Native speakers of Yiddish here or Yiddish learners interested in exchange about the language?

[Timothi]

Hi folks,
I have started learning Yiddish on Duolingo about a month ago. It is a really fun language. Sounds cute sometimes. When I finally had managed to read all Hebrew Letters correctly, I was so impressed , how easy understandable in reading and writing this language is for me being a native speaker of German in Austria. Most impressed was I because of severel words that are said today almost the same way in dialects in parts of Austria, like עפּעס or אונדזער . Both words are almost the same in my own dialect èppas inser.
Since the new Netflix mini series Unorthodox, Yiddish came more into focus recently. I didn't start learning the language because of the series however. Planning to watch it though soon.
So all in all, I thought there might be some other guys here with whom I can try chatting in Yiddish or simply talking about learning the language. And your experiences with it.
Yours
Timothi

 

[AlexB23]

Hi folks,
I have started learning Yiddish on Duolingo about a month ago. It is a really fun language. Sounds cute sometimes. When I finally had managed to read all Hebrew Letters correctly, I was so impressed , how easy understandable in reading and writing this language is for me being a native speaker of German in Austria. Most impressed was I because of severel words that are said today almost the same way in dialects in parts of Austria, like עפּעס or אונדזער . Both words are almost the same in my own dialect èppas inser.
Since the new Netflix mini series Unorthodox, Yiddish came more into focus recently. I didn't start learning the language because of the series however. Planning to watch it though soon.
So all in all, I thought there might be some other guys here with whom I can try chatting in Yiddish or simply talking about learning the language. And your experiences with it.
Yours
Timothi

I do not speak Yiddish, but you could hire a tutor, if the price is affordable.

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

I've only learned Hebrew and not Yiddish, but I have read some Yiddish sentences on the Duolingo forum and it had me burst out laughing sometimes because it's so German. As you said, it's basically a German dialect written in Hebrew letters. Beste Geheimsprache ever

 

[Timothi]

You learned Hebrew over Duolingo? Tried that too, and failed quite quickly (see below), after I had started with Yiddish course.
Originally I wanted to learn the Alphabet better with the section learn the alphabet in the Hebrew course (that worked so far). My problem was that I made mistakes in the Yiddish course section "Learn the Alphabet" all the time, when one had to write a word in Latin letters. Phrases like אונ דער הײם in der haym or yeyde tokhter איידע טאָכטער, or zayer aangenem זײער אַנגענעמ, because I know and understand the words or phrases either from German or my own Dialect and would never ever write it like them. Back to Hebrew, I tried the first unit of section 1 and stopped in the middle of it. Don't know how you would learn Hebrew with Duolingo?. There are no vowel markings and of course I don't know any Hebrew vocabulary. Would this be guessing In the first few units?
However "Learn the letters" in Hebrew course is very good. I did the section in one week and it did help tremendously to read the Yiddish sentences in the exercises in the Yiddish course. It did take some time, but I am getting better and better in reading Yiddish.
And yes, I also have to laugh occasionally, especially when there is a sentence (mostly shorter sentences) which are again very similar to how I would Express myself in my own dialect.
I even think, if I would speak slowly my Dialect to a person knowing Yiddish, she would probably even understand me.

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

You are right, starting with Hebrew on Duolingo from scratch would be a nightmare - mainly because there is no grammar taught, so you'd have to deduce all the grammar rules yourself by trial and error. Since there are no vowel markings I did in fact look up every new word in the dictionary to see how it is pronounced. But I personally started learning Hebrew with the help of a book ("Ivrit - Schritt für Schritt") that's based on the Ulpan-courses Israeli immigrants use to get started with Hebrew. Only afterwards I began the Hebrew course on Duolingo, mainly in order to learn more vocabulary. So some words were familiar to me when I started on Duolingo, and most words I had to look up in the dictionary to see the vowel markers.

Now, since Hebrew is its very own language and not German like Yiddish, I of course didn't have the issue of having to transcript it into Latin letters. I can see from the examples you give there though that writing Yiddish in Latin letters is a pain Especially because you need to follow the ENGLISH phonetics like "z" in zayer instead of "s", or "y" in yeyde instead of "j".

 

[Timothi]

I'll certainly have a look at the book, sounds interesting. Thank you.
I have bought the book by Eyal Noyman "Alefbet - Das hebräische Alphabet für künftige Hebräisch-Profis". (Here his webpage and online shop Shop - EasyHebrew) He seems to be a good teacher and has a Hebrew language school in Jerusalem but also offers online courses, where he and his team communicate and learn with you in video calls. He also has a second book "Hebräisch mal Tacheles" Which looks good as a learning sources as well.

Oh yes, writing in Yiddish as a German native speaker is a pain. Even more in the offical YIVO (https://yivo.org/Yiddish-Alphabet) transliteration method. At least writing (Hebrew and Latin letters) is standardized by them though. However, I am not really interested in writing Yiddish neither in Hebrew letters, nor Latin Letters anyway at the Moment. I am more interested in reading Jewish literature. Yiddish literature has been rich up to at least the early 20th century.
I did however make a chart of the Hebrew computer keyboard and noted down how to make the signs needed for Yiddish, like אַ פֿ װ or ײַ . And practiced blind writing. I am planning to finish the Duolingo course first and then see how I proceed with Hebrew. Maybe I'll have a look at your book recommendation as well and then try with Duolingo.

Interesting is also that the Hebrew words in Yiddish are sometimes spoken out completely different than in modern Hebrew

חשבונות yidd. keshbonyes hebr. keshbonot
שעה yidd. shuh hebr. shaah
שבת yidd. shabes hebr. shabat

and many more. Almost all hebrew words I believe.
I wonder if bilingual Jews whose mother tongue is Yiddish would pronounce the words in Yiddish or in modern Ivrit?
Same is true with recitating the Torah.
Very interesting knowledge nevertheless.

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

I see that Eyal Noyman's book has exercises as well, that's very good. Once you understood the Hebrew grammar, the Hebrew Duolingo course becomes quite accessible. All you might need to get started on Duolingo then would be a dictionary to look up the new words (I personally use the Hebrew-German/German-Hebrew dictionary by Prolog Verlag, but it seems that they don't print/sell it anymore...).

So you're interested in Yiddish literature? That's a very noble reason to learn the language! I admittely only learned Hebrew for fun and because I love Israel and its people, no practical reason really :/

The different pronunciation is indeed a thing, yes. There are two main variants of Hebrew pronunciation: Ashkenazi and Sephardi Hebrew. The Ashkenazi pronunciation (like ת being "s") is common in central and Eastern Europe - including Yiddish - whereas Sephardi Hebrew (like ת being "t") originated in Western Europe from where it spread to Northern Africa and the Middle East. Hence Sephardi Hebrew is the variant spoken in modern Israel today, making it distinct from the Yiddish pronunciation.

 

[Timothi]

Yes, literature. But I'd like to be able to read the Hebrew letters fluently first. But i also started learning Yiddish in Duolingo for fun, yes.

That's interesting I didn't know that modern ivrit followes the Sephardic pronunciation nor that the groups (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and mesrakhim) have different pronunciatios. I would have rather guessed for the mesrakhim pronunciation which is, I believe, most close to when Hebrew had been a living language? (Hebrew was in fact a dead language like Latin until the I believed 19th century, right?)

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

Yes, Hebrew was a dead language for a very long time - from around 200AD until the end of the 19th century. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda founded the Academy for the Hebrew Language in 1890 and published the first volume of his Hebrew dictionary in 1908. Since Ben-Yehuda was Russian I believe he spoke Ashkenazi Hebrew, but as the infamous Wikipedia explains:

"When Eliezer Ben-Yehuda drafted his Standard Hebrew language, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was the de facto spoken form as a lingua franca in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be the most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects."

 

[tampasteve]

Duolingo for Hebrew was impossible for me, for the reasons mentioned above. I find the app Drops as well as Rosetta Stone to be infinitely better for Hebrew from scratch.