Learn Yiddish by ear — hear any text read aloud
Paste a sentence from your textbook, a song, a letter or a story, and hear it read in a heimish voice — slower if you like, as many times as you like.
A simple way to practice
- Paste the textIn Yiddish letters (the Hebrew alphabet).
- Set the speed to 0.75×Slower speech, same voice — the pitch doesn't change.
- Listen, then say it yourselfPlay it again as often as you need. Try another voice to hear the same words differently.
- Keep itDownload the audio for your flashcards, or sign in to keep it in your account.
Practice sentences
Press Hear it to open the sentence in the text-to-speech tool. The romanization uses the standard (YIVO) system; the voices speak heimish Yiddish, so some vowels will sound a little different from it (see below).
גוט מארגן! ווי גייט עס אייך?
Gut morgn! Vi geyt es aykh? — Good morning! How are you?
א דאנק, עס גייט מיר גוט. און ווי גייט עס אייך?
A dank, es geyt mir gut. Un vi geyt es aykh? — Thanks, I'm doing well. And how are you?
איך הייס שמואל. ווי הייסט איר?
Ikh heys Shmuel. Vi heyst ir? — My name is Shmuel. What is your name?
איך לערן זיך אידיש, און איך וויל בעסער רעדן.
Ikh lern zikh yidish, un ikh vil beser redn. — I'm learning Yiddish, and I want to speak better.
א גוטן שבת! א גוטע וואך!
A gutn Shabes! A gute vokh! — Good Shabbos! A good week!
YIVO spelling and heimish spelling
Yiddish is written in two main ways today. YIVO spelling is used in most university courses, dictionaries and many publications. It adds vowel marks (אַ, אָ), tells פּ from פֿ, and often uses the joined letters װ ױ ײ. Heimish (Hasidic) spelling is what Hasidic newspapers, forums and schools use. It usually leaves the marks out and writes those letters separately. Loshn-koydesh words (שבת, חתונה) are spelled as in Hebrew in both.
| YIVO | Heimish | Meaning |
| ייִדיש | אידיש | Yiddish |
| װאָס | וואס | what |
| דאָס | דאס | the / this |
| פֿון | פון | from / of |
| אַ ביסל | א ביסל | a little |
| זאָגן | זאגן | to say |
| עפּעס | עפעס | something |
| פֿאַרשטײן | פארשטיין | to understand |
The voices and the grammar tool here were made with heimish spelling. You can paste YIVO-spelled text too; if a word sounds wrong, try it without the vowel marks or in the heimish spelling. Note that the grammar tool may change YIVO spellings into heimish ones — useful if you want heimish spelling, not if your class requires YIVO.
About the pronunciation
The voices are made for heimish Yiddish as it is spoken in Hasidic communities today. That differs in places from the standard pronunciation taught in many courses — for example, many Hasidic speakers say git for גוט where the standard is gut. Both are real, living Yiddish; if your course teaches the standard pronunciation, use the voices for rhythm and fluency and your course audio for the vowels.
Good to know
- Yiddish letters only. Romanized Yiddish (“a gutn tog”) isn't converted yet.
- Writing practice: type a few sentences, then run them through the grammar tool to see the corrections.
- Speaking practice: say a sentence into speech to text and see whether it writes what you meant.
- More free learning material: the Yiddish Book Center and YIVO both offer courses and reading material.
Heimish Geredt in brief
- Yiddish text to speech with about 20 heimish voices (beta), speed 0.75× to 1.5×, download as WAV.
- Also Yiddish speech to text and Yiddish grammar correction in Hasidic spelling.
- 30 days free with no card, then $4 a month or $30 a year for everything.
Facts as of October 2026.