{"id":4466,"date":"2023-08-29T18:14:43","date_gmt":"2023-08-29T18:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/?p=4466"},"modified":"2023-08-29T18:14:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T18:14:43","slug":"the-art-of-yiddish-bananagrams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/naomi-fellowship\/the-art-of-yiddish-bananagrams\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Yiddish Bananagrams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you want to get better at Yiddish, play Bananagrams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what I learned at the Naomi Prawer Kadar International Yiddish Summer Program in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201cDo you want to play Yiddish Bananagrams?<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image 1: Yiddish students having fun playing Bananagrams.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was much lively debate. Some of us with a beginner\/intermediate grasp of Yiddish would create words that \u201csounded right\u201d only for them to turn out complete gibberish. \u201cIs gorp a word?<\/em>\u201d I wondered aloud. It is not! There was a great deal of collaboration. Everyone was ready to help with a conjugation or tricky letters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image 2: My first attempt at Yiddish Bananagrams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Yiddish Bananagrams worked different mental \u201cmuscles\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-naomi-fellowship"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9teox-1a2","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-content\/uploads\/classic-bananagrams-front-square.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4466"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4466\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewishstudiescolumbia.com\/myny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}