Learning Yiddish

Michael Rosen is learning Yiddish. Every Sunday, he joins other adults in an evening class, conjugating verbs and practising rhymes.

For this episode of Word of Mouth, he invites his teacher, Tamara Micner, to join him in the studio. The pair have fun swapping family stories and sharing how they were first exposed to Yiddish. Tamara explains where the language came from and how it's evolved, and they discuss its connections to English. We also hear what Michael is like in class as a new learner, as he wraps his head around the pronunciation and patterns of this language which links him to his family history.

Producer: Eliza Lomas, BBC Audio in Bristol.