Become Fluent in Hebrew

by veganqueen

Language Learning In Progress

Language Learning Journey Overview

Follow this step-by-step language learning journey to see real progress updates, challenges overcome, and practical experience.

Progress Updates (2 total)

Update #1: Become Fluent in Hebrew

A few things motivated me to choose this goal: 1. I want to be able to speak Hebrew with my dad (his native language) before I won’t be able to anymore. 2. After 10/7 I realized I had internalized a lot of the antisemitism that I’d experienced throughout my life, so I got the urge to reconnect with the roots I had rejected for so long.
Challenges Overcome: My original goal was to complete the entire Hebrew course on Duolingo. I’ve actually been working on this goal since mid-January 2024 but really started hustling on it since around August 2024, which was when I committed to completing 1 unit each week with the goal of finishing the course by the end of 2025. Duolingo Hebrew only gets you to about a A2/B1 level on the CEFR (advanced beginner/beginner intermediate) but to be conversational I need to at least be at B2. I know over 2,000 words but I need to be at around 4,500 to be around B2 level.
Obstacles Faced: Right now my obstacles are recall for when I want to say something. I can understand pretty well but when I need to think of a word in conversation it can be hard to have the right one come to mind.
Next Steps: I think I need to just complete the Duolingo course and then do a bunch of review to keep things fresh in my mind and use them regularly when I talk to my dad on the phone. Once I complete the course in another couple weeks, I’m going to activate a paid subscription to LingQ, regularly review my Anki decks, and continue learning those ways as well as looking for Hebrew podcasts and YouTube channels/news, etc to immerse myself now that I have somewhat of a foundation to build on.
Looking Back: It’s nearing the end of 2025 and I am happy to say that I am just 2.5 units/weeks away from finishing! I have learned a lot so far and my dad and I regularly have simple conversations in Hebrew over and phone and in text. I even installed the Hebrew keyboard on his phone for him which made him so happy.

Update #2: Completed the Entire Hebrew Course on Duolingo

20% complete
I just finished the thing I’ve been working on for 2 straight years: the entire Hebrew course on Duolingo.
Challenges Overcome: Completed all levels in all sections in their entirety so there’s no new vocab to learn on that particular app.
Obstacles Faced: It’s a little hard to come up with things to say right away still. I generally know a word when I hear/read it but when I’m trying to express something I’ll draw a blank, so I want to get better at that. I also want to get better at verb conjugation. That is super hard and confusing. Hebrew has so many tenses and genders for everything including objects (similar to Spanish in that way).
Next Steps: I told myself I would do this once I completed the course on Duolingo so yesterday I went and bought myself a lifetime subscription to Hebrew on LingQ. It’s an app that was created by a polyglot and everyone online seems to say it is a huge reason they were able to become fluent in a language. It seems to me to be most beneficial at the intermediate level, so now is the right time to turn my attention that way. I’ll still do Duolingo Daily Refresh to keep my current vocabulary fresh and I’ll keep talking with my dad in Hebrew to build the skill as well. I would also like to achieve Legendary on all my units in every section. Currently I’ve done that up to the beginning of the fourth and final section so I only have 15 more units to go to have Legendary on the entire course. I also want to complete all of the Rapid Review for each unit (timed exercises with a 3-star tiered system that gets harder and less time with each additional star). I’ve done the entire first section and part of the second section so that’ll take longer. I wanted to leave it more as a review after completing the course. A cool thing happened recently: I was listening to Israeli music and was shocked when I realized I could actually understand a lot of what they were singing in the songs. I grew up with this music but it always just sounded like sounds to me but now those sounds have meaning in my brain which is a real trip.
Looking Back: I’ve learned a bunch, actually! I know about 2,200 words and I would say I’m at an A2/B1 level based on the CEFR which puts me at an upper beginner/lower intermediate level. I know enough to understand much of written and spoken Hebrew (on most basic topics) and I can speak and write it as well.

Related Goals