Party In The USA

Part of my volunteering includes planning English lessons for the Ethiopian girls at Youth Futures. It’s hard to think like a 12 year old even more an Israeli 12 year old. For this week’s lesson, the trustee I work with, Hofit, recommended I pick a popular American song to translate into Hebrew. Picking the ideal song was quite the feat. First let me note that almost every pop culture song mentions topics that I don’t want to bring to the attention of 12-year-old girls. Second most songs include slang that don’t translate into Hebrew well.
After looking up countless lyrics, I came across Miley Cryrus, Party in the USA. She’s popular, but does she appeal to a too young audience? Over the past year, Miley has gone from looking like a cute 14-year-old Hannah Montana to a Britney Spears in the making. Watch out Billy Ray!



Three girls attended the Youth Future’s session. We began by playing the music video which included the lyrics. This was followed by going over every word of every line in the song. The process was severely slowed down by all the slang words and American references. Phrases such as “It’s definitely not a Nashville party cause all I see is stilettos” took a bit of time to explain. First, I pulled up a map of the USA and pointed out Tennessee and explained what it symbolizes (country music, slower lifestyle, etc). Second, I found an image of a stiletto and described what the shoe represents. Lyrics I would not think twice about such as “hoppin on a flight” or “my tummys turning” brought about confused looks from the girls. Not having the Hebrew vocab to clarify the lyrics, I was thankful to have the Internet handy to show visuals of the words. The girls enjoyed the lesson and ended the afternoon with replaying the music video numerous times and creating their own dance. Final note…children all over the world sing American lyrics with little clue about what the lyrics mean or stand for; would they still be singing them if they understood the symbolism?