Hebrew and Yiddish Super Cool Fun Time Yay!

[solocricket]

College Yiddish may be old, but it is still the best Yiddish textbook around - in my opinion.

As for Hebrew, you may have a look at the venerable audio-visual method Habet Ushma. The first edition dates back to 1969, but a second edition (in Russian) was published in 1989. In the 2000s this latter edition was digitalised for the US foreign service, and then published by Davka (information taken from the Hebrew explanation inside the app):
http://davka.com/index.php?route=product/search&search=habet%20ushma

Habet Ushma teaches you conversational Hebrew, and does not use vowel diacritics at all.

Davka has regular sales, so you may want to wait until the price gets down.

Screenshots of the Mac version:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/habet-ushma-plus/id445572804

Amazon review:
http://www.amazon.com/Habet-Ushma-Part-Judith-Cais/dp/0528995456

I'll definitely check that out. It seems like with Hebrew, it might be a good thing for me to combine many textbooks haha.

My obsession with Yiddish folksongs has apparently paid off, because pronunciation isn't too foreign for me, and I'm familiar with a lot of words (prepositions and whatnot). I might go into some of my favorite songs and define all the words or something.

If you love their folksongs, have you tried reading any Isaac Bashevis Singer? His stories are amazing.

Not yet, but thanks for the suggestion! I think I'll do a couple more chapters of College Yiddish before I start doing any real reading, but I'll keep those stories in mind.

[IronMike]

All his stories are translated into English, so no need to wait!

And having been raised by an Italian mother, I felt a certain kinship with the Yiddish/Jewish people. So much so that in Moscow during a dinner with an Israeli diplomat, his wife was telling stories of growing up with a Jewish mother, and they were so similar to my stories of growing up. We spoke at length and in the end decided that Jewish mothers and Italian mothers are basically the same!

Reading Singer reminds me of growing up (especially with my Italian grandparents).

[solocricket]

UPDATE

HEBREW:

Things are going quite well here! I've found some pretty great resources. I'm working through a shared Anki deck called 500 Common Hebrew Words (or something like that). Each card has an audio file of the word's pronunciation (while most words are emphasized on the final syllable, there are a HUGE number that aren't, and this fixes that problem!) and then the Hebrew text, romanization, and definition on the back. I'm doing around 40 cards a day, along with reps, so that's a big part of my studying.

As for listening practice, I've found high quality, non-region-locked Israeli television here: http://10tv.nana10.co.il/Category/?Cate ... 169&pid=58 . I love it when I don't have to put in a huge amount of effort finding input! I've also been listening to a science podcast called Making History with Ran, as well as several Spotify playlists (mostly by searching Hebrew or Israeli and finding whatever people have put together). All in all, this has been a productive Hebrew week and a half, after a slow start.

No big updates for Yiddish-- it's much of the same!

[geoffw]

So are you aware that Duolingo released the Hebrew course to beta a few days ago? Also, Assimil Hebrew is available with an English base nowadays, too.

[geoffw]

So are you aware that Duolingo released the Hebrew course to beta a few days ago? Also, Assimil Hebrew is available with an English base nowadays, too.

Oh, and Assimil Yiddish is also available for English speakers, IIRC. I always forget about that one.

[solocricket]

So are you aware that Duolingo released the Hebrew course to beta a few days ago? Also, Assimil Hebrew is available with an English base nowadays, too.

Yeah! I finished a lesson or two, but I've never been too much of a fan of Duolingo. I find it a little boring and I hate that I can't skip around different lessons On the other hand, it's a useful resource, so I may give it a serious go. The Assimil courses are a bit outside of my price range, so I don't think I'll be able to do that one right now...

[solocricket]

UPDATE!

HEBREW

I finished the 500 basic Hebrew words Anki deck! It was very helpful, but I think it was a little heavy on the food words at the expense of other common words (things like "because" or many verbs at all). The same person created a Hebrew phrases deck, so I think I'll try that one out next. I like the sound files and the roman transliteration of the words.

I've fallen a bit off the Yiddish wagon lately. Gotta keep at it!

[geoffw]

So are you aware that Duolingo released the Hebrew course to beta a few days ago? Also, Assimil Hebrew is available with an English base nowadays, too.

Yeah! I finished a lesson or two, but I've never been too much of a fan of Duolingo. I find it a little boring and I hate that I can't skip around different lessons On the other hand, it's a useful resource, so I may give it a serious go. The Assimil courses are a bit outside of my price range, so I don't think I'll be able to do that one right now...

I don't know what your price range is, but I suggest you go to schoenhofs.com right now and follow the link for Assimil courses there. They are currently on sale, the cheapest you will ever see them anywhere. They reduce the prices regularly there, I guess it's twice a year now?

Note: I don't see the packaged audio courses in stock for an English base for either HE/YI (EDIT: actually, Yiddish with Ease is on page 3), BUT you can get the English book for either for ~$15 each. You can also get "Le Yiddish" in French for about $30 including the Yiddish audio, and $30 for an Assimil course may be the greatest deal in the universe.

[zenmonkey]

Here is another Yiddish resource that just got published - https://www.memrise.com/course/1120518/ ... ith-audio/