Beginner I Yiddish (In-person)

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)

This class meets weekly in person at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York City. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (syllabus, handouts, assignments, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website.

Instructor: Yankl-Peretz Blum

Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who are new to Yiddish or would like a review.

What topics will this class cover?
This course helps students acquire the basics of Yiddish in a friendly and interactive manner, through a combination of the YiddishPOP website and the teacher's own visual materials. By the end of the course, students will have acquired a vocabulary of over 200 words and the ability to form sentences in the present tense. The natural approach used in the course helps students to acquire Yiddish in a way similar to that in which they learned their first language — by making direct connections between a word and its meaning in a communicative context. This course is appropriate for those who have zero knowledge of the language, as well as those who already know “a bisl” Yiddish but would like to start from scratch. The Yiddish alphabet is also taught systematically throughout the course, so that by the end the students have been introduced to the basics of Yiddish literacy.

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
No, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is not required. However, students who have no prior experience with reading and writing the Yiddish or Hebrew alphabets are highly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Yiddish alphabet before class, as the course will move at a fast pace. The tools and videos provided here will be helpful in getting a handle on reading and writing the alef-beys, and are designed for independent use.

Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

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Yankl-Peretz Blum began teaching himself Yiddish while a college student in California. He’s been on the board of Yugntruf — Youth for Yiddish since 2006 and was active in the Yiddish Farm since its founding in 2011. He began teaching Yiddish in 2007 and has taught classes at the Yiddish Farm, YIVO, Worker’s Circle, Yiddish Summer Weimar, Yidish Ort, Paris Yiddish Center, and Yugntruf. He has an MA in Linguistics from CUNY Graduate Center and helps develop the website YiddishPOP.com. He speaks Yiddish at home with his wife and two children in the Bronx, where the children attend the Yiddish-language daycare "Enge-Benge Land." He spends his free time learning languages.

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