Testimony 9 - Articles about Bilingualism

I came to Israel about 38 years ago and I live in Efrat. I used to know Spanish. I speak Hebrew and English. I may be a bilingual in Hebrew and in English in speaking, but not in reading and writing. I don�t read and write so well in Hebrew. In English I read and write fairly well.

Being a bilingual could drive you crazy, because you don�t know what language you�re speaking in or what language you�re hearing. For instance, I was in the States, and my mother said to me oh listen, they�re speaking Hebrew. I said no one is speaking Hebrew. I got into a big argument, because it didn�t seem unnatural, and to her it sounded unnatural. And of course, if I had to translate back and forth with people from the States and people who speak Hebrew, I forget which language I�m translating into.

Living in Efrat, most people are to a certain extent bilinguals, so it�s nothing out of the ordinary. When I lived in Even Shmuel, where no one spoke English, I was looked at as sort of like from outer space, and so were my children.

My daughter makes me translate things for her in the university, and people ask me to translate for them also.

I�m not an intellect. I don�t think I would like to learn other language. However, there are no disadvantages to being bilingual. The more you know the better off you are. I know more than others because I can read things in English, but maybe if I was bilingual from a very young age it would have helped more. They say that language learning at a very young age stimulates your brain, but I learned at a very old age, so I don�t know if it stimulated my brain.

I didn't know Hebrew when I was in the States. Not much at all, maybe a few words. That�s all. No one in my family knew Hebrew.

I spoke to my oldest daughter in English until she was about 2, 2�. I spoke to my second son until he was about a year and a half or two, and then the children started complaining because their friends were looking at them like they were speaking some weird language. Then I didn't speak any English at all to the next three children, and I spoke to our youngest totally in English for about seven or eight years. She�s probably the most bilingual. I don't know whether she writes and thinks in English. I never asked her.

I was in New York with two of my daughters and one of my daughters was translating for the other one because she couldn�t figure out what was going on, so I thought that was really cool. So the youngest daughter must really be bilingual. When my oldest daughter was very young I spoke to my husband in English, hoping that he would understand me and she wouldn�t. He didn�t understand me, so she translated for him, and she was only about 2 or 3 years old.

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