Want to learn Yiddish? Try Sheva Zucker's books and cds...

I was a complete beginner when I decided as my New Year's Resolution for 2005 to learn Yiddish. I've been taking lessons for 3-1/2 years now from Sheva Zucker, who lives here in Durham.

This past year I managed to translate a book from Yiddish to English, a book which has never appeared in English, and I even got paid for it! So how's that for a testimonial?

Sheva use to have a free website at AOL, but she missed the notification they sent out some months ago that all those websites were getting shut down. "I get so much spam email from AOL I just ignore it all," she explained.

That meant her whole site vaporized and she didn't have a backup. So she and I made a deal - I put her website back together in exchange for some tutoring before I go back to the Medem Bibliotheque in Paris this summer to take the three-week "Intensive Advanced Yiddish" course.

Sheva has written two textbooks, and there is a cd set to go with each book that has all the text spoken so you can practice in the car, and there is an audio-recording cd set to go with each book and (ahem) I sang half the songs on the Volume II set, and there is an answer-key for each volume so you can work on your own.

There is also a spoken-language cd called "The Golden Peacock" for sale - at the Sheva Zucker website.