adventures in ulpan

so back in 2005, when my husband and I first met, I had started ulpan Aleph in beer sheva. I did about 5 months of ulpan aleph, enough for me to be able to go to a grocery and get out with something relatively close to what i was looking for. since we started dating i have tried many forms of hebrew lessons- i did a year online (at their level C), a year at the reform temple near my house (at their level D, which was wayyyy too high for me) and many many tapes.

although my husband might not always admit it, my hebrew has gotten better. the problem is that my classes levels always skipped around... so while i can get by in present tense, and pretty well in past tense, the future still confuses me to no end.

all this made signing up for my free hebrew lessons here kind of confusing. the city we live in only offers two levels as i said before- aleph and bet. i know i dont need the beginning of aleph, but im sure i could learn things. it meets everyday. the bet meets only twice a week, and really is a mixed class of all sorts of levels higher than aleph.

i went yesterday to sit in on the bet class. there are about 12 people in the class, all russian and all over 60. i am also the only new immigrant. the class was challenging- i understood everything that was said, but my speaking and reading are severely lacking. for better or worse the whole class was in hebrew, only punctuated by brief explanations in russian, which dont really help me any. i talked to the teacher after, and she thinks i should stick with the bet. part of me wants the challenge, and part of me thinks i should go back and learn future before i attempt this level. since those seem to be the only two options, and Yehi and my teacher have offered to help me learn the future and my buildings, i am sticking with bet. wish me luck, im going to need it!