If you're married do you

Dunroamin

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Cards or letters or emails, you do, though?

So you'd need to pick between Dear "Mum", "Mrs Puddleduck" or "Jemima" at that point.

I never wrote to my in laws and emails hadn't been invented then, although I always start them now to friends just with "Hi".

Cards obviously came from both of us jointly so were addressed to "mum & dad" and were written by the one of us whose mum and dad they actually were. IYSWIM

Savvy_Sue

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Yes - since he was born, I've only talked to him in English, and OH only in Hebrew.

I have friends who've done that in French.

Lovely memories of a two year old stamping their feet and saying "Moi, je not want that!" :rotfl:

CupOfChai

Dunroamin wrote: »

Cards obviously came from both of us jointly so were addressed to "mum & dad" and were written by the one of us whose mum and dad they actually were. IYSWIM

We do that too. My parents call their in-laws mum and dad, I'm not sure if it's a generation thing. I wouldn't do it.

neverdespairgirl

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I have friends who've done that in French.

Lovely memories of a two year old stamping their feet and saying "Moi, je not want that!" :rotfl:

Isaac has never mixed the languages, except when there are things which he doesn't know the words for in one, then he "borrows" from the other. When i was first going out with OH, I found it really funny when he was chatting away to his Dad on the phone and said, "gobbledegook shalfitye what-ever-it-means double greek cashing a building society cheque more gobbledegook" as he added in an English phrase for an English action.

Isaac had a huge argument with his reception teacher when he was 5, who kept asking him about his holiday in Jerusalem. He got scarlet in the face with rage when she wouldn't accept he'd never been there, he'd been somewhere else entirely.

She pointed to the photo of the Wailing Wall with Isaac standing next to it, and said, "That's in Jerusalem!" and he said determindly, "IT'S NOT. That's Yeah-rue-shall-eyem". OH sorted it out but explaining the idea of different place names in different languages.

balletshoes

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Useful having an extra language in the mix - that's why my 8 year old calling my Dad "Dad" isn't a problem, because he calls his own "Abba".

I agree with this - I don't have a MIL, FIL lives thousands of miles away, their culture expects that sons in law and daughters in law would call them "mum" and "dad" in their language. I have no problem with that, as they are anne and baba, my mum and dad are mum and dad.

My OH follows our family tradition with my mum, he calls her by her first name, as do all of her sons-in-law.

eta - I still have a little giggle to myself listening to my OH talking on the phone to his family in Turkey. He's been here in the UK so long that he doesn't realise he mixes English and Turkish when he's having a conversation, he just does it!

marisco_2

balletshoes wrote: »

I still have a little giggle to myself listening to my OH talking on the phone to his family in Turkey. He's been here in the UK so long that he doesn't realise he mixes English and Turkish when he's having a conversation, he just does it!

My ex is Russian and he use to do that during telephone conversations with his family too. It led to some confusion at times.

double_mummy

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Yes - since he was born, I've only talked to him in English, and OH only in Hebrew. Until he started school, his command on the languages was roughly equal, but as his education is in English, his English has improved faster. The only other person he speaks to regularly in Hebrew is my brother-in-law (DS' uncle) and about twice a year, with all his hundreds of second to fourth cousins in Israel.

Isaac was 8 last month, and he's always called me Mummy, and always called OH Abba, whichever language he's speaking in.

thats wonderful my LO is almost 7 dad was born over there but only knows the bad words lol im trying to learn but grandma always speaks hebrew to him as do my BILs who are both doing their service atm as well as the cousins and uncles and aunties

i also found since starting school he as favored english much more but is also learning spanish now so likes to mess around with all 3

we also watch a lot of movies in hebrew (hes never seen english lion king we started watching it and he said it didnt sound right) which is also helping the 3 year old talk hebrew

we go over every year or so and he can get by for the whole time speaking hebrew he sounds israeli (IYKWIM) when we are out there and then a month after we get home hes lost it again

how is he finding writing hebrew?

neverdespairgirl

double_mummy wrote: »

thats wonderful my LO is almost 7 dad was born over there but only knows the bad words lol im trying to learn but grandma always speaks hebrew to him as do my BILs who are both doing their service atm as well as the cousins and uncles and aunties


we also watch a lot of movies in hebrew (hes never seen english lion king we started watching it and he said it didnt sound right) which is also helping the 3 year old talk hebrew

we go over every year or so and he can get by for the whole time speaking hebrew he sounds israeli (IYKWIM) when we are out there and then a month after we get home hes lost it again

how is he finding writing hebrew?

He's not done reading or writing in Hebrew at all. It wasn't ever a priority for us - OH can read and write in Hebrew, but very, very slowly, and his younger brother is illiterate in Hebrew, but completely fluent as a spoken language.

OH's father was born and brought up in London, and moved to Israel when he was 18, and later met and married OH's mother, who was born in Tel Aviv. OH was born in Israel, and went to a Kindergarten in Tel Aviv. His parents moved to the UK when OH was about 5, and his younger brother was born here. The family always spoke Hebrew together. I'm told (I couldn't possibly tell myself) that OH sounds Israeli in Hebrew, and his younger brother has much more of a British accent in Hebrew.

We decided to get Isaac started on English reading and writing first, and he's been diagnosed recently as severely dyslexic, needing quite a lot of extra help. Adding in a whole new alphabet that's written back to front doesn't seem like a remotely good idea to us, therefore.

Isaac's got various DVDs in Hebrew, such as Postman Pat and Bob the Builder. Seeing the vicar in Postman Pat addressed as "Mr. Cohen" is a rather surreal experience!

Savvy_Sue

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

He's not done reading or writing in Hebrew at all. It wasn't ever a priority for us - OH can read and write in Hebrew, but very, very slowly, and his younger brother is illiterate in Hebrew, but completely fluent as a spoken language.

I find that a fascinating concept (being fluent, but illiterate). I know that's how I must have learned English, but with French and the little bit of Spanish I've learned, I can't 'hear' new words properly unless I see how they're written. I don't know if that's just my hearing problems, or my brain.

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

We decided to get Isaac started on English reading and writing first, and he's been diagnosed recently as severely dyslexic, needing quite a lot of extra help. Adding in a whole new alphabet that's written back to front doesn't seem like a remotely good idea to us, therefore

!!! I think you may be right there! Although, of course, if the Hebrew is written without vowels that may help a bit ...

neverdespairgirl

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I find that a fascinating concept (being fluent, but illiterate). I know that's how I must have learned English, but with French and the little bit of Spanish I've learned, I can't 'hear' new words properly unless I see how they're written. I don't know if that's just my hearing problems, or my brain.

!!! I think you may be right there! Although, of course, if the Hebrew is written without vowels that may help a bit ...

I thought it a bit strange initially, but it was completely normal for OH's family. It's a bit odd sometimes watching my brother in law in Israel, because he's absolutely fluent, it's clearly a native language for him, not a learned second language, but he can't read so much as a menu, or signs in airports (he can recognise place names, for some places, I think). That means he sometimes gets treated as if he must have very serious learning difficulties, being a native speaker but illiterate.

However, in his other language, he has 4 A levels, a first class degree from Oxford, and a post-graduate medical degree, and is now a doctor. So he's not particularly academically-challenged!

OH can read and write in Hebrew, but his spelling's not good in Hebrew and it's a very slow and labourious process for him. He only attended kindergarten in Israel (for a couple of years, I think) and almost all his subsequent education was in English, from the start of school up to post-grad level, apart from one GCSE in Hebrew.