Intermediate III Yiddish

Class starts Feb 26 11:00am-12:30pm

Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (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, assignments, 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: Karolina Szymaniak

Who should take this course?
This course is appropriate for those who have completed Intermediate II Yiddish or equivalent coursework.

What topics will this class cover?
This class will further develop speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills for students already comfortable reading and conversing in Yiddish. The aim of the first part of the semester is to solidify students' previous knowledge. Students will learn to further analyze different genres of Yiddish cultural production and to speak and write about them on an intermediate level. Grammar will include review of all the Yiddish tenses, the usage of the modal verbs, and declensions. New topics will include the comparative of adjectives, repeated actions in the past, and introduction to the Yiddish conditional. The class will focus on developing more complex syntactic structures both in spoken and written form. Vocabulary topics will include clothing, weather, body parts, travel. Selected course topics may also include students’ specific interests and passions, which will be incorporated into the general course syllabus. The class will work with the last chapters of the textbook In eynem, beginning with chapters 18 through 21 as well as with selected chapters of Uriel Weinreich's College Yiddish and documents prepared by the teacher. The course is designed for students who are interested in deepening their knowledge of Yiddish culture, both past and present, through a variety of historical and contemporary documents, press, literary texts, and songs.

Is knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet required?
Yes, knowledge of the Yiddish alphabet is required.

Course Materials:
This course will use the following textbooks:

In eynem: The New Yiddish Textbook, Vol II by Asya Vaisman Schulman, Jordan Brown, and Mikhl Yashinsky (Purchase)
College Yiddish: An Introduction to the Yiddish Language and to Jewish Life and Culture by Uriel Weinreich (Purchase)

The instructor will provide all other course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Questions? Read our 2024 Spring Classes FAQ.

Karolina Szymaniak is assistant professor at the Jewish Studies Department at the University of Wrocław and Research Fellow at the Jewish Historical Institute. Her research interests range across modern Yiddish literature, Polish-Jewish cultural relations, and translation studies. In addition to having taught Yiddish language and culture throughout Poland and Europe, she has also served as a consultant for the POLIN Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Łódz. Her recent publications include Montages. Debora Vogel and the New Legend of the City and My wild goat. Anthology of women Yiddish poets (in Polish). She is also the editor of Rachel Auerbach's ghetto writings, which received the 2016 Polityka History Award.

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