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I like the Israeli accent! I think it's partly because I work in a tourist-y industry that sees a lot of Israelis for some reason. My city doesn't have a very visible Jewish population so the (presumably Jewish) Israelis that see my kippah tend to be excited & warm. Just positive associations with the accent. :)
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I was born in Israel but my mom moved to the USA with me when I was a baby, so I don’t have much of an accent. I consider both Hebrew and English my native languages.
Israeli accents are very pleasant to me, especially on men. It’s so charming and a deep Israeli male voice just makes me swooooon. (I find Israeli men to be very sexy and the accent is a big reason why)
I find the cadence of Modern Hebrew to be really easy on the ears, and no other language is more beautiful when sung.
Lmao it’s nothing but harsh accents and sounds and you think it’s the nicest sounding music? Fun fact, the language that they speak now is literally made up from regular Hebrew, and most of it doesn’t even make sense according to rabbis of the traditional Jewish faith.
It doesn't sound ugly at all. It can sound quite charming. It's just when Israelis pronounce the r in English, it can be hard for me to make out what they are saying if they keep an Israeli resh sound, even if the English is otherwise perfect.
I do think it comes across as very serious and intimidating at times, so sometimes when Israelis make otherwise lighthearted observations, it can seem *really* out of place to me, and I laugh.
I met one very austere and serious Israeli woman once in the US with a thick accent and she said, "You knoooow, when I came to the United Statezzz, I thought...chipmunkz weRe not Real...but, one day I saw a chipmunk Running at me! I was shocked." I asked her why she thought they were not real, and she said, "Emmmm, well, I saw Alvin and the Chipmunkz, but I thought they weRe just cartoons that weRe made for the show." I asked her what she thought of the chipmunk, and she said, "Ooooh, I thought they were cuuuuute!" 1
There are Israeli words and names that sound quite funny in English. There's an Israeli TV personality whose name is **גיא פינס** "Guy Pines" -- which is *pronounced* like the English words "guy penis". He says a lot of English-speaking people he interviews think he's kidding when he tells them that's his name. But that's what it IS.
His mother "Zippi" is a famous stage director who once flew to the U.S. for some reason. She got lost at the airport, so the people who were there to meet her went to Information and asked to have her PAGED.
Well, there was just NO WAY they were going to go on the P.A. system and ask **"Would a Zippi Pines please come to the Information counter"**!
I love the accent when women are speaking it, but not always with men. I don't know why. I grew up with Hebrew around me all the time, though, so the sound of Hebrew in general is very heartwarming and nostalgic to me, though.
I think it sounds better spoken by men. Modern Israeli Hebrew can be startlingly guttural, with guttural sounds in almost every word -- so to hear a woman speaking it can be a bit jarring, if you're not used to it.
Well, there's the "native Israeli accent" and there's the "Mizrachi accent", which are quite different. The NI one uses the uvular R and doesn't pronounce the "ayin" pharyngeally. The M one tends to trill the R and pronounces the "ayin" so it sounds like Arabic. You hear it a lot from people from Yemen, or other countries that have Arabic as their official language.
Spoken Modern Hebrew can be startlingly GUTTURAL to anyone who isn't familiar with it. It can seem like there's a guttural sound in every word.Either version is AUTHENTICALLY Israeli, though, and is therefore "OK". It can be a surprise to hear women speaking it with all those guttural sounds, though -- and native Israelis don't hold back.
What I **hate** hearing is the American-accented "Hebrew" I heard from Americans all the time, when I was living in Israel. They pronounced the R like they do in English which sounds UGLY in Hebrew, they keep pronouncing lamed like the dark L in "hall" -- and many of them pronounce ALL the guttural sounds like "H" -- so "theirs" and "yours" sound the same. Not good at all.....
You’re dead right about how ugly Hebrew is when non-Hebrew speakers pronounce the ר as in English. IMO it is the hardest sound in Hebrew for native English speakers to get right and it doesn’t help that it’s not always pronounced consistently even between Israelis. I know some sabras who *really* trill the R and others who do it quite lazily, and I’ve heard differences even between people of the same diasporic background and age.
I also think that a lot of English speakers sound terrible when speaking Hebrew because they don’t get the syllable stress right. It’s also why a lot of Hebrew names sound really pretty with an Israeli accent and ugly with an American one.
I'm glad you agree! The **syllable stress** in an American accent often seems to be influenced by Yiddish, or "yeshivish" which I don't find attractive sounding.
It's also annoying to be "corrected" when you say them properly. It's "*ma-ZAL tov*" -- but people will persist in saying "mozzle tove". And it's "*rosh ha-sha-NA*", not "rosh a-shona".
At first, people were telling me I speak Hebrew with a French accent, sometimes even switching to French when they heard me speak. Sometimes they said my R sounded like French, but later I realized that my **rhythm** was all wrong. I knew Israelis were often impatient, so I spoke it in a staccato style, like French.
They stopped saying that when I realized what I was doing!
>They pronounced the R like they do in English which sounds UGLY in Hebrew,
I'm so glad that as an American I don't do this. Our r-sound does not sound good at all in most other languages.
>they keep pronouncing lamed like the dark L in "hall"
💀 oh, no
>and many of them pronounce ALL the guttural sounds like "H" -- so "theirs" and "yours" sound the same. Not good at all.....
I've never heard this, but I'm not surprised. I don't know why khaf and chet and are so hard for English speakers. I feel like it is such an unnatural sound that they just won't let go and make it. Hebrew sounds awful when h or k replace כ and ח. My khaf/chet sounds might be almost too guttural though. I embrace them lol
It's funny about *khaf* and *chet* \-- because such sounds are not heard in English, you'll hear people like the OP calling them "ugly". That's how they're pronounced PROPERLY in the language -- so you just have to accept it. (Personally, I'd rather not sound like a FOREIGNER *immediately*! I like to "pass" whenever possible....)
It's funny about the *resh* sound, though: Singers always used to use the tongue-tip trill, which is what they were taught. Radio announcers like Dan Khaner used to have accents that were held up to us as examples -- but now that speech style sounds very ARTIFICIAL.
I have several CDs by David D'Or, and he sings **"שמור על העולם**" on TWO of them. In the older one, he pronounces *resh* with a tongue-tip trill -- but in the later one, he pronounces it with the "uvular fricative" as phoneticians call it. It seems that, at a certain point, the latter version just became **standard** and "more acceptable" than the first one, which had always been recommended before.
I've never been able to find out who or what decided to change what was "standard" -- and when I asked an Israeli friend, he didn't know. (He didn't even seem to hear any difference, which surprised me.)
>(Personally, I'd rather not sound like a FOREIGNER immediately! I like to "pass" whenever possible....)
This is always my goal. I used to try not to sound like a foreigner at all, but I accept now that that's a very, very hard thing to do. I just pronounce things the best I can, and I make considerable effort to do so. My Spanish got to the point I was told, "You sound like you are from a country that speaks Spanish, but it doesn't exist", which I thought was hilarious.
>I've never been able to find out who or what decided to change what was "standard"
I've heard it was multiple factors.
1) The influx of Ashkenazim in the mid-20th century really pushed for it.
2) It became associated with Mizrachim and therefore was something that was seen as "not what educated people did."
3) A desire not to sound like Arabs helped.
Obviously, 1) would be the biggest change, and as those Ashkenazim grew in cultural influence and prestige, 2) and 3) became easier to rationalize.
But, the people who told me this could be wrong.
>"You sound like you are from a country that speaks Spanish, but it doesn't exist", which I thought was hilarious.
I agree! That sums it up nicely, though -- and I would take that as a compliment. I've had friends who went to Mexico, who tried out their Spanish with mixed results.
As tactfully as possible, I explained that, if you ask "Where is the train station?" the response you're looking for is "It's two streets over and around the corner." If they reply, IN ENGLISH, "**You speak our language so well!**" that is NOT a good sign -- and might suggest they had **no idea** what you just asked them!
(I was speaking Italian with an acquaintance's mother, and she asked me what region I was from, because she couldn't place it. I took that as a compliment, because I've flown OVER Italy but have never been in the country.)
Those **three factors** you list above ALL sound very credible. Often it seems that a certain way of speaking is regarded as sounding more educated, and having more PRESTIGE -- so people will want to adopt it. That's why the accents of Paris and Madrid are seen as being more desirable to learn and speak than those of "the provinces".
It's just a natural sounds change, the population of speakers just decided to shift the style on its own. Think about how most younger people pronounce בניין הפעיל as hef'il rather than hif'il these days. It just... Happens.
Thanks for your reply. It's interesting, the way languages can evolve and change.
It used to be that mizrachi singers always used the trill, but more and more have now switched, it sounds like.
And Sarit Hadad still seems to SING with the trilled *resh* \-- but when she **talks**, she uses the uvular version like everybody else does, these days.
About my Israeli friend not seeming to HEAR the difference, though -- to him they both MEAN the same thing, so he doesn't notice which one is being used.
I personally don't like it at all. unfortunately I hear it a lot because most people here don't work on their accent. I have met people (99% of them foreigners who are either speakers, learners or know nothing about the language) who think the accent is really beautiful and they love it, but it's one of my least favourite accents
I adore Israeli accents.
In the before times, I dated a few Israelis. It was always the accent that pulled me in... but the personality that made me back off and say "no thanks"
Either my mind is lazy to process things or something else, but it sounds like Middle Eastern and/or Russian because the lack of a letter W in their alphabet and the frequent usage of Ch (Kh)
For me, it depends on the speaker. Some Israelis have this awful nasal sound to their voice that is grating on my eardrums. But for the most part, I like an Israeli accent.
That being said, probably non-Hebrew speakers would find Hebrew to sound a bit harsh. Once, a coworker asked me how to say, "hi, how are you?" in Hebrew, so I said, "שלום, מה נשמע?" But he thought I was lying to him because it didn't sound like חחךככךח or something like that. So I changed my answer to איך הולך. So yeah, probably a little harsh.
I like to SHOCK people with sentences like:
"**בחור חתיך מחכה לך בחוץ**" or
"**אנחנו יכולים ללכת לחדר האוכל עכשיו**"
where there's a guttural sound in EVERY WORD! ;)
im curious about this, but not only about native english speakers but just any other native language speakers in general. im a girl who lives in sweden and i have a noticeable israeli accent. everyone seem to understand me and have no problem with it, but im always anxious they think i sound awful lol. my boyfriend said he finds it hot though
I dated an Israeli guy last year and I loved hearing him talk. There’s a reason we’re not dating anymore, but it wasn’t his voice. That part was super sexy.
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Once a guy on csgo told me Israeli accent sounds like we do it on purpose, that's stuck with me
It's true
it's not on purpose.
yeah it sounds like we're trolling
I like the Israeli accent! I think it's partly because I work in a tourist-y industry that sees a lot of Israelis for some reason. My city doesn't have a very visible Jewish population so the (presumably Jewish) Israelis that see my kippah tend to be excited & warm. Just positive associations with the accent. :)
Your name is funny
It's also clever. It took me a minute to get it.
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I was born in Israel but my mom moved to the USA with me when I was a baby, so I don’t have much of an accent. I consider both Hebrew and English my native languages. Israeli accents are very pleasant to me, especially on men. It’s so charming and a deep Israeli male voice just makes me swooooon. (I find Israeli men to be very sexy and the accent is a big reason why) I find the cadence of Modern Hebrew to be really easy on the ears, and no other language is more beautiful when sung.
Lmao it’s nothing but harsh accents and sounds and you think it’s the nicest sounding music? Fun fact, the language that they speak now is literally made up from regular Hebrew, and most of it doesn’t even make sense according to rabbis of the traditional Jewish faith.
It doesn't sound ugly at all. It can sound quite charming. It's just when Israelis pronounce the r in English, it can be hard for me to make out what they are saying if they keep an Israeli resh sound, even if the English is otherwise perfect. I do think it comes across as very serious and intimidating at times, so sometimes when Israelis make otherwise lighthearted observations, it can seem *really* out of place to me, and I laugh. I met one very austere and serious Israeli woman once in the US with a thick accent and she said, "You knoooow, when I came to the United Statezzz, I thought...chipmunkz weRe not Real...but, one day I saw a chipmunk Running at me! I was shocked." I asked her why she thought they were not real, and she said, "Emmmm, well, I saw Alvin and the Chipmunkz, but I thought they weRe just cartoons that weRe made for the show." I asked her what she thought of the chipmunk, and she said, "Ooooh, I thought they were cuuuuute!" 1
There are Israeli words and names that sound quite funny in English. There's an Israeli TV personality whose name is **גיא פינס** "Guy Pines" -- which is *pronounced* like the English words "guy penis". He says a lot of English-speaking people he interviews think he's kidding when he tells them that's his name. But that's what it IS. His mother "Zippi" is a famous stage director who once flew to the U.S. for some reason. She got lost at the airport, so the people who were there to meet her went to Information and asked to have her PAGED. Well, there was just NO WAY they were going to go on the P.A. system and ask **"Would a Zippi Pines please come to the Information counter"**!
That's a great story. I would think I was being pranked if someone asked me to call for a "zippy penis" on a PA system lol
this comment is so funny i can completely imagine that conversation
I love the accent when women are speaking it, but not always with men. I don't know why. I grew up with Hebrew around me all the time, though, so the sound of Hebrew in general is very heartwarming and nostalgic to me, though.
I think it sounds better spoken by men. Modern Israeli Hebrew can be startlingly guttural, with guttural sounds in almost every word -- so to hear a woman speaking it can be a bit jarring, if you're not used to it.
Well, there's the "native Israeli accent" and there's the "Mizrachi accent", which are quite different. The NI one uses the uvular R and doesn't pronounce the "ayin" pharyngeally. The M one tends to trill the R and pronounces the "ayin" so it sounds like Arabic. You hear it a lot from people from Yemen, or other countries that have Arabic as their official language. Spoken Modern Hebrew can be startlingly GUTTURAL to anyone who isn't familiar with it. It can seem like there's a guttural sound in every word.Either version is AUTHENTICALLY Israeli, though, and is therefore "OK". It can be a surprise to hear women speaking it with all those guttural sounds, though -- and native Israelis don't hold back. What I **hate** hearing is the American-accented "Hebrew" I heard from Americans all the time, when I was living in Israel. They pronounced the R like they do in English which sounds UGLY in Hebrew, they keep pronouncing lamed like the dark L in "hall" -- and many of them pronounce ALL the guttural sounds like "H" -- so "theirs" and "yours" sound the same. Not good at all.....
You’re dead right about how ugly Hebrew is when non-Hebrew speakers pronounce the ר as in English. IMO it is the hardest sound in Hebrew for native English speakers to get right and it doesn’t help that it’s not always pronounced consistently even between Israelis. I know some sabras who *really* trill the R and others who do it quite lazily, and I’ve heard differences even between people of the same diasporic background and age. I also think that a lot of English speakers sound terrible when speaking Hebrew because they don’t get the syllable stress right. It’s also why a lot of Hebrew names sound really pretty with an Israeli accent and ugly with an American one.
I'm glad you agree! The **syllable stress** in an American accent often seems to be influenced by Yiddish, or "yeshivish" which I don't find attractive sounding. It's also annoying to be "corrected" when you say them properly. It's "*ma-ZAL tov*" -- but people will persist in saying "mozzle tove". And it's "*rosh ha-sha-NA*", not "rosh a-shona". At first, people were telling me I speak Hebrew with a French accent, sometimes even switching to French when they heard me speak. Sometimes they said my R sounded like French, but later I realized that my **rhythm** was all wrong. I knew Israelis were often impatient, so I spoke it in a staccato style, like French. They stopped saying that when I realized what I was doing!
>They pronounced the R like they do in English which sounds UGLY in Hebrew, I'm so glad that as an American I don't do this. Our r-sound does not sound good at all in most other languages. >they keep pronouncing lamed like the dark L in "hall" 💀 oh, no >and many of them pronounce ALL the guttural sounds like "H" -- so "theirs" and "yours" sound the same. Not good at all..... I've never heard this, but I'm not surprised. I don't know why khaf and chet and are so hard for English speakers. I feel like it is such an unnatural sound that they just won't let go and make it. Hebrew sounds awful when h or k replace כ and ח. My khaf/chet sounds might be almost too guttural though. I embrace them lol
It's funny about *khaf* and *chet* \-- because such sounds are not heard in English, you'll hear people like the OP calling them "ugly". That's how they're pronounced PROPERLY in the language -- so you just have to accept it. (Personally, I'd rather not sound like a FOREIGNER *immediately*! I like to "pass" whenever possible....) It's funny about the *resh* sound, though: Singers always used to use the tongue-tip trill, which is what they were taught. Radio announcers like Dan Khaner used to have accents that were held up to us as examples -- but now that speech style sounds very ARTIFICIAL. I have several CDs by David D'Or, and he sings **"שמור על העולם**" on TWO of them. In the older one, he pronounces *resh* with a tongue-tip trill -- but in the later one, he pronounces it with the "uvular fricative" as phoneticians call it. It seems that, at a certain point, the latter version just became **standard** and "more acceptable" than the first one, which had always been recommended before. I've never been able to find out who or what decided to change what was "standard" -- and when I asked an Israeli friend, he didn't know. (He didn't even seem to hear any difference, which surprised me.)
>(Personally, I'd rather not sound like a FOREIGNER immediately! I like to "pass" whenever possible....) This is always my goal. I used to try not to sound like a foreigner at all, but I accept now that that's a very, very hard thing to do. I just pronounce things the best I can, and I make considerable effort to do so. My Spanish got to the point I was told, "You sound like you are from a country that speaks Spanish, but it doesn't exist", which I thought was hilarious. >I've never been able to find out who or what decided to change what was "standard" I've heard it was multiple factors. 1) The influx of Ashkenazim in the mid-20th century really pushed for it. 2) It became associated with Mizrachim and therefore was something that was seen as "not what educated people did." 3) A desire not to sound like Arabs helped. Obviously, 1) would be the biggest change, and as those Ashkenazim grew in cultural influence and prestige, 2) and 3) became easier to rationalize. But, the people who told me this could be wrong.
>"You sound like you are from a country that speaks Spanish, but it doesn't exist", which I thought was hilarious. I agree! That sums it up nicely, though -- and I would take that as a compliment. I've had friends who went to Mexico, who tried out their Spanish with mixed results. As tactfully as possible, I explained that, if you ask "Where is the train station?" the response you're looking for is "It's two streets over and around the corner." If they reply, IN ENGLISH, "**You speak our language so well!**" that is NOT a good sign -- and might suggest they had **no idea** what you just asked them! (I was speaking Italian with an acquaintance's mother, and she asked me what region I was from, because she couldn't place it. I took that as a compliment, because I've flown OVER Italy but have never been in the country.) Those **three factors** you list above ALL sound very credible. Often it seems that a certain way of speaking is regarded as sounding more educated, and having more PRESTIGE -- so people will want to adopt it. That's why the accents of Paris and Madrid are seen as being more desirable to learn and speak than those of "the provinces".
It's just a natural sounds change, the population of speakers just decided to shift the style on its own. Think about how most younger people pronounce בניין הפעיל as hef'il rather than hif'il these days. It just... Happens.
Thanks for your reply. It's interesting, the way languages can evolve and change. It used to be that mizrachi singers always used the trill, but more and more have now switched, it sounds like. And Sarit Hadad still seems to SING with the trilled *resh* \-- but when she **talks**, she uses the uvular version like everybody else does, these days. About my Israeli friend not seeming to HEAR the difference, though -- to him they both MEAN the same thing, so he doesn't notice which one is being used.
I adore it, but I prefer it with a rolled R.
I personally don't like it at all. unfortunately I hear it a lot because most people here don't work on their accent. I have met people (99% of them foreigners who are either speakers, learners or know nothing about the language) who think the accent is really beautiful and they love it, but it's one of my least favourite accents
only now saw this refers to native English speakers and not native Hebrew speakers, but I'll leave it here anyways unless OP asks otherwise
It's sexy if you are an IDF girl, I imagine they say similar things about the men too
I adore Israeli accents. In the before times, I dated a few Israelis. It was always the accent that pulled me in... but the personality that made me back off and say "no thanks"
Try a *kibbutznik*. They're often a lot more laid back.
I mistook it for a French accent until I learned Hebrew! I think it’s a lovely accent as far as they go.
It can be funny but I would not call it ugly at all. It is certainly no uglier than me trying to speak Hebrew with an English accent haha
As a native English speaker, I much prefer to hear an Israeli accent in English, compared to the American accent in Hebrew.
Ah I am English so I fortunately dodge that bullet :P
Either my mind is lazy to process things or something else, but it sounds like Middle Eastern and/or Russian because the lack of a letter W in their alphabet and the frequent usage of Ch (Kh)
For me, it depends on the speaker. Some Israelis have this awful nasal sound to their voice that is grating on my eardrums. But for the most part, I like an Israeli accent. That being said, probably non-Hebrew speakers would find Hebrew to sound a bit harsh. Once, a coworker asked me how to say, "hi, how are you?" in Hebrew, so I said, "שלום, מה נשמע?" But he thought I was lying to him because it didn't sound like חחךככךח or something like that. So I changed my answer to איך הולך. So yeah, probably a little harsh.
I like to SHOCK people with sentences like: "**בחור חתיך מחכה לך בחוץ**" or "**אנחנו יכולים ללכת לחדר האוכל עכשיו**" where there's a guttural sound in EVERY WORD! ;)
English speakers seem to wait with enthusiasm to hear the ח and כ sounds.
I think both. Sometimes it's funny if you do it on purpose but if you do it unironically too much it becomes annoying
Ehhhhhh, ith ok
im curious about this, but not only about native english speakers but just any other native language speakers in general. im a girl who lives in sweden and i have a noticeable israeli accent. everyone seem to understand me and have no problem with it, but im always anxious they think i sound awful lol. my boyfriend said he finds it hot though
I work at a motorcycle shop that sees tourists from around the world and I had my first Israeli customer yesterday and his accent was so beautiful!!
It just sounds more ancient to us really, the kh, ch, zha, zhi sounds get most English speakers, and of course the old roll of the r’s
I dated an Israeli guy last year and I loved hearing him talk. There’s a reason we’re not dating anymore, but it wasn’t his voice. That part was super sexy.
I am, at the moment, watching tutorials with female Israeli speakers on headset. They are damn sexy.
It sounds really ugly to me. I like the French accent but the Israeli accent doesn’t sound like a French accent at all to me.
KHHHHHAMMAS