Foreign parents of Israeli born children

amother

Tuberose

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 1:44 am

amother OP wrote:

Teach the that English does not have ר but an R and no ל but L these make a huge difference in the way the speak. Say the words bread & milk with ר ל now do b l. It's a simple concept and easy to explain to kids.

I feel like you don't understand how accents work. Accents aren't people not understanding that an R and a ר are different. This is not an "explaining" thing.

juggling

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 1:45 am

I did take one of my kids for speech therapy to try to learn certain sounds that are relevant in English, but not in Hebrew. It was expensive for me and stressful for him. We quit after he really couldn't be bothered to practice. At an older age I believe he worked on some of the sounds himself. His English is good. He communicates well. If he doesn't sound like he grew up in the US, well, he didn't. Oh, well.

Brit in Israel

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 1:46 am

We have to do what's right for our kids and if we choose to bring them up in Israel that choice comes with the fact that our children will talk more like an Israeli than a if we would live in America or UK.
My focus is that they excel in the school I chose to send to which is Israeli.
I'm so grateful all my children are bilingual and are managing well. If needed and if they want I will send to extra English lessons.
I have a few friends and family who had to drop English as there children couldn't manage it.
For example one had a toddler over 2 and not talking. Within 2 weeks of dropping a language they were talking closely to their age group. It was a hard choice but we do what's best for our kids.

The main thing is that our children feel part of the society we bring them up in and not as an outcast. living in an Israeli area my kids from a young age already have that difference by having an English parent why make it bigger by having them talk Ivrit with an accent so their English is on par with Brits or Americans?

If they do move to America or UK there accent will most likely lessen as they have grown up with it subconsciously.

Rappel

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 1:54 am

amother OP wrote:

No judgements, just trying to understand and help others.
Does your child speak English with an accent?
If yes:
Is life too busy to teach them.
You like the accent.
You don't feel it's important.
You are confident that they will have a good job without speaking well, reading or writing English.

*Life is not too busy
*I like my kids and how they speak
*It's not important what accent they have
*They will certainly get a good job, and will know how to speak/read/write in English, and those two facts are independent of each other.

amother

Cappuccino

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 1:54 am

We speak English at home, kids (born here or came as babies/toddlers) learn in Hebrew and speak Hebrew and English to their friends. My kids have decent accents in both Hebrew and English, but neither is a perfect native accent. I feel like in Israel there is no one single accent, you hear so many people in so many different accents, that it's okay if there is a slight accent.

In English, I also think its okay if there's an inflection, though there are a few sounds that I do think should be corrected if possible - namely the th and r sounds. I just feel bad for my kids if they speak English and they would sound unintelligent or if relatives would laugh. When my kids have English speaking friends over who say w instead of r I feel embarrassed for them because they sound unintelligent, even though I know that is not the case. I did get my kids speech therapy for the R sound - in a few sessions two kids (who went together) learned how to say it. Highly recommend.

Elfrida

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 2:03 am

I'm wondering if the OP associates accented speech with lack of education, and that's why she thinks it's important.

It doesn't work that way in Israel. I've had university lecturers with Russian accents, doctors with American accents, teachers with French accents, and company managers with some accent that I found hard to identify. They all communicated fluently and on a high level in Hebrew. That's all that matters. There are no stigmas attached to an accent.

Success10

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 2:08 am

Listen, I get wanting to have a perfect Israeli accent if you're an oleh. Things have gotten better in the last decade, but having a US accent is often asking to be taken advantage of, or charged double.

But the flip side, perfecting our own kids foreign accents? We chose to be here, there is some element of something we wanted to leave behind. If you were disciplined enough to make sure your kids have good spoken and written English I commend you (I certainly didn't). That is certainly enough to help them in their job opportunities one day. But the perfect US accent? That's a testament to being a foreigner. Which we are proud to say our children are NOT.

Rappel

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 2:37 am

amother OP wrote:

Yes.
My young children have several kids in their class who speak 2 (some speak 3 languages and all properly). Usually epending on what language their grandparents from both sides speak.

Then they live in an environment with a lot of native English speakers, and possibly other sources of language exposure like movies or video games.

Congratulations, your children are well set up to have foreign accents.

amother

Mintgreen

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 2:57 am

amother Cappuccino wrote:

In English, I also think its okay if there's an inflection, though there are a few sounds that I do think should be corrected if possible - namely the th and r sounds. I just feel bad for my kids if they speak English and they would sound unintelligent or if relatives would laugh. When my kids have English speaking friends over who say w instead of r I feel embarrassed for them because they sound unintelligent, even though I know that is not the case. I did get my kids speech therapy for the R sound - in a few sessions two kids (who went together) learned how to say it. Highly recommend.

My kids (3-9) all say r like w and I think most say th like t. I don't think they sound unintelligent, more like babyish when they speak English (which 3-7 do a lot). Ds9 stopped speaking English except to grandparents and once when he called from school bc he forgot something and didn't want everyone to understand. But it's very difficult for their grandparents to understand them because of it, and I do wish I could help them fix it. I've tried and they kind of get th with a lot of effort, but r I just have not managed.

Cappuccino, where did you take your kids- a private American speech therapist? How did you find them? And they took 2 kids for the price of 1, or you paid for both separately? I'm curious if I could swing this financially, but I'm also outside Jerusalem so I'm not sure it's easily accessible enough here to be worth it for me right now.

As for my answer to this thread, like I said, I did try to teach them the correct sounds. They just don't get it... But it's not that they say r like ר. They get that they're different automatically, don't need to be taught that. They just can't say it correctly. Someone once told me she actually told her kids to say r like ר instead of w so they sound like foreigners to English instead of babies.

camp123

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 3:01 am

My kids are Israeli why can't they speak with an Israeli accent. Happens to be that their accents are very good in English, they can switch between American English and south African English as necessary bc they have parents from both countries, but that's bc they have an ear for accents. If they didn't they wouldn't be able to and that's ok, they are Israeli. I can't speak Hebrew with an Israeli accent and there's nothing I can do about it.

amother

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 3:11 am

amother Mintgreen wrote:

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain! FInally someone who understood my question.

No cares about perfect accent, I was curious why some kids from America parents don't speak English as their parents. After all we kids learn from hearing their parents speak.
Seems that some kids just have an easier time "getting it" then others.

WhatFor

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 3:17 am

amother OP wrote:

I didn't get your original question either, but I assume it depends a lot on personality. I knew a guy whose mother was American who barely spoke English, even though she mostly spoke English at home. He was one of many kids, some of his siblings sounded American when they spoke English, while he looked and sounded like a sabra who could barely speak a word.

Maybe you could say that he wasn't as natural with languages as his siblings, but I can't imagine that because he was still raised at home with a mother and siblings who spoke English. Maybe fitting in with his Israeli peers was very important to him, and that's what he focused on.

Success10

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 3:45 am

amother OP wrote:

Alright, at least we get you now. You came across as judgmental. You're just trying to understand the dynamics of accents. I think Dr. Mom explained it really well on the other thread, about the muscles being excersized since birth. Even if until age 3 they only hear true American English, at some point they will be immersed in a predominanly Hebrew culture and lose those muscles a bit.

That being said, I think kids raised in RBS to Anglo parents sound very genuine in their English almost indescernible to true blue Americans. It's infused at a young age.

amother

Springgreen

Wed, Dec 27 2023, 3:50 am

This is such an interesting thread.

My parents worked in Hi-Tech and I would often visit them at work as a kid. I would say 70%+ of their colleagues had accents that highlighted English was not their first language. They were also mostly geniuses and had no issue communicating in their accented English.

I never considered that having an accent makes a person sound unintelligent, maybe I even assumed the opposite, as it is a sign of intelligence to be able to communicate in more than one language.

My husband (who happens to be highly intelligent) was born with a cleft palate and was bullied like crazy as a kid because even with all the reconstructive surgeries he had, he could not pronounce certain sounds. I hope no one secretly blamed his mother for not investing in teaching him the correct way to pronounce those sounds.

Some of my kids have accents when they speak English, some don't. It does not affect their reading and writing and I don't think it will have any major impact on their life (professionally or otherwise).