- When he wants you to stop doing something, he says די די! (“enough enough” – though it sounds disturbing as it is pronounced the same thing as “die die!”)
- לא and No are used interchangeably
- As you are teaching him how to count from 1 to 10 in English, he is able to say some of the numbers in Hebrew as well (that he must have learned in day care)
- All of the songs and “nursery rhymes” that he learns in day care are in Hebrew
- It is only a matter of time before his guttural ר (reish) sounds better than your feeble attempts
- When he wants you to come over to him, he commands “בא!” (“come!”)
- His favorite animal is a חמור (donkey)
- His teachers all call him Moshiko (an Israeli nickname for Moshe)
(This post was originally going to list 10 things, but I couldn’t think of any others. Do you have something to add?)
July 31st, 2007 at 0:02
My sister (admittedly, she was ten at the time) came back from Israel the morning of my bridal shower. She was jetlagged and dozing off and not wanting to be annoyed…and confused the hell out of the non-Hebrew speakers, who couldn’t figure out why she wanted everyone to “die.”
August 1st, 2007 at 14:36
Be sure to speak English with him as much as possible, or he won’t be able to when he grows up. Big problem with the grandparents.
It seems worth mentioning the Simpsons: “Die Bart Die” is simple Hebrew for “Enough Bart, enough!”