Yiddish #4

Last lesson, we learned how to conjugate verbs in the present tense.

With this skill, you can easily form the future tense, which is formed by conjugating װעלן/veln/will (it’s not really a verb, more of a particle, but for explanation’s sake, let’s call it a verb) in the appropriate person in the present tense, then adding it to the infinitive of a verb. This may all sound complicated, but once we get around the complex lingo, it’s really quite simple. Be warned, though, that װעלן/veln is irregular in the third-person singular (װעט/vet), second-person singular (װעסט/vest), and second-person plural (װעט/vet). So let’s look at a few examples:
װעט ער קומען?|Vet er kumen?|Will he come?
איך װעל עסן װעטשערע|Ikh vel esn vetshere.|I will eat dinner.
צום באַדױערן, װעסטו (װעסט דו) נישט זײַן דאָ.|Tsum badoyrn, vestu (vest du) nisht zayn do.|Unfortunately, you won’t be here.
(We will learn in a later lesson why דו/du and װעסט/vest switched places in that sentence, I promise.)

Wasn't that easy?

Now let's look at some other ways you can use your knowledge of the present tense to put together some sentences. The verbs קענען/kenen/to be able to, װילן/viln/to want to (see bottom for a note on this verb's conjugation), and גײן/geyn/to go can be put directly before a verb to create a compound verb of sorts:
דו קענסט זינגען זײער שײן.|Du kenst zingen zeyer sheyn.|You can sing very beautifully.
איך גײ שלאָפֿן צו שפּעט.|Ikh gey shlofn tsu shpet.|I go to sleep too late. (Too true!)
ער װיל שרײַען אױף מיר!|Er vil shrayen oyf mir!|He wants to yell at me!

Be sure not to use the word צו/tsu in these phrases to say "to [verb]" - that is implied in the infinitive form; צו/tsu is used as a preposition (in the sense of "to") and an adverb (in the sense of "too" - hence צו שפּעט|tsu shpet|too late).

OK, I lied, צו/tsu is used in other situations, such as saying "to love/like to do something." In this case, the verb "to love/like" is ליב האָבן/lib hobn (literally, to have love). To say that you love something, you conjugate האָבן/hobn (it follows the same irregularity pattern as װעלן/veln/will - see above), put ליב/lib after that, then צו/tsu, then the infinitive of the verb.
Yup, that sounds pretty complicated, but again, it's simple once you get past the technical lingo:
דו האָסט ליב צו קוקן אױף טעלעװיזיע.|Du host lib tsu kukn oyf televizie.|You like to watch (literally, look at) TV.
איך האָב ליב צו טון מײַן הײמאַרבעט.|Ikh hob lib tsu tun mayn heymarbet.|I love to do my homework. (Ya rite!)
זײ האָבן ליב צו באַקן אַ טאָרט.|Zey hobn lib tsu bakn a tort.|They like to bake a cake.

*װילן/viln/to want is conjugated in the present tense normally except in the third-person singular, where it is װיל/vil, not װילט/vilt.

Let's go back to the basics and cover some of the more primary stuff.

Yiddish #3

Last lesson, we learned how to conjugate the verb זײַן/zayn/to be in the present tense. Now, let’s see how most other verbs in the present tense are conjugated. The endings are as follows, and I’ll use the verb זינגען/zingen/to sing as an example:

איך/ikh/I: chop off the verb ending (ען/en or simply ן/n) -> זינג/zing
דו/du/you: same as איך/ikh, then add on סט/st -> זינגסט/zingst
ער־זי־עס/er-zi-es/he-she-it: same as איך/ikh, then add on ט/t -> זינגט/zingt
מיר־זײ/mir-zey/we-they: same as איך/ikh, then add on ען/en -> זינגען/zingen

איר/ir/you (pl.): same as איך/ikh, then add on ט/t -> זינגט/zingtSo let’s look at a few conjugations:

זען/zen/to see
איך/ikh/I: זע/ze
דו/du/you: זעסט/zest
ער־זי־עס/er-zi-es/he-she-it: זעט/zet
מיר־זײ/mir-zey/we-they: זעען/zeen
איר/ir/you (pl.): זעט/zet

זאָגן/zogn/to say
איך/ikh/I: זאָג/zog
דו/du/you: זאָגסט/zogst
ער־זי־עס/er-zi-es/he-she-it: זאָגט/zogt
מיר־זײ/mir-zey/we-they: זאָגן/zogn
איר/ir/you (pl.): זאָגט/zogt

עסן/esn/to eat
איך/ikh/I: עס/es
דו/du/you: עסט/est
ער־זי־עס/er-zi-es/he-she-it: עסט/est
מיר־זײ/mir-zey/we-they: עסן/esn
איר/ir/you (pl.): עסט/est

Basic conjugation in the present tense.

You might be asking yourself what the heck happened with that last verb. Shouldn’t the conjugation for דו/du/you be עססט/esst? Well, yes, but since Yiddish usually doesn’t double up on consonants, we drop the second ס/s. Similar changes occur in verbs ending in ט/t, such as בײַטן/baytn/to change, where the third-person conjugation is בײַט/bayt, instead of בײַטט/baytt.

Here are some verbs for you to learn so you can start making sentences on your own!
האָבן/hobn=to have
גײן/geyn=to go
קומען/kumen=to come
פֿילן/filn=to feel
לױפֿן/loyfn=to run
רעדן/redn=to speak
לערנען/lernen=to learn
That’s all for now.

Ready to move on to some harder stuff and put your conjugal skills (just kidding, I guess I should say conjugational) to use? Click here!

Yiddish #2

Again, a disclaimer that I'm a high school student and a native speaker of Yiddish, not a professional Yiddish teacher. If you know Yiddish from home, you might conjugate things a bit differently, or use different words than the ones written here. Feel free to challenge me on something.

OK, now that you've got down your basics, we can start with some conjugations. A conjugation means how words change based on other factors in a sentence. For example, you would say "She goes swimming," but "they go swimming." The ends of the words change based, in this case, on the subject of the sentence. It works the same way in Yiddish.
So let's see how you conjugate a verb in Yiddish. Most verbs in Yiddish are conjugated (in the present tense) in the same way, which we will cover next lesson, except for one verb that we will be covering this lesson: זײַן, zayn, to be. This is how it's conjugated:
איך בין | Ikh bin. | I am.
דו ביסט | Du bist. | You are.
ער/זי/עס איז | Er/Zi/Es iz. | He/She/It is.
מיר/זײ זײַנען | Mir/Zey zaynen. | We/They are.
איר זײַט | Ir zayt. | You are. (This is either the plural "you" or the respectful "you.")

Let's see some examples:
דאָס בוך איז גרויס | Dos bukh iz groys. | The book is big.
פֿאַר װאָס בין איך הונגעריק | Far vos bin ikh hungerik? | Why am I hungry? (Yes, I meant to say that.)
דו ביסט זײער הויך | Du bist zeyer hoykh. | You are very tall.
איר זײַט גרײט | Ir zayt greyt. | You (pl.) are ready.

So now that you've seen how to put together some basic sentences (the sentence structure so far is identical to English) using the pronouns and conjugations of זײַן/zayn, to be, why don't you check out these adjectives and see if you can do it for yourself:
גרויס/קלײן | groys/kleyn | big/small
גוט/שלעכט | gut/shlekht | good/bad
הויך/נידעריק | hoykh/niderik | tall/short (in height)
לאַנג/קורץ | lang/kurts | long/short (in length)

And how about some nouns so you can be creative:
דער מאַן | der man | man
די פֿרוי | di froy | woman
דאָס ייִנגל | dos yingl | boy
דאָס מײדל | dos meydl | girl
דער טאָג | der tog | day
די נאַכט | di nakht | night
דאָס בוך | dos bukh | book
דאָס ליד | dos lid | song
Note about the pronouns: every noun in Yiddish has a gender, and therefore an article (such as "the" in English): די/di/the (f.), דער/der/the (m.), or דאָס/dos/the (diminutive or neuter). But don't freak out - we'll talk about this in later lessons. For now, don't worry so much about it, but I will provide the article for every noun I write so you can use it correctly in sentences.

Start conjugating verbs!

Yiddish #1

Beginner's Yiddish (אָנהײבער ייִדיש)

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a licensed yiddish teacher, so don't take everything written here for truth. You can be pretty sure, though, that most of what you see here is generally correct... If there are any mistakes, please let me know.

Yiddish is very hard to learn.
Yiddish is much easier to learn than people make it out to be.
Yiddish is a germanic language with a german vocabulary base that borrows heavily from hebrew, slavic (russian, polish) languages, romance (spanish, french) languages, and english too. so if you know any of these, you probably know a lot more yiddish vocabulary than you think.

OK so first things first, you don't necessarily have to be able to read Hebrew characters to learn Yiddish with me, although in the coming notes I will write everything out in Hebrew and English characters. But since most of you can already read Hebrew, you might as well learn how to read Yiddish with the Hebrew alphabet. Yiddish is written with the Hebrew alphabet, which reads from right to left, with a few modifications.

Yiddish alphabet (click for better resolution)

If you already know Hebrew, then I’ll just lay out the basic differences between the Hebrew and the Yiddish alphabet:

1. Vowels are completely different from Hebrew. Vowels are freestanding letters or letter combinations. Yiddish does not use dots or dashes, over or under a consonant, to indicate a vowel. The only dots or dashes used on consonants are to indicate hard or soft, e.g. P vs. F (פּ/פֿ)


2. Consonants are largely the same, but pay close attention to when dots and dashes are used to indicate hard and soft (yes, it's tedious because the system is inconsistent, but that's what YIVO decided, so live with it). For example, P (פּ) has a dot and F (פֿ) has a dash, whereas K (כּ) has a dot but Kh (כ) has no dash.


3. Note that the sounds Tsh, Dzh/J, and Zh are not modified letters like in Hebrew (צ׳ ,ג׳ ,ז׳), but rather consonant clusters which come together to form the sound, e.g. Dzh/J (דזש) = D (ד) + Z (ז) + Sh (ש).

Once you learn this, we can move on to some basic grammar and vocabulary.