no vowels.
I have great respect for people who speak multiple languages. I spent 4 years of my adolescence learning the basics of Hebrew to study for my bar mitzvah. I came away with little more than memorization of many of the prayers from pure repetition. Sure, I can read most of the letters, but understanding what you are reading is a different story. Since I had a subconscious desire to inflict pain upon myself, I took a semester of Hebrew in college. What made me decide to do this during my first semester of college is beyond me, but I managed to survive. I got a 2.7, but it could have been much worse.
Here's what it boils down to: When you study for your bar mitzvah, you learn Hebrew with the vowels (various dots and dashes under the letters). Then, just before your bar mitzvah, the Rabbi pulls a bait-and-switch and says, "oh, by the way, the Torah doesn't have any vowels, you are going to have to re-learn your Torah portion and figure out how to do it without the vowels." Try t rd ths sntnc nd s hw sy t s. (Try to read this sentence and see how easy it is). Yeah, it's a pretty cruel joke to pull on a 12-year-old. So you manage to get through it (since you memorized it) and everything is ok. I thought that would be my last brush with a vowel-less world. Then, to my surprise and horror, I walked into my 2nd week of college Hebrew and the professor throws out the vowels. sht.
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