On "Throwing in the Towel" and the difficulty of the word for "night"

Greetings to all!

I hope everyone is staying nice and toasty in whichever corner of the world they find themselves tucked away in at this very moment. 

Today I would like to briefly touch on the matter of gender in the Hebrew language. Firstly, it exists. Secondly, it's an extremely difficult concept to grasp for someone learning the language, especially a novice who is coming from a non-similar language (i.e. English which is not a gender-ed language versus Arabic which similarly to Hebrew, has gender). And lastly, it was the word  "לילה" which means "night" that soiled everything for me.

In Hebrew words that end in either "ת"  or "ה" are feminine. Feminine words have different endings if they are made plural than masculine words. They end in  "ות" not  "ים"   . However, (and that however should be read underneath a microscope and cranked up really high because it is so huge), there are  exceptions to these rules. And luckily enough for an initiate such as myself, most of the exceptions are really common words like "table" and "road." (Insert loud sarcastic snicker.)  There are a whole slew of rules that correlate with the way in which gender works in Hebrew, but I don't want to give readers a grammar lesson at present. Rather, I would like to write a sort of clip of how it happened that my heart was broken over the innocent looking word   "לילה"    "night."

I arrived at class and took my accustomed seat next to my lovely sister. We shared a small bit of conversation before class began. As soon as our teacher entered and approached the whiteboard, we fell silent. Class commenced with the usual announcements that seem ever essential in the context, but as soon as you step out of a language course you realize were actually rather silly. What I mean by this, is things like the oh-so-important tasks of writing down the correct date (a tough feat I must admit in a country where they days of the week are classified in a totally different fashion than in America and the date is also written peculiarly as compared to my patriotic American roots), or discussing in particular detail the state of the local weather, information which could be gleaned from a weather report on the television, computer, or newspaper, but I dare say would probably be understood less fully and without as much confidence that we are using the correct word for flood, or winds, or the precise adjective to describe the state of the rain.

But alas, I digress. I was sitting innocently in class taking down the date when the word "night" somehow came up. The teacher began to parse the word with the class and I confidently aided her.

"What letter is at the end of the word?"

"!ה"

"How do you say it as a plural?"

"!לילות"

"What is its gender?"

"Feminine!"

"No, masculine."

* My heart went C...R...A...C...K*

"W-H-A-T-?-!-!-!-!-!"

I must admit, my dear reader, that if I were an individual who condoned the practice of cursing this would have been the place to let loose a metric ton of expletives. Anyway, in the end my teacher laughed at me, pitied me, and tried to console me with a favorite saying of the locals here "?מה לעשות" " which means "What to do?"

In conclusion, a little piece of my heart died that day. I can't even fully put in to ink, but something in me cracked. The unfairness of it all, the nonsensical nature of it, the lack of logic, and just the pure difficulty of understanding it. I felt something rather strange; I felt so defeated, deflated, and hopeless, And of course ridiculous. I always feel ridiculous. I don't think I'll ever forget that day, or the way I felt.

 It was like I had finally mastered riding a bicycle without the training wheels in my backyard and the first time I set out on the street filled with the confidence that I knew how to handle myself of this wondrous machine . And then, I were to crash and fall within mere moments of taking off. Why? Because my backyard was grass, and I had no idea how to ride on asphalt. 

Well there you have it, I will get over it one day I suppose, and use "לילה"  like the best of them. But I thought it important to document this event, and remember how despondent and betrayed  I felt by the seemingly sinister language.

And just to add insult to injury, Hebrew doesn't even have a saying or expression for "Throw in the towel."

And frankly, that's what I want to do sometimes, just throw in the towel.

יום אחד אני יודעת שאני ארגיש טוב ונוח עם שפת-העברית אבל אני גם יודעת שלפני היום הזה יגיע יהיו הרבה ימים קשיים ורגעים מתסקילים. באמת מה לעשות

Translation: One day, I know I will feel good and comfortable with the Hebrew language, but I also know that before that day arrives there will be many days of hardship and moments of frustration, Really, what to do?

Yours Etc,

Shira