ISTM that the majority of Israelis that appear in English speaking TV interviews have what sounds an American accent. Have most of them been educated in America? Or does an Israeli accent just happened to sound similar to an American?
Many Israelis have ties to the US including Netanyahu who was Israeli born but lived in Philadelphia and returned to the US after his military service to attend university.
Gal Gadot is the reason why the Amazons in the current Wonder Woman franchise have the accent they do.
I have Israeli friends with many accents , but I would say (not having actually been to Israel) that the quintessential accent is shown in the Netflix series “Fauda”. It is filmed almost entirely in Hebrew and Arabic, but occasionally an English phrase appears.
The sound of of the Jewish actors speaking Hebrew (and, to be honest, Arabic) is not really much different from the accents of a number of my friends and acquaintances who grew up in Israel when they speak English.
It is a really good series, as long as you accept the premise that the Israelis are the “good guys”, but there is a lot of balance showing both sides are pretty shit. It is not a feel-good whitewash of the conflict. Pretty gritty and harsh treatment.
My guess is that the primary source of non-native English teachers would be Americans, considering that there is such a large American Jewish community.
That, and I’d also bet the largest contingent of native English speakers in Israel is probably American Jews who emigrated there.
Combine those two, and it would make a lot of sense that the Israeli English accent would be highly American.
As an aside, we often don’t realize just how American-accented foreign immigrants’ English accents are. I was surprised when I went to a Chinese restaurant in the UK, that the Chinese people’s accented English sounded as much British as it did like a non-native speaker’s. I had naively assumed that the main driver of the non-native English speaker’s accent was their own native language, not the accent of the language they’re trying to speak.
This, but even more importantly: Israelis watch a lot of American movies and TV shows, with subtitles. Dubbing is only used in kids’ cartoons.
I’ve lived in Israel. I wouldn’t say most Israelis’ English-language accents sound American.
True - but it sounds more American than it does English.
When I met my (Israeli) wife, she spoke English with a nondescript British accent, her anglophile mother having raised her on a diet of BBC dramas. After she started spending time with my New Jersey-raised parents, though, her accent shifted, and now her accent is basically Israeli-American.
Marina Sirtis has said that she based her accent as Deanna Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation on her perception of Israeli accents. I don’t know how accurately she got it, though.
Interesting - it always assumed it was from her Greek parents.
But her mother couldn’t be bothered.
Netanyahu is the first Israeli leader that I remember speaking with basically an American accent when speaking English. As noted above he spent a lot of time in America. His life was on a much different path before his brother was killed at Entebbe.
Are they so desperate for English teachers in Israel that they would hire someone who cannot demonstrate a BBC accent? On the other hand, 1) that does not mean every student will develop a perfect accent— I have met more than one Israeli who has an obvious Israeli accent speaking English; and 2) watch enough American/Australian/… TV and movies and that will influence the learner’s accent.
When I was in college, I took a chemistry class from a Spaniard who had immigrated to the US. He learned English in a part of Africa that had been colonized by the British; his English had a distinct British accent.
Nah, they mostly have people like my mom, who taught high school ESL in Haifa for 20 years, and who had an accent that I could probably define as “educated South Jersey.”
I’m not sure what you mean here - do you think a BBC accent is so valued that only desperation could lead to hiring teachers with American/Australia/Canadian accents or do you mean something else?
You are right that there is not necessarily any formally prescribed accent, even (these days) for BBC announcers! However, to teach students that do not know how to speak English the teacher should decide beforehand on a model accent, and (I am assuming) demonstrate ability/experience in helping students with their pronunciation.
By “BBC accent” I think the really desired characteristic is that it be a “neutral” accent that will be readily understood by any English speaker in the world, not so regional that people outside a certain city will find it incomprehensible. So “educated South Jersey” (no idea what that sounds like) might be OK; the days when the BBC mandated Received Pronunciation are in the past.
Think Tina Fey.
Very few Israelis have any “ties to the U.S.” of such significance. The number of current residents of Israel who were born in or have spent significant time residing in the U.S. is probably around 1% of the population. Projecting from Netanyahu’s experience is about as valid as saying that the average Israeli is the prime minister of the country. There is a belief among certain political circles that Israelis are all “guys from Brooklyn” and such, which is simply not true.
Israel does, however, have accelerating cultural and economic ties to the U.S., for various reasons, and a simple combination of the fact that English is commonly spoken there & American media is a major force in the world explains the accent.
Tina Fey grew up in Pennsylvania.
Same accent. The DelCo accent is prevalent in the Philly/Delaware County area as well as across the river in South Jersey. It’s literally just a few miles away.
To be fair, mom was from Atlantic City, which is a bit further away - but it’s still basically the same accent.