Easy and useful Spanish words

Flag of Spain

Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn if you speak English. (Or if you speak Italian or Portuguese.)

Many countries speak Spanish, so you can start using it there, picking up the accent. Or use it there to improve your Spanish and make use of what you already know and practice it.

 Spanish is spoken in Spain in Europe, as well as in Gibraltar and Andorra. Offshore are the inhabited islands of Mallorca,, Minorca, and the Canaries - Grand Canaria and Tenerife.

Spanish is spoken in most countries in South America, such as Venezuela, with the exception of Brazil where Portuguese is spoken.

 In the USA Spanish appears on signs and is widely spoken as a first or second language. It is also spoken in Mexico, Cuba, and several Caribbean countries such as Puerto Rico, and central American countries such as Belize. 

Flag map of Brazil 

The written accents are easier than French. You have only one accent. It indicates that you stress the syllable. The accent goes diagonally upwards.

 Spanish - English

aeropuerto - airort

(Los) Angeles - (the) angels

blusa - blouse

castillo - castle

diario - diary

el - the (masculine, no accent)

Él - he (the accent on el shows a VIP, a person, rather than a thing)

en - in

familias - families

famoso - famous

grupo - group

Información y Comunicación - information and communication 

introducción - introduction

isla/islas - island/islands

museo - museum

o - or 

(Los) paraportes - (the) passports

no - no

proximo - next (like approximate, near or close)

puerto - port

Puerto Rico - rich port, a Caribbean country. Notice that in Spanish the adjective is after the noun or name.

rico - rich

san (short for santo) - saint / holy

San Francisco - Saint Francis

(el) taxi - (the) taxi

tren - train

(las) vacaciones - (the) vacations (USA) / holidays (UK)

visitar - to visit

English - Spanish

airport - aeropuerto

blouse - blusa

castle - castillo

(the) angels - los angeles

diary - diario

east - este

families - familias

famous - famoso

group - grupo

holidays - vacaciones

in - en

introduction - introducción

information and communication - Información y Comunicación 

island/islands - isla/islas

museum - museo

next - proximo

no - no

or - o

(the) passports - los pasaportes

port - puerto

rich - ricco

saint - san

Saint Francis - San Francisco

(the) taxi - el taxi - (the) taxi

train - tren

the - el (masculine) - la (feminine) 

visit - visitar

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language

wikivoyage phrasebook Spanish

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/50-spanish-words-and-phrases-to-start-learning-spanish

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/goodbye-in-spanish

If you want to practise your Spanish, several Toastmasters International club are Spanish speaking, and you can attend online meetings and read their announcements and information on the web.

I have several posts on learning Spanish. Please follow my blogs and share links to your favourite posts.

Five Reasons Why You Should Visit Travelmasters Online

Angela Lansbury, member of Toastmasters clubs in the UK and Singapore and online LILT languages club (every Sunday; top right Sarah Cossette, Vice President of Education of Travelmasters Toastmasters Internnational Club, and Leesa, Vice President of Membership of Travelmasters Toastmasters Club.

Travelmasters is an online club for speakers, speech trainers, would be speakers, part of worldwide Toastmasters International which started in the USA a hundred years ago and now has hundreds of members and clubs worldwide and exciting, inspiring speech contests.

Why go to the Travelmasters club? Where and when is it? The second and 4th Wednesday evening every month, at 7 pm Eastern Standard time (New York time) on zoom. If you miss it or want to see a past meeting, you will be able to see the recordings

If you are already a Toastmasters you might want to give a speech on your travels overseas or travel in your country, or to take a role in a meeting, such as a timer, timing the speeches and signalling to the speaker how much time they have left and when to finish. Or as evaluator, give them encourgaing feedback and why you loved their speech, what they sid well, and useful suggestions on how they could improve and what to add. 

But this club doesn't just have a niche, a theme, of travel. The policy of the Vice President of Education, Sarah, who organizes meetings (she;s top right in the photo above) and of Leesa (lower in the picture) is to make the meetings fun. Instead of the usual, conventional titles for their role holders, each one has an amusing name on the theme of travel.

 1 You are bound to learn something interesting about travel because all the speeches are about travel

2 The meetings are fun. 

3 You have an opportunty to meet well-travelled, interesting people.

4 It is a fantastic networking experience - they link you up with lots of other groups, such as the Gastronomy Toastmasters Club.

5 They can tell you how they transformed from a physical meeting to online meetings, and rescued and rebranded a club to make it a successful club .

Network, get new ideas, and link to other clubs such as Gastronomy.

Sarah is a member of Travelmasters TMC US based but online, and Gastronomy, US based which meets for meals out with members. 

Leesa is also a member of Travelmasteeers TMC and Gastronomy.

Leesa met Angela by attending a meeting of Singapore Online Dynamic, whose meetings Angela posted in the WhatsApp group of Global (toastmasters) which has a large number of clubs in Asia, especially India and Singapore.

Angela is a member of: UK based clubs Harrovians (in Harrow) which is hybrid, one meeting a month on Zoom, another in person at a church hall in Harrow. HOD meeting at a library in North Harrow, London. Singapore based Tampines Changkat Advanced (in prson meetings, hybrid just for travelling and overseas longterm member Angela who was a former Area Director of Area S), and two online clubs LILT languages club meeting every Sunday, and Singapore Dynamic meeting every Friday   

Travelmasters and LILT are also on Facebook. Angela Lansbury is on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

If you ever lose track of a person in a club or the club itself, you can track them down through the Ttoastmasters International websites

Look on Facebook for Travelmasters, also WILL (before we rebranded as LILT), and World Travellers. Sarah is not possessive nor confrontational. On the contrary, she welcomes the idea of travel clubs multiplying, one in every continent, one in every country, with pods or subgroups of particular interest. What a lovely, lively, warm, well-travelled woman. 

Useful Information

toastmastersinternational find a club. 

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

https://travelmasters.toastmastersclubs.org

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrf-qrrj8iHdCGM3FlI6jgudQ2cNRLvO1X

Please share links to your favourite posts.

See The Tree At Heathrow Airport, London

 

Tree at heathrow airport, London. Photo by Angela Lansbury

The tree greets you on arrivals at Heathrow Airport. A spiral of purple up a cone of white fairy lights. With a five point star on top.

Not green, and not tree shape. Yet it is unmiskably a Christmas tree, or what nowadays reminisces of one. All electric. No dropping leaves nor spikes. Clean and efficient. Modern. Like a plane.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Lights to brighten up the early nights. In Singapore dusk was at 7 pm all year. In London, England, days are shorter in winter.

How to teach children at home with exam papers like a Tiger Mother

Studying In Holidays For Scholarships
When my son was aged 12, the boys in his school in England were taking entrance exams for a local school. Scholarships were awarded to those with top marks. A family living near us did not have the income to pay the school fees and were determined to win a scholarship.

Most families ordered some past exam papers. The average family made the child to sit down and complete a few papers, over Easter, sometimes in the first and last two days of the holidays.

One family, whose child won the second scholarship (part of the fees) made their son work for five hours a day. Impressive.

The most determined family, whose son won the top scholarship, for all the fees, made their son work eight hours a day, every day, throughout the holidays. After going though all the papers, he went through all the papers again. Their determination paid off. Literally paid.

Singapore follows the British O and A level systems.
You could also try the International Baccalaureat exam syllabus.

Useful Websites
LANGUAGE LEARNING
duolingo.com
You could also use Memrise, youtube and O and A level books and exam papers.
EXAM PAPERS
https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Hymn-Tiger-Mother-Chua/dp/0143120581
Singapore Primary school test papers for free online:
https://testpapersfree.com/
Singapore secondary
https://www.sgtestpaper.com/secondary/
https://www.ibo.org/programmes/diploma-programme/assessment-and-exams/sample-exam-papers/
TIGER MOTHERS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_parenting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
EDUCATION STYLES &  ISSUES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education
LESSONS & RESOURCES
https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/4th-grade

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, and teacher of English and other languages.

Translate into Spanish - words at the airport, hotel,

Problem
Next year I am taking a holiday with a group of ex-pats who speak English, Indonesian, German and Dutch. We will be in Bulgaria. So I need to brush up on the basics of sentences in four languages, enough to grasp what they are saying. I have chosen half a dozen vital sentence which I will learn in each of the three languages.

I also go to a Toastmasters group where two people speak Spanish, one from Spain, another from Venezuela. Although I can read Spanish, when I was asked, in Spanish, 'do you understand Spanish,' I was flummoxed because I could not immediately summon up the reply, only a little. So I am collecting the phrases one might need, which I habitually need, in three of four languages which I will be needing when checking into airports and accosting strangers who speak assorted languages. Here's the Spanish.

I started by spending ten minutes on the German, as I already know German. That is in another post. I need to practise saying these sentences so I can not only understand, but also speak!

Read the English, then the German / Spanish / other language. Come back to the English and see if you can remember the German / Spanish / other language.

ENGLISH
AIRPORT
Excuse me - do you speak English / German / Dutch / Indonesian / Malaysian?
No, sorry. / Yes, I do. I am English!
Only - a little. Slowly, please!
Can you write it down?
I have a dictionary - can you Google translate it?

1
Airport
Good morning / Good afternoon / Good evening
Welcome
Excuse me
Can you help me?

2
Where is the check-in? Where is the Lufthansa / KLM desk?
Where is the lounge?
Where is the toilet? The ladies / The gents /
Men / Women/ Boys / Girls/ male / female
And - What time is the shuttle bus?

3
It's due now /
in Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
in half an hour, every hour, on the hour
Sorry - it does not run on Sunday / the evening / bank holidays
If you can't wait, how about a taxi - over there

4
Where is the bus stop?
Where is the car park?
We are in a hurry. We are late!
You are late. You must hurry!
Calm down. You are in good time. You've plenty of time.

5
I don't know
I am also looking for it
No idea
I'm a stranger
Ask over there

6
Ask him / her / them
Come with me
I'll show you
Thanks
Bon voyage / have a safe journey

7
Mind out! Watch out!
Take care / Look after yourself
See you soon
See you later
Goodbye

AEROPUERTO
Disculpe, ¿usted habla inglés / hablas alemán / holandés / indonesio / hablas malayo?
No, lo siento / Sí, lo hago. ¡Soy Inglés! Soy alemán, soy indonesio, soy holandés
Solo un poco. ¡Lentamente por favor!
Puedes escribirlo?
Tengo un diccionario. ¿Puedes traducir Google?

1
aeropuerto
Buenos días, buenas tardes, buenas tardes
Bienvenido
lo siento
¿Me puedes ayudar?

2
¿Dónde está el check-in? ¿Dónde está el medidor Lufthansa / KLM?
¿Donde está la habitación?
¿Dónde está el baño? Las damas / caballeros /
Hombres / mujeres / niños / niñas / hombres / mujeres
Y, ¿a qué hora es el servicio de autobús?

3
Es debido /
en cinco minutos, diez minutos, quince minutos,
en media hora, cada hora, cada hora a cada hora
Lo sentimos, no se ejecuta los domingos / noches / días festivos
Si no puedes esperar, ¿qué piensas de un taxi?

4
¿Dónde esta la parada de autobus?
¿Dónde está el estacionamiento?
Estamos en apuros. ¡Llegamos tarde!
Llegas tarde ¡Tienes que darte prisa!
Cálmese. Usted está allí a tiempo. Tienes mucho tiempo.

5
No lo sé
También lo estoy buscando
Ni idea
Soy un extraño
Pregunta por allí

6
Pregunta pregunta
Ven conmigo
te mostrare
Muchas gracias
Buen viaje / viaje seguro

7
¡Cuidado! ¡Cuidado!
Cuídate)
Hasta pronto (Literalmente en español Adiós por hoy)
Nos vemos más tarde
Adios que Te Vaya Bien

GERMAN
FLUGHAFEN
Entschuldigung - Sprechen Sie Englisch / Sprechen Sie Deutsch / Niederländisch / Indonesisch / Sprechen Sie Malaysisch?
Nein Entschuldigung. / Ja, mache ich. Ich bin Engländer! Ich bin Deutsche. Ich bin Indonesisch. Ich bin Niederländisch.
Nur ein bisschen. Langsam Bitte!
Kannst du es aufschreiben?
Ich habe ein Wörterbuch - kannst du Google übersetzen?

1
Flughafen
Guten Morgen / guten Nachmittag / guten Abend
Herzlich willkommen
Entschuldigen Sie mich
Kannst du mir helfen?

2
Wo ist der Check-in? Wo ist der Lufthansa / KLM Schalter?
Wo ist die Lounge?
Wo ist die Toilette? Die Damen / Die Herren /
Männer / Frauen / Jungen / Mädchen / männlich / weiblich
Und - Um wie viel Uhr ist der Shuttlebus?

3
Wo ist die Bushaltestelle?
Wo ist der Parkplatz?
Wir sind in Eile. Wir sind spät!
Du bist spät. Du musst dich beeilen!
Beruhigen. Du bist rechtzeitig da. Du hast viel Zeit.

4
Ich weiß es nicht
Ich suche auch danach
Keine Ahnung
Ich bin ein Fremder
Frag dort drüben

5
Frag ihn / sie / sie
Komm mit mir
Ich werde Ihnen zeigen
Vielen Dank
Gute Reise / sichere Reise

6
Pass auf
Sich selbst versorgen
Bis bald
Bis später
Auf Wiedersehen

***

English - German
AIRPORT
Airport
Good morning / afternoon / evening
Welcome
Excuse me
Can you help me?

I don't know
I am also looking for it
No idea
I'm a stranger
Ask over there

Where do I check in?
Here / Just there / Over there
On the right / left
Upstairs / downstairs
Up the stairs / up the escalator

Through the doors
At the far end
Where is the exit?
Where are the taxis?
Is there a cheap bus /shuttle bus?

Where does it go?
Does it go into the city / to my hotel
Where is the tourist office?
Can you point (to it)?
I see it!

I can't see it
Thank you
You're welcome
I need water
I would like a cup of coffee

We have black coffee
We only have tea
That's fine
No thanks, I'll leave it
Sorry, I haven't time

How much is it?
Is that the right money?
Do you take Euros?
Yes/no
Is that right?

Is that the right money?
Just right / That's it!
Nearly / almost
Another 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Where's my change?
Keep the change
Where's my change
The bill, please
Keep the change

What time is check in?
They are calling my flight!
I have to go!
Please hurry!
Can I get past?

You have time - plenty of time
Please sit down and wait
Can I sit down, somewhere?
Where can I sit?
I'll be over there

Hotel
Welcome to our hotel
Here is your key
Please fill in this form
We need your name
Write it here

We need a credit card?
Do you have another credit card?
We do not take American Express
That's fine / ok
Just a moment / minute!

We need a signature
You must sign it
Cash will do
Do you take credit cards?
I need a taxi

I need a toilet
Where are the toilets:
Over there
To the right
To the left

See the sign
You can't miss it
Is that everything?
Yes, we're finished
You may go

Later post - Restaurant

Later post - Friends

Earworms has recordings of sentences for these situations
You can buy from Berliz direct and through Amazon and ebay

Useful Websites
Berlitz / Earworms
Amazon
Ebay

Author
Angela Lansbury, please save and share links to your favourite posts.

Poems About Holidays and Advice from Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia and London

Benjamin Franklin

Problem
What to do on holiday? Write poems about problems and solutions.

Answer
Today's poem from me to you is a poem on packing.
http://comicpoemsbynutter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/packing-list-poem.html
Read on - I'll give you this link again at the end.

Story
I was in Philadelphia, USA, on a press trip. A fellow travel writer, an American, said he was going on local radio to talk about the destination. I said, "Ask them if they'd like an English writer with an English accent to talk about the destination, museums, shops, restaurants, history and so on. I'll speak after you, refer back to what you said, and cover anything you haven't already covered. He was happy to do that and said they agreed. So I told everybody at home, and the tourist board, that I would be on American radio.

I sat next to him as he talked, waiting for my turn.

At the end he passed me a note:
"She says I've covered everything. You are not needed."

I was disappointed and embarrassed. I quickly wrote back:

"I have a poem on Philadelphia's attractions. Would she like that? She hasn't had that! That's new!"

He told her, and grinned at me, and whispered, "Yes - but have you got a poem?"

I didn't have a poem, but I was prepared to make it up as I went along. I started writing rhyming couplets immediately.

Unfortunately I did not get a recording of what I said. But I can reconstruct the gist of my poem. We had just visited the big exhibition on Benjamin Franklin. I started with something like this:

"I'm a Brit in America, what must I see?
Lots of things which fascinate me
A historic city, where should tourists being?
At the exhibition of Benjamin Franklin!

"He said 'early to bed and early to rise'
Makes shops wealthy, tourists happy and wise
As Philadelphia's buildings grew higher and higher
He invented lighting conductors to prevent fires ..."

By the time she had checked my name again, and announced me, I had two verses.

I added something to appeal to listeners:

"The building I'm in is made safer by him
The building you're in is made safer by him
People worldwide are indebted to him
Don't you want to know more about Benjamin Franklin?"

Whilst I was reading them out, I touched my reading glasses and thought of another verse.

"He invented bifocals, I don't know how
I'm indebted to him, I'm using them now
He did so much for you and me
Come to Philadelphia - so much new to see!"

At the end, she asked me about myself, travel writer, author of ten books, lived in the USA in Rockville Maryland, then what I had seen and liked in Philadelphia, such as the Hop on and Hop off bus and the trip down the river on the Duck tour on the converted amphibian WWII army vehicle and the USA - Elvis museums, homes of famous Americans such as poet Edgar Allan Poe.

We now have a Benjamin Franklin Museum in London, England.

Tips
Write a poem, at least a title and one couplet, each day of your trip and each destination.

Websites
http://comicpoemsbynutter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/packing-list-poem (My poem on packing)
http://comicpoemsbynutter.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/benjamin-franklin-poem-by-angela (view the Benjamin Franklin poem without comments in the middle, plus a verse about the UK museum.)
https://www.visittheusa.com
http://www.visitphilly.com
http://www.visitphilly.com/museums-attractions/philadelphia/benjamin-franklin-museum/ (USA museum in Philadelphia)
http://www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org/site/sections/ (Benjamin Franklin house in London, England)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please share links to my posts on travel and poetry.