A good day at Ulpan

I just got home from my Ulpan (Hebrew class). One of the things that happened today made me realize my teacher and friend Amitai is a really good teacher. We were talking about foreign words that have entered in modern Hebrew. One of the words was "פאב" or Pub. Someone asked if there was an actual Hebrew word for it? Amitai replied that there was, but no one used it. It's בית מרזיח (beit Marzeeach). Someone else asked how it was spelled, so Amitai asked the student how he would spell it. He mis-spelled it and then Amitai gave a two minute lesson on how to determine spelling if the word ends in an "ach" ( ח or ך).

I realized he had taken an entirely innocuous comment that was said almost as a joke, and seemlessly turned it into a teaching tool. It made me really appreciate being in his class. All those years of learning Hebrew from him around the dinner table do in fact translate into a great classroom!