I'd like to buy a vowel

Yesterday I had my 3rd Hebrew class. The amount of students has grown during these three weeks, and we are now approximately 25, all getting together once a week to cram this ancient language into our heads.

Unlike usually with language studies, learning Hebrew happens very slowly. When it comes to other European languages for instance, you know by the 3rd class how to say hello and introduce yourself. Here things take time, as the alphabet is something that needs to be figured out before going forward. You can't study the language in Latin alphabet or phonetically, so before advancing in the book the alphabet needs to be more than familiar to you.

So far, it has some curiosities compared to other languages that I have learnt. For instance, Hebrew does not have capital letters or lower case. This makes it somewhat easier to learn writing. Secondly, the language hasn't officially got vowels - or not at least in the sense I'm used to. The basic set of letters are all consonants, and turned into vowels by adding little dots or lines above or below the letter.

I am quite inspired by the language, even though I have not learnt much yet. I still have problems recognizing some of the letters (not to mention writing them!), but the sheer joy of actually being able to figure out a word and what it means in Hebrew gives such pleasure that it's hard to describe. Suddenly, all that nonsense and weird symbols make sense - it is a rewarding and eye-opening feeling.

The papers and notes are getting messy, but will make sense in the end...