Jul 7, 2015
Hello, Muddah, Hello Faddah - Israeli style
After helping my son (3rd grade) with his homework yesterday, I now understand why Israelis pronounce things like "mudder" and fodder"... it is because they are taught to.
Yesterday I helped my son with his homework. Below you will see the page from his English workbook that we worked on yesterday.
The book explains that Hebrew does not have an equivalent sound to the sound of 'th'. However, there are two possible sounds that replace it in Hebrew - some words that have a sound like a 'weak tav' (e.g. in Hebrew "ת'ן" and "ת'ק" for the English words thin and thick), and other words that have the sound of a "weak daled" (e.g. such as in Hebrew "ד'ס" and "ד'" for the English this and the).
And as you can see in the exercise further down one of the words is written as "פד'ר" - being "father".
in English there is no difference in how the th sounds in the words "thick", "thin" "this" and "the". Yet in Hebrew they are specifically teaching to differentiate. I have no idea how they decide which words get the "weak tav" and which get the "weak daled".
While I always thought it was just a function of the Israeli accent the way Israelis pronounce "mudder", "fodder", "dis", etc.. now I know the problem is that, for some reason, they are taught to pronounce it that way, as if it is the correct way!
When Allan Sherman wrote the song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah", who knew that he could very well have been Israeli rather than from Chicago....
Yesterday I helped my son with his homework. Below you will see the page from his English workbook that we worked on yesterday.
The book explains that Hebrew does not have an equivalent sound to the sound of 'th'. However, there are two possible sounds that replace it in Hebrew - some words that have a sound like a 'weak tav' (e.g. in Hebrew "ת'ן" and "ת'ק" for the English words thin and thick), and other words that have the sound of a "weak daled" (e.g. such as in Hebrew "ד'ס" and "ד'" for the English this and the).
And as you can see in the exercise further down one of the words is written as "פד'ר" - being "father".
in English there is no difference in how the th sounds in the words "thick", "thin" "this" and "the". Yet in Hebrew they are specifically teaching to differentiate. I have no idea how they decide which words get the "weak tav" and which get the "weak daled".
While I always thought it was just a function of the Israeli accent the way Israelis pronounce "mudder", "fodder", "dis", etc.. now I know the problem is that, for some reason, they are taught to pronounce it that way, as if it is the correct way!
When Allan Sherman wrote the song "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah", who knew that he could very well have been Israeli rather than from Chicago....
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The weak tav is like in the word forth, and the weak daled in like in the word father. They are not the same sound in English, although they are spelled the same.
ReplyDelete"thin" and "this" do NOT have the same sound at the beginning of the word.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of the immortal Homer Simpson: D'oh!
ReplyDeleteDlz - and none of them sound anything like a daled or any relation to it. The closest description I can think of would be the dth sound
ReplyDeleteThat is why there is an apostrophe next to the letters - 'ת is pronounce like soft th, and 'ד is pronounced like a hard th (that is the Yemenite pronunciaton of those letters without a dagesh).
DeleteDlz - and none of them sound anything like a daled or any relation to it. The closest description I can think of would be the dth sound
ReplyDeleteHi Rafi,
ReplyDeleteOne nitpick: the 'th' sound in "the" and "that" is distinctly different from the sound in "thin" and "thick". Try it a few times and you'll see. The first one has more of a "buzz" sound to it. It's actually the difference between the d/dalet (which is considered a "vocal" consonant) and the t/tav (which is a sibilant - using only air and the teeth).
In my opinion, the major problem with the book's explanation is that those consonants - the "soft" dalet and tav (i.e. the dalet and tav without the dagesh) - aren't used by anyone in spoken Hebrew anymore, except for Temanim during Tfilah and Torah reading. So the average kid ends up, as you say, with "fadduh" or "dis".
Israelis can't pronounce the word "thread" correctly, either. It always makes for some great humor when you're in software development, talking shop.
ReplyDeleteNeither can Russians, and there are even more of them than Israelis in software.
DeleteI've never heard a Russian pronounce thread as fred (as I've heard Israelis pronounce it), neither here, nor in the US.
DeleteRight, they say "tred".
DeleteHi Rafi, maybe another proof that the mashiach isn't far off as while teaching english they are also, at the same go, teaching what is by most linguistic experts considered to be the authentic pronunciation of Hebrew, as the Yemenites still hold to...speaking of mashiach and gog and Magog, I remember you once had a post of where to buy gas masks in case of war- I just made Aliyah w my wife and kids and would like to stock up and not have to wait on crazy lines when that time R'L comes! Thx- luv the blog!!
ReplyDeletenice thought!
Deletemazel tov on your aliyah. as far as I know you cannot just go get them whenever you want, to prepare in advance. they give them out when they give them out and will let you know when they do.