Don't call it a comeback, we've been here for YEARS - ThreadSky

joshuaraclaw.com • 39 days ago

Don't call it a comeback, we've been here for YEARS

Reposted from Allegra

Yiddish is making a comeback

one.npr.org/i/nx-s1-5346...

Comments

lwballard.bsky.social•39 days ago

I remember a professor telling me it would go extinct before I was fifty… whelp

joshuaraclaw.com•39 days ago

כ׳װעל דיך נאָקאַוטירן

msjennimiller.bsky.social•39 days ago

what's the best way to learn Yiddish if your grasp of the Hebrew alphabet is shaky at best?

leelacorman.bsky.social•39 days ago

I have the same question, and, nonexistent Hebrew.

joshuaraclaw.com•39 days ago

I like the Colloquial Yiddish textbook for this a lot, since it starts you off with transliterated Yiddish alongside the same text written in the Hebrew alphabet. But in terms of reading Yiddish, the thing that helped the most was just printing out an alef-beys chart and having it right at my desk

joshuaraclaw.com•39 days ago

I found it had a weird learning curve because once you get the basics, it's a really handy alphabet because for most words a single letter always makes a single sound! ש is always shhh and ױ is always oyyy*

*in my dialect

adrianshort.uk•39 days ago

My suggestion is get into the handwriting (cursive Hebrew) as soon as possible. Build up the muscle memory from writing the letters, not just reading or typing them.

Copying out words, sentences, lyrics and poems is a good place to start. And keep that chart handy.

alte.klezmor.im•39 days ago

For me who tried various methods (online courses, self study from textbooks, listening to podcasts in yiddish) Duolingo helped me with reading the alphabet fluently. YMMV but it really worked with the way my memory works or something. I went from sounding out words to being able to skim sentences

nabalkattu.bsky.social•39 days ago

The nice thing about how Yiddish uses Hebrew is it's *much* more straightforward than ancient Hebrew itself, which has a pretty wonky vowel system. I've seen a number of people have success w Duolingo and places like Yivo have multiple formats for study.

msjennimiller.bsky.social•39 days ago

Duolingo helped me learn the aleph bet, but I got lost with sentences because Duolingo doesn't use niqqud. I just need to brush up on it before getting too spicy with Yiddish (since letters/pronunciation are similar but different!).

leelacorman.bsky.social•39 days ago

Attempting this now.