[irvingprime]

+1000 for duolingo.

Back in April I saw that they offered Yiddish as a beta. It sounded like fun, so I tried it.

Duolingo is excellent for establishing a habit because it let's you set a daily goal and it gives you reminders and little bits of encouragement along the way. I am currently on day 207 of continuous study of around a half hour a day. That sounds pretty hobby like! I'm having so much fun that some days I have to cut down my time. Otherwise, the rest of my life might suffer..

To further show that it's become a hobby, I've branched out beyond duolingo. I bought a book that has dual English and Yiddish pages. I listen to podcasts in Yiddish (understanding almost nothing but it's slowly improving). I even wrote a poem in Yiddish!

It helps that this particular hobby is one that can be done from my laptop when I'm at home or even (as I did a couple hours ago) from my phone while sitting in a waiting room. If I needed a lot of equipment or a special place to do it (like a dojo), it would be harder to maintain, though with the right amount of passion it would still be possible.

[mclbdn]

I totally forgot to mention podcasts - they also improved my learning greatly. Netflix is another great, although passive, tool.

Question: Does Yiddish have different dialects? I'm asking because Spanish varies greatly depending where you currently are, but I consider Yiddish being somehow different language.

[onecommentman]

Yes. Eastern dialects and Western dialects. Looks like Slav v. non-Slav (Romance/Germanic) split.

“The primary differences between the contemporary dialects are in the quality of stressed vowels, though there are also differences in morphology, lexicon, and grammar.

Northern dialects are more conservative in vowel quality, while southern dialects have preserved vowel quantity distinctions.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish_dialects