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Just Say Nu: Yiddish for Every Occasion (When English Just Won't Do) (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Wex
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.95
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 38203
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rep Blg
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0061657328
Dewey Decimal Number: 439
EAN: 9780061657320
ASIN: 0061657328
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
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Product Description
In his New York Times bestseller, Born to Kvetch, author Michael Wex led readers on a hilariously edifying excursion through Yiddish culture and history. With Just Say Nu, he shows us how to use this remarkable language to spice up conversations, stories, presentations, arguments, and more, when plain English will not suffice (including, of course, lots of delightful historical and cultural side trips along the way). There is, quite simply, nothing in the world that can't be improved by being translated into Yiddish. With Just Say Nu, readers will learn how to shmooze their way through meeting and greeting, eating and drinking, praising and finding fault, maintaining personal hygiene, parenting, going to the doctor, committing crimes, going to singles bars, having sex, talking politics, talking trash, and a host of other mundane activities. Here also is a healthy schmear of optional grammar and the five most useful Yiddish words—what they mean, and how and when to use them in an entire conversation without anybody suspecting you don't have the vaguest idea about what you're actually saying.
Book Description
A cross between Henry Beard's LATIN FOR ALL OCCASIONS and Ben Schott's SCHOTT'S ORIGINAL MISCELLANY, JUST SAY NU is a practical guide to using Yiddish words and expressions in day-to-day situations. Along with enough grammar to enable readers to put together a comprehensible sentence and avoid embarrassing mistakes, Wex also explains the five most useful Yiddish words–shoyn, nu, epes, takeh,and nebakh–what they mean, how and when to use them, and how they can be used to conduct an entire conversation without anybody ever suspecting that the reader doesn’t have the vaguest idea of what anyone is actually saying. Readers will learn how to shmooze their way through such activities as meeting and greeting; eating and drinking; praising and finding fault; maintaining personal hygiene; going to the doctor; driving; parenting; getting horoscopes; committing crimes; going to singles bars; having sex; talking politics and talking trash. Now that Stephen Colbert, a Catholic from South Carolina and host of the "Colbert Report," is using Yiddish to wish viewers a bright and happy Chanukah, people have finally started to realize that there’s nothing in the world that can’t be improved by translating it into Yiddish. Wex’s JUST SAY NU is the book that’s going to show them how.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent for people who already know Yiddish December 29, 2008
This is a great book with all of the idioms of "real" Yiddish, that you will never learn at a YIVO class. The author describes the "zaftike" expressions of "poylishe yidn" with great talent. Frankly there were one or two places where his etymology is suspect (at least to me) and his transliteration system takes some getting used to (even for those of us who speak Yiddish fluently.) Notwithstanding these minor shortcomings it is an excellent work that deserves to be in the bookshelf of every serious Yiddish student, teacher, and speaker. Alot of these expressions are dying out even among the Yiddish-speaking Orthodox communities, where subtle language shift is taking place, and some of the racier expressions are never used by them in any case. Familiarizing yourself with these idioms will make it a helluva lot easier to read Isaac Bashevis Singer (and others) in the original.
It is less "cutesy" than "Born to Kvetch", which I also recommend highly.
 very good reference book September 23, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an excellent reference for Yiddish expressions, but not the crisp and witty humor I was expecting.
No Kvetching Here- Wex Has Done it Again! November 25, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
With Just Say Nu, Michael Wex has again given us something rare in popular literature about Yiddish, a laugh out loud synthesis of scholarship and humor. It's an entry point to Yiddish that I wish had been around when I started studying the language as an undergraduate.
In fact, Just Say Nu should probably have been published before Born To Kvetch. It covers the basics that Kvetch (which covers much more advanced cultural contexts of Yiddish life) skipped over. Just Say Nu literally starts at the beginning, covering the nuances of language basics (like greetings and interjections) and delves into the many non-verbal aspects of Yiddish conversation.
Just Say Nu will give the you the conversational tools to handle any Jewish situation, whether it's running into Rabbi Goldberg at the burlesque house or getting your pain in the ass brother or sister to pass the milk at the table.
I only have one quarrel with Mr. Wex. He claims that Yiddish is unique in that it can diminish human misery without providing a concomitant increase in happiness. Yiddish brings me closer to the entirety of Jewish experience, both the good and the bad, the cursed and the blessed, the happy and the reserved. Just Say Nu, and the richness of Yiddish within it, did indeed provide an increase in happiness.
 just say nu November 8, 2007
2 out of 14 found this review helpful
a waste of money.
my chief criticism is the author's idiosynchratic phonetic spelling of the yiddish words. by doing this he made the written yiddish almost indecipherable. it was the flip side of the author who translated shakespeare into yiddish and then boasted his translation was new and improved.
Linguistics and Laughs October 22, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Oy, Shprintse, what a book! It's a lecture on Yiddish, no doubt, and also on religion as the essential part to understand what's going on in the language. And it's so funny on such a high level that one may think the jokes will be missed -- but that's what I feared when I read "Born To Kvetch" already which has turned into a hit instead. Wex is not resting on the success of BTK (don't even think of Dennis Rader or the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company). JSN risks to introduce its own transliteration on top of YIVO's. But, hell, it works and turns pronunciation into fun! This is not a Yiddish for Dummies. Kvelling on scholarship, life and love, Just Say Nu manages to unite science, fun and understanding of a language that -- and this book proves it -- has SURVIVED hell.
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