Neil_UK Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5215 days ago 50 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto, Welsh Studies: Polish, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, Scottish Gaelic, French
| Message 1 of 7 06 February 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
Can anyone recommend some good resources for learning Yiddish?
Thanks.
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Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5552 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes
| Message 2 of 7 06 February 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
There is an excellent German book: Einführung in die jiddische Sprache und Kultur by Marion Aptroot. It is written completely in Jiddish, but explains everything step by step.
There is also a new, quite nice ASSIMIL course: Le Yiddish.
If you are looking for dictionaries, buy יידיש-פראנצייזיש ווערטערבוך (Dictionnaire Yiddish-Français) by Yitskhok Niborski. It is by far better than the "Modern Yiddish-English Dictionary" written by Uriel Weinreich. The latter would be in your native language and is non bad either.
You can buy new reprints at the National Yiddish Book Centre or antiquarian books at Hollander Books.
If you are interested in audio books, the National Yiddish Book Centre and the newspaper פֿאָרווערטס offers several. Said Forverts is also the best high-quality newspaper. And of course hear every Shabbat The Forward hour.
Edited by Cabaire on 06 February 2012 at 11:34pm
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akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5361 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh
| Message 3 of 7 07 February 2012 at 10:01am | IP Logged |
Books :
The Assimil course is a very good one.
In English, you can use Weinreich's College Yiddish. It has been the standard textbook for the past decades but I find it incredibly boring (although I usually am a big fan of the "old school"-grammar-centered textbooks) .
I also had the opportunity to give a look at Sheva Zucker's books. I haven't used them but they seem quite good.
Given that you know German, you'll soon be able to dive in the 10000 books offered by the NYBC.
Radio :
I made a post on Yiddish radio programs some time ago.
Internet :
There's a lot of Yiddish blogs (Yugntruf,Yiddish Farm, Katle Kanye, Sholem Berger), forums (Yidishe velt), newspapers (Forverts, Lebns-fragn) available on-line. Most of them (but not all) are by religious ultr-orthodox Jews, they being the largest/youngest Yiddish speaking group today.
Katle Kanye's blog is a really good one. The author, an anonymous khosid, has great writing skills. And his posts are so filled with Hebrew words/sentences, religious references that it shows how far Yiddish can be from German.
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geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian
| Message 4 of 7 09 February 2012 at 11:22pm | IP Logged |
To be clear, with the exception of Katle Kanye and ivelt, none of the resources listed here are really from the Hasidic world. But check out www.aneias.com and www.blettel.com (which ARE).
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geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian
| Message 5 of 7 09 February 2012 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
Also, there is a new "Colloquial" series Yiddish book. It's definitely aiming for a lower level than the Sheva Zucker books, but you can get some very basic audio with it, which is a little unique in my experience.
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zenmonkey Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6505 days ago 803 posts - 1119 votes 1 sounds Speaks: EnglishC2*, Spanish*, French, German Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew
| Message 7 of 7 14 February 2012 at 7:26am | IP Logged |
Here is my aunt's book as well as other resources
Arele - Yiddish workbook for beginners
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