Beginner I Conversational Yiddish for Heritage Learners (Sunday)

Tuition: $400 | YIVO members: $325**
Students: $215 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online course held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, 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. This class will be conducted in Yiddish and English.

Instructor: Reb Noyekh (Noah Barrera)

Who should take this course?
Students will be beginners who have had some exposure to Yiddish in their lives, and maybe know a word or expression or two, but lack the basics of grammar and vocabulary, which will be provided in this course. No knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required, as all written texts provided will be transliterated into Latin characters (and the focus of the course will be conversation as opposed to reading and writing). Likewise, no proficiency in Yiddish conversation is required.

What topics will this class cover?
The course will cover the first four chapters of Colloquial Yiddish. Students will construct their own conversations based on the dialogues in the book. Conversation topics will include: introducing yourself and others, asking how someone is, asking questions, talking about where you and others live (countries), the languages you speak, talking about what you like and dislike, the days of the week, describing where you live, and talking about visiting someone. The grammar covered in these conversations will include: pronouns, present tense verbs (regular and irregular), word order, negating verbs, question words, indefinite and definite articles, gender of nouns, 'there is' and 'there are', using adjectives, negating sentences with keyn, diminutives and iminutives, and plurals.

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
No, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is not required. All written texts provided will be transliterated into Latin characters (and the focus of the course will be conversation as opposed to reading and writing).

Course Materials:
This course will use the textbook Colloquial Yiddish by Lily Kahn (Purchase). The audio files for the textbook are available free of charge on the publisher's website here. The instructor will provide all other course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Reb Noyekh is a Yiddish educator, writer, translator, and YouTube content creator. A native of California, he began learning Yiddish at UC Santa Cruz where he majored in Jewish Studies. He later studied and taught in the YIVO zumer program for several years and coordinated and taught Yiddish language classes at Der Arbeter Ring in New York. His articles and original stories have appeared in the Yiddish Daily Forverts, Afn Shvel, and elsewhere. His academic translation, together with Nathaniel Deutsch, of Abraham Rechtman's ethnographic account of the Ansky expedition, will soon be published by Indiana University Press. Reb Noyekh is also a prolific YouTube content creator; together with his partner Gustavo Emos, he has created over 100 hours of Yiddish content on YouTube.

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