רב באַסנער

Yesterday, I traveled to Seal Beach for my first meeting with my Yiddish tutor Yacob Basner. I had gone to the intermediate Yiddish class at the Workman's Circle last Monday, but due to time and traffic considerations I decided it would be better for me to arrange for individual meetings on Sundays. Despite being pretty much in Long Beach, it only took 20 minutes to get there compared with the hour+ sitting in LA traffic on Monday nights. Arriving at his home, I was excited to the receive formal instruction.

Upon entering his study, I couldnt help but notice that his shelves were filled with Yiddish books as well as portraits of Sholom Aleichem and Mendele the Bookseller, among others. It was a pretty cool place.

He made it clear in the beginning that he would speak mostly Yiddish throughout the lesson, as it is a great way to learn the language; I wholeheartedly agreed.

Conversing mostly in Yiddish he corrected my written work (The Questions, Exercise A, and Exercise B) from Lesson 20 of College Yiddish. He helped me a lot with my grammar questions, which tend to plague me. The lesson ended with me learning a couple of new words, and several integral grammar rules.

He let me know at the end that in the future I could structure the lessons how ever would best fit me. Next week, I plan on going over Exercise C and practice speech comprehension with a dictation exercise.

Before leaving, I spoke with him in Yiddish about college, family, and, of course, Yiddish. It was a productive session, and I am looking forward to next weekend.