But how many Hebrew words are there for snow?

August 28, 2006 - 8:52 PM by Sarah

Blogger Idan Gazit was raised in the US, but by Israeli parents. He therefore speaks excellent Hebrew, but has trouble writing in the language or finding nuanced words. I found his frustrations about not being able to fully express himself familiar . . . only how much worse is it for those of us who don’t even have the benefit of Israeli parents!

I have to say, I’m often frustrated by my lackluster hebrew. If language is a tool for incisive analysis, then my hebrew is a rusty saw, whereas my english is a surgeons’ scalpel — it does what I want, peels back just the layers I want it to, and is far more manipulatable in my hands than hebrew. I guess I have a greater sensitivity to the baggage associated with english words, and a much wider palette of words to choose from; whereas I can say “jump” maybe two ways in hebrew (likfotz, lezanek), I can better nuance the meaning in english: jump, leap, hop, vault, bound, spring, hurdle, et cetera. It is a source of much frustration when I catch myself trying to be articulate in Hebrew only to find that I am lacking the necessary vocabular ammunition. Even when talking in english, I often find myself trying to think of a good translation to a certain turn-of-phrase well after the conversation has ended.

Still, there are topics which are far more natural to talk about in hebrew, even topics for which I don’t know the terminology in English (for example, when talking about my military service). It might seem silly, but there is a certain rightness about discussing certain topics about Israel in hebrew — perhaps simply because the hebrew language has words which are loaded with the right mix of meanings to convey what I want. Often, talking about Israel in English, I find that I have to use convoluted explanations and qualifications (”It’s like X, but with an emphasis on aspect Y”) where a single Hebrew word or phrase would do.

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