StreetWise Hebrew: The podcast for Hebrew learners
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • About Guy
  • Quiz
  • Videos
  • Gallery
  • Songs
    • More songs
    • More More songs
  • Press
  • Links & Tips
  • Stuff to do in TLV
  • Contact

About Guy Sharett

Picture
Stroking a... an animal in Bali, Indonesia. Photo: Daniel Ziv
I really enjoy teaching unique people with unique backgrounds. I love challenges like these:
  • I taught an Italian Franciscan monk who sought explanations in Italian of biblical Hebrew grammar; 
  • I worked with an Israeli girl who moved to Tokyo at age five and thought she couldn't read Hebrew, only to discover she could; 
  • I taught a Tel Aviv-based Czech diplomat who dreamed of watching her favorite movie with Hebrew subtitles;
  • I taught a Physics scholar from Spain who enjoyed reading The Song of Songs with me; 
  • and I taught a Bangkok-based American woman who was  studying to become a Rabbi.

All of these students reached their goals. I believe every student has a different story and different needs. I am here to find the right path to his or her linguistic inner-self. I might teach through biblical references if he is a monk or a rabbi wannabe, or through Japanese Manga comics in Hebrew and Israeli rock songs if she is a teenager.


Picture
Niki, my dog RIP, Ashdod circa 1977. Sketch by Rina Sharett, my mom.
But maybe I should tell you a bit about myself first. I grew up in the Israeli coastal town of Ashdod. My Dad was a kibbutznik tugboat skipper at the the Ashdod Port, and my Mom was a painter and ceramist. My Dad, who sailed throughout the world, knew a thing or two about the loneliness felt by sailors. He'd invite them to our home, so I had a chance to hear and try out different languages and learn about other cultures. I'd come home on a given evening to find a Croatian chief engineer, a Filipino sailor and a German captain chatting with Dad about bow propellers. 

Picture
The Ashdod Marina breakwater
So my first foreign language was English, and then I added French, as Ashdod - crowned La Perle de la Méditerranée - is a massive francophone city that happens to be the twin city of Bordeaux! French lessons in high school were a breath of fresh air, but a ridiculous school policy forced us to choose between Arabic and French, so I took private Arabic lessons after school. This was a blessing in disguise, as my neighbor, a gifted Baghdadi teacher, made me write page after page of literary Arabic text, which proved handy later on. Meanwhile, our other neighbors had an au-pair from south Germany, a priest's daughter who taught me German along with the lyrics of cheesy pop songs, for example this one. 

Ashdod, often dismissed as 'provincial', was secretly a linguist's paradise. Kids in my class had parents who spoke Georgian, Russian, Turkish, Greek, Marathi, Arabic and Romanian. The town was also a culinary Mecca with Georgian Khachapuri, Turkish Dolma and Moroccan Matbuha. While working at Ashdod Port control tower as a teenager and ordering captains to "heave up your anchor and put the pilot ladder on the portside," I realized the world was my oyster and I wanted to devote my life to learning languages, teaching Hebrew, meeting people and understanding their cultures, accents and body language. Since I was still a huge fan of Hebrew, I decided my first degree would be in my beloved mother tongue. I graduated from the department of Hebrew Language at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where I also studied Arabic, Aramaic, Latin, Italian and Dutch.

Picture
Following my studies at university, and after picking up some Indonesian from an Indonesian priest who was studying biblical Hebrew in Jerusalem, I traveled to the island of Java to take an intensive Indonesian language course. This led to a one-year stint in Jakarta as a research assistant on an exciting linguistics project. I then moved to London for a master’s program in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where I was able to study Thai, drink a lot of beer pints against my will, and meet some amazing people. My next stop was Bangkok, where I worked as a journalist and co-authored (with my soul mate Daniel Ziv) Bangkok Inside Out, a humorous urban lexicon of the Thai capital, which was later banned by Thai government (long story).

When I returned to Tel Aviv, I got back into teaching Hebrew and started StreetWise Hebrew – an innovative method of Hebrew language instruction combining the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Tel Aviv. You can read articles about my project here.



Proudly powered by Weebly