Need help with Hebrew translation

[piglet too]

A friend of mine sent me this and needs some help. I know that there are several Jewish people here, so I am hoping you can help. TIA

"My grandma is writing a thank you note to an old friend who used a jewish phrase it sounded like chai kazan or zi kazan it means Best wishes. Any one know how to spell this?"

 

[Lisa F]

I'm not sure what phrase you are talking about but unless the old friend is israeli, it's much more likely that it's a yiddish phrase than a hebrew one. Yiddish is sort of a dialect of german that uses hebrew characters. In either case, I'm not sure that there is a proper spelling using english characters, anything would be a transliteration.

Sorry I can't help more, the only yiddish phrase I really know is Gai kakhen afenyam, but you don't want to use that on someone you like!

 

[frndshpcptn]

It's Yiddish. My grandmother says it (with a whole host of other yiddish phrases!). Unfortunatley, I don't know how to spell it. Maybe just try and spell it and add the English translation in parentheses?

 

[RachelEllen]

GAY GA ZINTA HATE

Transliteration is a tricky thing, as yiddish was written with the hebrew alphabet. But that also means no one can really say you are wrong.

I'm wondering if this is a short form of:

Gey gezunterheyt

(see what we're up agasint with spelling)

That most literally means 'go in good health' (think of gazunheit') Be warned that it's often sarcastic.

Just the 'Gey Gezun' part would mean something like 'Go Good' but I'm not skilled enough in grammar to tell you how much sense that makes.