Update

Category: language bites

  • Hebrew-speaking dogs.

    I’m sitting on my couch and I hear a scratch at the door. My first thought is, did a jackal from the forest across the street come all the way upstairs to haunt me? My second thought is, it does, however, sound like a dog. After peeping through the door, I realized it was a…

  • Not my kind of hot dog.

    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?

  • Progress.

    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…

  • Cross-cultural relativity.

    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…

  • In appreciation of honesty.

    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…

  • A view of yet another Israeli first.

    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…

  • Ode to the Hebrew-English dictionary.

    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…

  • Israeli Pet Peeve #476: The Hebrew Contest.

    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…

  • Hamoos? Haamas?

    I guess my Microsoft Word is an old version. It doesn’t have Hamas in the spellcheck dictionary.

  • Sigh language.

    Nevermind. I just spent 20 minutes speaking sign language with a Thailandi.

  • The Israeli post office: a common language in frustration.

    “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…

  • No more American express.

    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. ————————————————- So… Went to see The 40-Year Old Virgin on Thursday night. First movie I’ve seen in the Israeli cinema since I saw…