If you want to get better at Yiddish, play Bananagrams.

This is what I learned at the Naomi Prawer Kadar International Yiddish Summer Program in Tel Aviv.

Bananagrams is a fast-paced word game played with 144 letter tiles. The objective is to arrange these tiles into grids of connected words, similar to Scrabble, but more individual, fast-paced, and silly. And now it comes in Yiddish! Well, not officially. A Yiddish enthusiast discovered how to merge three Hebrew Bananagrams sets to create a Yiddish set. This invention has improved my life, and that is no exaggeration!

I had no idea that my beloved game existed in Yiddish until one day, close to the end of the program. Steve, a student in the advanced class, plopped down a banana-shaped bag at the lunch table. “Do you want to play Yiddish Bananagrams?“

After three hours of conjugating verbs, structuring sentences, and reading stories, my Yiddish brain felt burnt out at lunchtime, and I questioned whether I had enough energy. But I soon learned that there is always more space for Yiddish fun!

It was the perfect silly counterpoint to the more intensive classes and even complimented what I was learning. I found myself using verbs I had learned in class, words I had read in a story, and conjunctions I had practiced for homework.

There was much lively debate. Some of us with a beginner/intermediate grasp of Yiddish would create words that “sounded right” only for them to turn out complete gibberish. “Is gorp a word?” I wondered aloud. It is not! There was a great deal of collaboration. Everyone was ready to help with a conjugation or tricky letters.

Yiddish Bananagrams worked different mental “muscles” than those used in grammar or literature class. In my Elementary Yiddish classes at Columbia University, I discovered that including games alongside traditional language exercises improved my memorization and fluency. Most importantly, these games reminded me that learning a language can be enjoyable and prevent me from becoming overwhelmed with frustration.

From then on, becoming the top Yiddish Bananagrams player has been one of my dreams. It will be a long road. The first step is assembling my own set. If you’re interested in making your own set, refer to these detailed instructions generously provided by Steve!