Yiddish phrasebook

Yiddish is spoken as a daily language in some parts of America, mostly in New York City, and in some parts of Eastern Europeand South America,as well as in Israel. It is slightly higher than standard German, with a large admixture of words of Hebrew, Slavic, or unknown origin As Yiddish is roughly 75% germanic in origin, German speakers can understand a large part of it. Yiddish is written with the same alphabet as Hebrew, and is written from right to left. Pronunciation guide The Hebrew alphabet consists entirely of consonants, though some are used as vowels in Yiddish. Hebrew words in which these are consonants are spelled with them as consonants in Yiddish. A few of the vowel points are used in Yiddish to distinguish e.g. a and o. Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew have some differences from Sephardi and Israeli Hebrew: some a became o (German as well as Hebrew words, e.g. vos "what", olom "world, age"), and th became t in Sephardi, but s in Ashkenazi (beys "house"). In contrast to Hebrew which indicates the stop allophone of בגדכפת with a dot, Yiddish indicates the fricative allophone with a horizontal line. Five letters (מנצפכ) have a different form at the end of a word (םןץףך, respectively). These are named by adding סופית (sow-FEET) "final" to the name of the letter, e.g. נון סופית. א aleph  father, sort, or silent ב beth  like bear or maven ג gimel  like gone ד daleth  like dude ה he  like harp; silent at the end of a word, unless it has a dot in it ו vav  like violin; also or or tune when used as a vowel ז zayin  like zany ח cheth  voiceless gargle, i.e. like the scotish loch ט teth  like tuck י yod  like yet; also say or honey when used as a vowel כ ך kaph  like keep, or halfway between keep and heap ל lamedh  like leave מ ם mem  like mother נ ן nun  like never ס samekh  like some ע ayin  as in set or listen פ ף pe  like upon or loofa צ ץ tsadi  like boots ק qoph  like coo, but further back in the throat ר resh  voiced gargle as in French ש sin, shin  like shoot or seem ת tav  like teeth or juice Phrase list Some phrases in this phrasebook still need to be translated. If you know anything about this language, you can help by plunging forward and translating a phrase. Basics Hello.  sholem-aleykhem. (שלום-עליכם) Hello (to you) (in response to a "Hello").  aleykhem-sholem (עליכמ־שלום) How are you?  Vus makhstu? (informal)/ Vus makht ir? (formal) Fine, thank you.  Gut, a dank What is your name?  Vi heystu? (informal)/ Vi heyst ir?(fomal) My name is ______ .  Ikh heys ______. Nice to meet you.  (...). Please.  Zayt azoy gut (lit: Be so good as to...)/ Ikh bet dir (lit:I beg of you) Thank you.  A dank. You're welcome.  (...) Yes.  yo (יא) No.  neyn. (נײן) Excuse me. (getting attention)  Excuse me. (begging pardon)  I'm sorry.  Goodbye  Goodbye (informal)  I can't speak Yiddish [well].  Ikh ken nisht reden Yidish (gut). Do you speak English?  Redstu English? (informal)/ Redt ir English? (formal) Is there someone here who speaks English?  Help!  oyshelfn! Good morning.  Guten morgen. Good evening.  Guten ovent. Good night.  Gabon. Good night (to sleep)  A gute nakht. I don't understand.  Where is the toilet?  Vu iz dos bodtsimer?/ dos vanetsimer?