My recent trip to Tel Aviv was a good reason to learn a little Hebrew. I listened to the Hebrew I course from the Pimsleur language series (available in the Toronto Public Library!) while I was sewing clothes or doing dishes, and I printed out a few phrase lists I found on the Internet. I didn’t get to the point of being able to have a good conversation in Hebrew, but it was nice not feeling totally lost, and occasionally even recognizing some of the things that people around me were saying.

I like learning different languages. It’s like building with blocks: you collect different kinds of pieces, and the more pieces you collect, the more ways you can combine them and make sense.

W- and I have been watching Heroes. Yes, we’re very much behind the times. ;) My favorite segments are when Masi Oka shows up as Hiro and speaks in Japanese. I miss the rush of semi-understood syllables, the alien familiarity of a learned skill.

Maybe I should take that up again. I probably won’t be able to make much time for conversation practice, but it would be interesting to be able to read foreign blog posts and make occasional comments.

So I’ve bought Japanese Flip for the new iPod Touch (thank you, Slideshare) and I’ll be playing with it on the subway ride. =) I’ll also see about getting back to learning French…