The Hebrew Language: How to Maintain Hebrew in a Bilingual Environment

By Dr. Gat Svaldi Harussi January 17, 2021

Dr. Gat Svaldi-Harussi is a researcher, lecturer, and speech-language pathologist with extensive experience in the diagnosis and treatment of children with language, speech, and communication disorders in multilingual and multicultural populations. She manages the social forum “Bilingualism and Language Development,” which deals with various issues related to language and literacy development. To join the group, click here.

So, you took the plunge and left Israel; you made the move, the relocation! Some might say for a year or two, others for three or four, and some have stopped counting altogether. But no matter for how long you left, when you left, or if you will return, I will venture to say that you all want your child to speak Hebrew, to develop the Hebrew language, and preferably, to also know how to read and write in Hebrew—all this in addition to and alongside the local language. Because the desire for my child to speak to me in my language is the most natural desire in the world. Because language is more than words; language is identity, culture, and roots.

The process of immigrating to a new country is complex. On one hand, there is the departure and uprooting from home with its strong, deep roots, and on the other hand, the building of a new home on foreign soil—soil whose growing conditions take time for us to learn. Soil that takes time for us to assess the amounts of humidity, heat, and oxygen it needs so that we and our children can be absorbed into it as well as possible. Soil in which we can develop and thrive.

One of the most important and basic conditions for absorption is language—communication. Only by mastering the spoken and written language can we truly assimilate and belong to the place where we live.

As parents, on the one hand, we want our children to acquire the local language, the language of the new home, as quickly and as well as possible. On the other hand, we worry that they will forget or lose the language of that home, the one we left behind. The question often arises: Is it possible to keep two different languages alive and breathing in one home? The answer is yes! And the encouraging thing is that as parents, we have a great influence on how our children acquire and maintain the mother tongue that is so important to us. Furthermore, bilingualism (the ability to master two languages) is one of the most precious gifts you can give your child. Growing up as a bilingual child is beneficial and recommended. Many studies conducted on bilingual children have found significant cognitive advantages in their favor.

So, What Should I Do as a Parent to Help My Child Learn and Be Ready to Read Hebrew?

Before you send your child to a professional to “do” the work, you should know that you have a significant impact on your child’s readiness to learn and want to read Hebrew. So, here are my Four Commandments for Reading Acquisition (the four commandments are suitable for any language with an alphabetic writing system):

1.  Invest in and cultivate the spoken language (Hebrew)

• The wider your child’s vocabulary, the easier it will be for them to learn to read. Spoken language influences written language and vice versa.

• The child needs a certain repertoire of vocabulary and syntactic structures to be able to read and comprehend, and conversely, the more they read, the more they will develop their spoken language.

• Therefore, continue to cultivate Hebrew at home. Speak to your children in Hebrew, play Hebrew language games with them: opposites (e.g., what is the opposite of big?), synonyms (e.g., what is another word for ‘moon’), category games (e.g., word families: transportation, colors, clothes, fruits).

• Encourage your children to meet other Hebrew-speaking children. Listen to songs and recordings in Hebrew.

2.  Read books to your children on a daily basis

• By reading books, the child is exposed to the conventions of writing and print. For example, they can understand that in Hebrew, one reads from right to left, not left to right as in English.

• Over time, there will be words that repeat in the story that they will begin to recognize (e.g., think about how many times the word “pinuki” (pampering) appears in a book).

• Accompany your shared reading with a finger pointing to the word and the line you are reading.

• Make sure to read for at least 20 minutes a day. Studies have proven that children who read for at least twenty minutes a day are exposed to two million words a year.

3.  Teach the names of the letters and the sounds they represent

• Research has shown that one of the best predictors of reading acquisition ability is the knowledge of letter names and the sounds they represent.

• The main reason is that for the child to succeed in reading (deciphering the code of the written word), they must first understand that letters represent sounds. For example, to read the word “bye” (ביי), the child needs to know that the letter Bet represents the sound /b/ and Yod represents the sound /y/.

• So, how can you learn the letters in a fun way? Teach the children the Hebrew Aleph-Bet song, play a memory game with letters, write and say the names of the letters in your child’s name and the names of the letters of other family members.

• And how will you learn the sounds? That’s simple. A child, from age five and up, who knows the names of the letters will easily learn the sound they represent. Why? Because in Hebrew, we have a nice and friendly principle that all letter names begin with the sound they represent. For example, the letter Shin (שין) represents the sound /sh/, the sound with which the letter’s name begins. This is different from English, where some letter names do not represent their sound at all (e.g., ‘w’ and ‘y’).

4.  Play sound games of breaking down and putting together word sounds

• In professional language, this is called Phonological Awareness.

• Phonological awareness means the awareness that words are composed of sounds and the child’s ability to manipulate the sounds of the word. This is another important predictor of success in reading acquisition.

• Children with good phonological awareness will acquire reading easily. Why? Because to decipher the written word, at least initially until it is recognized automatically, the child needs to break down each letter in the word, say the sound, and then connect the sequence of sounds together to get a meaningful word. For example, the child will say the sequence of sounds k-e-l-e-v (which means “dog” – כלב).

• Phonological awareness games can be played anywhere, anytime, even in the dark: for example, what syllable does the word “saba” (grandfather) begin with? What other word begins with /sa/ like saba…? There are countless other ideas and examples.

It is important to emphasize that language (spoken and written) is learned and acquired only within context, interest, and active participation, so it is worthwhile to be creative. Choose activities that bring you and your children joy and genuine quality time. For example, read together books that the child loves, and perhaps already knows, from the other language. You can choose cookbooks and enjoy both the Hebrew language and the shared cooking experience, or decide to build a plane together whose instructions are in Hebrew.

In any case, it is good to remember that in the case of language learning, the rule “the more, the better” is true. In this case: all that is added is not subtracted at all, but quite the opposite. Bilingualism is a wonderful gift you are giving your children. In the long run, it is indeed a double benefit, and the most amazing thing about language acquisition is that it doesn’t have a fixed time on a schedule; language is alive, breathing, and developing at every given moment, and personally, that amazes and excites me every single time.

You can find more on language development, encouraging reading, and bilingualism in the Facebook forum for parents of bilingual children.

The article was first published on the “Tekef Nashuv!” website.

Source: השפה העברית: כיצד לשמור על העברית בסביבה דו לשונית | Kibbutz at Rocville