Learning Chinese, Japanese and Malay From Railway Station Signs: 6th Avenue!

Picture from Wikipedia showing numbers in various languages. (English, Urdu, Roman, ending with Chinese / Japanese.)

Look at the numbers in the bottom line of the picture. They are Chinese signs for zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Six looks like a standing or seated man: head, two arms, two legs, invisible pavement or invisible seat.

Problem
How do you learn and practise a language every day, effortlessly?

Answer
Learn to recognize station signs. You see them every day as you pass.  Learn Chinese signs and you have also learned Japanese. The reverse benefit applies. Learn Japanese signs and you have also learned Chinese!

Railway Station - Botanical Gardens
For example. I was sitting at the Singapore station Botanical Gardens which is a point of interchange from the blue Downtown line. I looked at the three Chinese signs for Botanical Gardens and said to my companion: "I wonder which of those signs means garden?"

Translating Photos And Text
We took a photo of the sign with our phones. However, you cannot put a sign into Google translate. So we tried the other way round. We could not type in the word garden in Chinese. So we typed in Garden, in English, and looked to see if we had a match with the word which came up and our photo.

Sixth Avenue
Another stop on the Downtown line is Sixth Avenue. I was looking at the English words Sixth Avenue when the Chinese signs alongside jumped out at me.

Hey - the middle of the three signs is a number I recognize! I learned the numbers one to ten last week. That's the number six!

It's not where I would expect it. The number six is the middle of three signs. It so happens that six is one of the Chinese numbers I found hardest to remember. One, two, and three, are easy to remember because they are simply horizontal lines, one line for one, two lines for two, three lines for three. Four is a square with two curves inside like a curtained window. But six bears no relations to anything.

However, now I shall be able to remember six easily. From just once glance at it on the railway station the number six is instantly ingrained in my memory. It will be reinforced every time I pass through that station. The sign shows a man on Sixth Avenue station standing or sitting waiting for the train.

You are likely to see Chinese signs if you live in or holiday in Singapore, Hong Kong, or China. You will also see signs on Chinese restaurants in Chinatown in large cities. More are in any country with borders with China or large numbers of Chinese investors or visitors. I saw signs in Cambodia, which has a lot of investment from China in Siem Reap, the city around the temples of which the famous one is Ankor Wat, Wat meaning temple.

Happy hunting with Chinese and Malay and French and other signs.

In Singapore I was a volunteer at an English enrichment programme at Crescent Girls' School. We helped girls who had failed mock O level to pass the exam. They all passed (except one who was in hospital).

Every day I receive reminders from Duolingo and Duolingo Tiny Cards to keep up my Chinese. Even if I did not use their system (and I do use it every day) the daily reminders would be invaluable.

Happy learning. Thank you (for reading). 'Shay shay', which means thank you in Chinese, is what I hear on every train journey at the end of Chinese announcement. I also hear the Malay ones ending Terimah Kasih (thank you in Malay) and 'Mandri' (thank you in Tamil).

But my top triumph is spotting the number six in the sign for Sixth Avenue.

 Multilingual signs everywhere.

Multi-lingual signs on trains - and local people will help you to translate.

Stations and bus stops - whilst waiting around, time to learn languages.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages.