Speak Yiddish: Greeting People and Asking Polite Questions

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Knowing greet people in their language is always helpful, and in Yiddish, especially so. There are many ways to greet people in Yiddish, and each greeting and question has its own special response. In this guide, you’ll learn how to reach out to others, know just what to say, and you’ll become familiar with the words that will make you a good conversationalist.

Saying Hello

Greetings in Yiddish are more than simple hellos. They represent a ritual that takes into account the person and the time, offers a prayer, and calls for a special response. Note the different possibilities for each of these greetings:

Sholem Aleykhem—The literal translation is “peace be upon you.” The word Sholem is also another name for God. The greeting, therefore, also contains a request for divine protection. The proper response to Sholem Aleykhem is Aleykhem Sholem: “What you wish for me, I immediately return to you” (emphasizing the “upon you” first, as if to say that you deserve it more than I do).
Gut morgen—“Good morning.” The response to Gut morgen is gut yohr, a good year: What you wish for me, I multiply hundreds of times over.
Guten ovent—“Good evening.” The response is guten ovent.
A gute nakht—“Good night.” This is said upon leaving or going to bed. The proper responses can be: A gute nakht tsu dir (“Goodnight to you”); Shlof gezunt (“Sleep well,” familiar); Shloft gezunt (“Sleep well,” formal); and Zise khaloymos (“Sweet dreams”).
Gut Shabes—“A good Sabbath.” Wishing someone a good Sabbath is appropriate all day Friday or even earlier if you won’t see the person again before Friday night when the Sabbath begins. It’s similar to the secular, “Have a good weekend.” On the entire Sabbath day, Gut Shabes is the appropriate greeting instead of allusions to morning, afternoon, or night.
Gut Vokh—“A good week.” The week begins on Saturday night after the Havdalah service separating the holiness of the Sabbath from the days that follow. The division between sacred and profane outweighs the traditional “good evening” of the other six nights of the week.
Gut Yontef—“Good holiday.” Yontef is a Yiddish distortion of the Hebrew yom tov, good day or holiday. Pronouncing yom tov rapidly somehow turned the words into yontef. (There is no historic validity to the claim that a Jew met the Pope on Passover and told him Gut yontef, Pontiff.) The proper response to Gut yontef is Gut yor fulfilling once more the ideal of giving even more than getting.
L’shonoa toyva tikosevu—“May you be inscribed for a good year.” On Rosh Hashanah, when Jewish tradition teaches that God decides on people’s fate for the coming year and writes down His decree in the heavenly Book of Life, it’s appropriate to offer a prayer instead of the standard greeting. Traditional Jews switch to these words an entire month before the High Holy Day season. The proper response is either a repetition of the same words or gam atem—“you, too.”
Halo—Yes, you guessed it, that’s the Yiddish for “hello.” It’s ha, like when you laugh (ha ha ha), followed by lo, as in law. Yinglish won out and adopted the word with its somewhat altered pronunciation. Remarkably enough, though, it’s almost universally understood that this greeting is valid in Yiddish only for answering the telephone. (The psychology behind that is probably worthy of a Ph.D. study.)

Opening Questions

A bore, it has been said, is someone whose only interest in any meeting is “me.” A good conversationalist is interested in the other person. The following table lists some of the most basic opening questions on meeting a friend or upon greeting a stranger.

I’d Like to Ask You …

English	Yiddish
How are you? (familiar)	Vos makhstu?
How are you? (formal)	Vos makht ir?
What’s new?	Vos hert zikh?
So what’s new?	Vos hert zikh epes?
What’s the good news?	Vos hert zikh epes guts?
How are you doing?	Vos makht a Yid? (Literally, “How is a Jew?”)
What’s your name? (familiar)	Vi heistu?
What’s your name? (formal)	Vi heist ir?
Where do you come from? (familiar)	Fun vanet kumstu?
Where do you come from? (formal)	Fun vanet kumt ir?
Where do you come from, neighbor? (familiar)	Fun vanet bistu a landsman?
Where do you come from, neighbor? (formal)	Fun vanet zeit ir a landsman?
From where does a Jew come?	Fun vanet kumt a Yid? (if the person you’re speaking to is Jewish)

Be Polite

There’s a special phrase for proper etiquette in Yiddish. It’s called derekh eretz. A famous proverb has it that derekh erets geit afilu far Tora: Etiquette (or proper behavior) precedes even the laws of the Torah. The following table lists some polite phrases that you should commit to memory.

Polite Phrases You Should Know

Yiddish	English
Tzi ken ikh eikh forshtelen ----?	May I introduce -----?
Es frayt mikh eikh tsu kenen.	I am happy to make your acquaintance.
Vos makht ayer mishpokhe?	How’s your family?
Zetst zikh avek zayt azoy gut.	Sit down, please.
Ikh hob zeyr gut farbrakht.	I enjoyed myself very much.
Ikh hof az mir velen zikh bald vider zen.	I hope to see you again soon.
Git mir ayer adres.	Give me your address.
Git mir ayer telefon numer.	Give me your telephone number.
A grus ayer mishpokhe.	My regards to your family.
Mazel tov.	Congratulations.
Mazel tov tzum geboyrentog.	Happy birthday.

Asking a Question

There are three ways to ask a simple question in Yiddish. The easiest way is just to change your intonation. Du bist Goldberg (You are Goldberg) can go from statement to question just from the tone of your voice. Du bist Goldberg?—I can’t believe it!

Alternatively, you can also reverse the word order: Bist du Goldberg? The implication is that the questioner is somewhat more incredulous that you, of all people, are really Goldberg.

Finally, you can preface the question with the word tzi: Tzi bist du Goldberg? The word tzi has no English translation. It’s often added to indicate that a question is on the way, especially a question that bears on a very important issue. In this case, you’re saying that Goldberg has been missing for years. Is it indeed possible that this person is the one you’ve been looking for? The phrase “Iz er a gut kind?” (Is he a good child?) is a simple question that can be asked of his teacher. By contrast, “Tzi iz er a guter man?” is a question properly put to a matchmaker who suggests that this person is worthy of your daughter.

Now that you know how to greet a Yiddish-speaking person you’ll never be at a loss for something to say. Mazel tov!

From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Learning Yiddish by Rabbi Benjamin Blech