Customer Reviews

The Dictionary Of Popular Yiddish Words, Phrases And Proverbs

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having grown up in the southern part of Austria in an environment in which Yiddish words were frequently integrated into our everyday German, through this dictionary I was finally able to learn and figure out what all these words actually meant. There's also a small pronunciation guide included, but it can help tremendously if you know at least some German to better understand Yiddish. For my part, I didn't have a problem at all with pronunciation of the Yiddish words. You'll also find 1001 Yiddish proverbs with English translations in this dictionary, and it's fun to go through these mostly one liners. I find this dictionary extensive enough to research and learn at least some basic Yiddish as it also features short sentences. It's a lot of fun to read through it, but it's also very interesting, and everybody interested in languages as well as every fiction and nonfiction writer should have this dictionary, ... it's the best resource on this subject that I've found so far.

These three books in one are wonderful and have kept me intrigued and learning for over a year now. There's always a new word or phrase to learn or a joke to laugh at, again and again. I give this book to friends who are just beginning the study and appreciation of Yiddish.

We would consider it generous to award this book one star. 1) We have never before seen a dictionary which did not offer assistance with pronounciation. 2) We have been unable to locate many words in common usage. (Perhaps the most common, Chanukah.) Perhaps we were expecting another Leo Rosten. We were very disappointed.

I bought this as a lark for "Christmas" for a jewish friend. A year later he was still quoting from it. Haven't read it myself, but apparently it's filled with lots of entertaining and informative Yiddish-isms.