Customer Reviews

Drek!: The Real Yiddish Your Bubbe Never Taught You

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As one learns a langauge, knowing what "not to say" can be as important as knowing what you can say. In addition to the "colourful" Yiddish it will show you, this book includes many perfectly acceptable words and phrases for many occasions or places in the life of a Jew. It includes a brief synopsis of Yiddish grammar as its final chapter. Its author's transliteration scheme is a bit unusual, but given this book's strengths, that's a minor flaw.

Yiddish to those who don't know, is a language derived from German (although if you ask three Jews for their opinion as to the origin of Yiddish, you'll get four opinions back at you darling!!). To the Jew who grows up in a Yiddisah "Stub" or house, learns many good expressions, and so many not so good ones! Drek takes a wonderful, factual approach to this dying language via the humorous road!

This book dares to expose to the secrets, words, and expressions that only a Yiddisah-cupe would know!

I recommend this book to anyone; Jew or non-who wants to have a great laugh, return to their childhood roots or just to pick up some very bad words indeed!

My Wife, Helene and I laughed out loud and are going to buy a crate full of "Drek" for our friends and family!

My only complaint is now I may not be able to talk behind people's backs so easily - they have the Drek! Who knows for sure!

Gay-cach-and-yam to all, and to all a goodnight!!

Book is broken down into chapters by language category. Humorous and informative introduction followed by chapter by chapter historical introductions and then content. Fairly good attempt at pronunciation help and spelling, however, some prior experience with words in speaking environment is still necessary to truly capture the pronunciation. Overall, short but sound book.

the phonetic spellings help enormously, and i found myself sounding out familiar phrases from my childhood. a treasure of ethnic communication to be protected and savored

What a fun book!! Easy to remember words with the translations right next to them. Even some history on the language of Yiddish. Very enjoyable.

I bought this as a guide for my boyfriend, who is technically Jewish but doesn't really practice, as a fun way to learn something more about the culture he comes from as well as to just have some fun with language. This book was easy to read and digest, the phonetic guide was very helpful, and it was entertaining.

I had hoped for something more than this skinny, undersized volume. to spin an old gag, "Life is a drek sandwich. Sometimes you get more bread... sometimes you get more drek." Not too much drek in this sandwich. For instance I wanted a definition of "Yutz." I had to go to Google to find it. And a couple of other terms that have more than one meaning left those alternatives unlisted.
But it's better than no sandwich at all. And I found other volumes I might invesetigate later, if I find myself in need of such diversity.
In brief, I got the Drek I paid for, but not much else.

If you grew up with Yiddish speaking relatives, this is great. Even if you didn't it's still hysterical.

Yiddish is a really funny language. For those of you not familiar with it, it is a hodge-podge of Hebrew and German. It was a language that united Jews by giving them a common language in Europe and Russia.

A lot of the vernacular, expressions, words, etc. have made it into the American style of English language.

I laughed my rear end off with this one.

Just a cursory look at few pages brings back memories of my long departed mother who was an immigrant from Poland.

The book is okay, but missing contextual meaning. I bought it to refresh my memory of words and expressions since I don't hear it used very often.