This past weekend, I went up north to visit my friend Michael. That’s Mi-kha-el (as in “who is like G-d”, Hebrew), not Michael (as in Jackson, freak of nature.) Saturday morning, while I’m sitting at the table with his two kids, he starts to give me a tour of the breakfast cereals: there’s Cheerios, some whole-wheat concoction, and Shalva, which apparently is a classic, old-school cereal which is cheap and has been around since the days of King David.
When looking at the Shalva bag, I see that it has “peh gadol” written on it. Michael explains that while, yes, it does mean “big mouth”, it’s also what parents say to little kids before they shove food down their throats. What’s the English equivalent? “Open wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide….”?
So I start playing with the 1.5 year old, saying “peeeeeeeeeeeeh gadooooooooool!” before feeding myself. He repeats. Then I say “peh gadol v’ozen gadol!” (big mouth and big ear), as I hold my left ear out with one hand and shovel the cereal into my mouth with the other. He repeats. Ahhh….seems that we have a game of follow the leader!
“Peh gadol v’einayim g’doloooot! (big mouth and big eyes)
“Peh gadol v’oseh kmo chatuuuuuuul!” (….and does like a cat: “meow meow!”)
“Pet gadol v’oseh kmo keleeeeeeeeeeev!” (….and does like a dog: “ruff ruff!”)
(pause)
1.5 Year Kid: “Mah zeh ‘ruff ruff’ ?”
I feel your pain…even the neighbor’s dog is multi-lingual. But at least she doesn’t make fun of all my mistakes in Hebrew.
LOL, we hear animals differently because Israeli animals have a heavy Yiddish accent. Where we say “ah-choo”, they say “ap-chee”, when we say “yuch”, they say “ich-sa”! My children were drilled to sneeze BOTH ways since they were sensibly taught to speak Canajun Heenglish. (Which is pretty irritating since they sneeze all day long!)
When my nephew started talking (English and Hebrew), he’d mix the languages, and when he started learning animal sounds, he would say the Hebrew sounds:
What sound does a dog do? Hav Hav
What sounds does a dog do in English? Woof Woof!
Too funny.
I always thought that a great children’s book would be “animal sounds from around the world”. I think you are just the one to write it…
Want to know more about animal sounds from around the world? click here.
My apologies for shilling for my blog here.
When we made Aliya in September, my dog Ozzy (who is brilliant) immediately picked up the language–no need for doggy ulpan, nosirree. He began speaking (in sentences) to his new doggy friends soon after he finished sniffing their butts (that’s how dogs get to know each other, for those of you who don’t have dogs). And all the other dogs commented that he didn’t even have an American accent.
Needless to say, Ozzy is deliriously happy here in the Holy Land.
Out of all the comments which are great by the way, am I the only one to sincerely not stop laughing when you say “The ars say AHLO AHLO”?!?
Come on now…I think that was quite possibly the funniest part of the story, besides the fact that yes – even 1.5 year old kids speak Hebrew better than us.
Wait, the dog says “woof woof”? What the hell is “ruff ruff”? I am seriously confused.
AHLO!
OMG – serious childhood trauma flashback. As the child of Israelis starting kindergarten, I had a number of issues:
1) Spoke Hebrew fluently — English not so much
2) My mother made PB&J on rye bread with orange marmalade(which I suppose technically is a jelly)
3) I learned Israeli animal sounds, causing the other kids in the class to think I was an idiot!
Thanks for the flashback – and thanks for your excellent blog which I can’t believe I’ve only just discovered this week!
Wait, people give animals different sounds based on their language? Why?
dogs bark —
cats meow –
donkeys hee-haw –
ducks quack –
turtles….
Well, most animals have a definitive sound, right?
You know how a train goes here?
I’ll tell you it dosen’t go choo choo and it dosen’t go chaga chaga either.
It goes toot toot. Ask my son. He will tell you.
…What an embaressing Ima I am!