# Yiddish: Verbs



## PocketWatch

Yiddish is the native language of my grandparents and throughout my life I have grown up hearing many, many phrases and words. During the past few years when I became interested in linguistics, I wanted to learn more Yiddish. Does anyone know if there is a conjugation pattern for Yiddish verbs? I haven't been able to find this anywhere online or in books.


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## Jana337

Regular verbs:

*redn (German for comparison)*
ikh red (ich rede)
du redst (du redest)
er/si/es redt (er/sie/es redet)
mir redn (wir reden)
ir redt (ihr redet)
zey redn (sie reden)

Here are our Yiddish resources.


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## übermönch

I am afraid there's no good source for Yiddish verb conjugation in English anywhere (close) on the internet, you should look for the grammar book by _Solomon Birnbaum_. I myself don't speak the language, but my grandpa does and I also came in extensive contact with it during a trip to Israel. Despite being genetically a close relative of the German language (having splitted off from a common ancestor in the 12th century) it shares more common traits with English.
Most Germanic verbs follow the red- pattern described by Jana, some however have the -en ending in 1st and 3rd person plural. F.e. arayngeyen (to enter)
Mir gey*en* arayn
...
Zey gey*en* arayn
'To be', zayn is conjugated irregularly, hobn(to have) is too, to some extent. The forms for zayn are _bin, bist, iz, zenen, zent, zenen_; hobn would be_ hob, host, hot, hobn, hot, hobn. _Past is expressed with either hobn (I have eaten = ikh hob gegesn) or zayn (He has been/gone = Er iz geven/gegangen) depending on the verb in question.
The future, much like in english, is expressed with 'veln' + the infinitive (I will be=Ikh vil zayn). The forms of veln are regular, except for there is no suffix in 3rd person singular. That's enough for the beginning I guess!


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## PocketWatch

Jana337 said:


> Regular verbs:
> 
> *redn (German for comparison)*
> ikh red (ich rede)
> du redst (du redest)
> er/si/es redt (er/sie/es redet)
> mir redn (wir reden)
> ir redt (ihr redet)
> zey redn (sie reden)
> 
> Here are our Yiddish resources.


Oh, I will take a look at those resources. The above conjugations with the red are Yiddish and the parentheses are German?


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## Jana337

Yes, the red letters are Yiddish endings (red- is a stem) and parentheses are German.


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