Yiddish is becoming a lot of attention lately, but please stop assuming that it is a ´dead language´ or that we are experiencing a ´revival´. Yiddish was always here and in the last decades was more than alive and kicking so well. It´s only that the non-religious, often non-Jewish, public is becoming interested in it and I don´t see anything bad in this phenomenon. Only that it´s more appropriate to have the proper historical context about this situation.
In the last months, everyone is talking about the much praised Duolingo Yiddish and hopefully once I will be at the end of the course myself, I will be able to provide my modest point of view. However, there are many other ways in which Yiddish can be learned: by using the classical books and eventually an old notebook and a pen. That´s how I learn most of my languages and I will never get disappointed by my method - which I alternate with other e-formats because it´s good for the learning cause.
My First Yiddish Word Book published by one of my favorite Jewish edition house, Kar-Ben Publishing is an excellent support for both children, parents, new adepts of the Yiddish language as well as teachers. It has one of the features I always appreciate by a language learning book: it offers the right vocabulary aimed to describe certain situations, organised on topics and with the bare minimum that can be used in various contexts and conversations. You can create your visual cards and create topics of conversations around the various subjects, covering, among others, the seasons, the playground, description of the human body, of the house and some of the rooms, the family etc.
It offers a cute visual support as well, which at least for pre-school and first grade children is very important to keep the attention awake. Another good point of the book is that it provides both the Latin reading of the words, besides the English translation and the Yiddish variant.
At the end of the reading, one can consider him/herself an Yiddish basic connoisseur and this is more than enough for a steady beginning of learning a language.
Definitely a recommended read to all those who love Yiddish at least as much as I do.
Rating: 5 stars
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