Are you keen on learning new languages?
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Polyglots' Tricks
I was looking at the Polyglot page on Facebook and read that one language enthusiast saves books in other languages just in case he ever needs to immerse in that language. What dedication!
Several polyglots replied that they do the same. I think this would work well in languages similar to English. You can download well-known books, either where you know the language and characters and plot, or where you can easily get the translation.
Wouldn't Alice in Wonderland in other languages be more fun for some people than lists of words? You can read the Esperanto on the left, the English on the right, with the original now out of copyright Tenniel illustrations.
For example, if you see the story of Cinderella or any children's book in French or Spanish or Italian, that might be a good start. You can find translations of the bible and fairy tales and classic children's stories which are out of copyright. Those which have been in print for years are available in Latin and the made up simple language, Esperanto.
Dictionaries
Until today I had never downloaded a whole book in a foreign language, but I did buy a mini dictionary in every language. I saved the translation pages in airplane magazines. Where to find them? The files of travel maps and brochues went out of date and eventually got thrown out by my family. So I began to fold the handy lists of common words and phrases and slide the page or part page under the front cover of one of my dictionaries.
Japanese is challenging. But the written language is more or less the same symbols as Chinese. Think of the symbols on your washing insructions and no smoking signs which are cigarettes with lines through them.
Leaflets
In Singapore if I see a leaflet in English and another leaflet in Malay or Chinese I pick them up and look for capital letters or repeated words or short sentences to learn or look up. I used to take the whole leaflet.
I would circle repeated words in the English. Or simple words I might need often. Looking at the foreign language, I would circle the equivalent word.
I would check in Google translate. Then I would create a page in a notebook if I had one handy. If not in my diary - no empty pages - sometimes back in January I had an empty page. Failing al else I found an empty half page in the leaflet or wrote the translation on both leaflets.
Then I decided that taking information leaflets was antisocial, costing the government money. I was also creating clutter in my home.
So I started taking photos insted. I would leaf through the leaflets. When I saw a useful page, with either very little text, (when I started learning thelanguge) or lots of text (later on), I took a photo of the English language cover and first page and back page, then the Malay or Chinese translations.
Travel Sites - Places for Polyglots to Visit
Flag of Austria from open Emoji, free to use Emojis.
AUSTRIA
Vienna has a museum on languages, specifically made up or cimplified languages. You can learn about the origin of Esperanto which is like a mix of Spanish, Italian, Latin, English, German, but following set rules, no exceptions. You don't have to worry about accents. Accents don't matter because no country pssesses this language.
Who speaks it and where? You can find Facebook pages and an annual conference. Several smaller countries whose language you might find hard, or too many to master, favour Esperanto. Handy in Hungary where the older generation could take their exams in Esperanto as a foreign language because Russian and German were too complicated and different from Hungarian.
Flag of Belgium.
BELGIUM
Bilingual road signs in French and Dutch.
Flag of Bulgaria
The top is white which does not show up well against the white background of this blog post..
So here's the OpenEmoji which shows the Bulgarian flag framed.
BULGARIA
Easy to learn Cyrillic if you take the free tour then the cheap Cultural walking tour (after one free tour, you will be hooked, maybe glad to leave a tip, if not you may decide that two tours for the price of one is a bargain. On the cultural I was given the card with the Cyrillic letters and was helped to write my own name in Cyrillic.
Flag of Canada.
CANADA
Start at Niagara Falls - who wouldn't!
Ottawa - everything in two languages, French and English. Inspiring, encouraging.
Montreal - to immerse yourself in French. The Montreal accent is more like Marseilles in France.
Toronto - to immerse yourself in English.
A beautiful bilingual holiday, two cultures and two languages in one country.
FRANCE
Paris - to get the standard accent, not the Canadian accent which is more like Marseilles.
Flag of Germany
GERMANY
A surprisng number of words sound similar to English. Kindergarden in English is child garden. Garten is garden. Kinder as in Kinder Surprise is child surprise. Kinder looks a bit like child or children. Be kind to children, especially your kith and kin.
German is similar to English, Dutch and Scandinavian languages, as well as being understood in those countries.
Flag of Singapore.
SINGAPORE
Pick up Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil and Singlish.
UK
London is becoming a polyglot capital. You have restaurants of all nationalities. Some areas are inhabited by speakers of specific languages.
For example, such as Southall for sari shops and Indian restaurants and halal or vegetarian food.
Chinatown has restaurants which is Cantonese speaking from immigrants from Hong Kong, Most High streets (main streets) have at least one Chinese (Cantonese speaking) restaurant, and one Indian restaurant (mostly run by Pakistanis).
You will also find israeli restaurants for Hebrew, often middle eastern foods such as Jewish restaurants (Yiddish speaking - a European menu with variant on German and Russian which and kosher).
Plus Greek restaurants (Greek language and songs! Don't ask for Turkish coffee, it's Greek coffee here.
Turkish restaurants (Turkish menu). Lebanese (Arabic - could be halal and Muslim, or Christian - check website and menu before trying out your languages.
Malay - often combined with menus and staff of Chinese or Indonesian or Thai. (Malay national might be Chinese or Indian or Malay by race. by religion they could be Muslim but Asian not Middle Eastern, not Arabic and not Arabic speaking. Malay language is an easier language in the Roman alphabet)
USA
Pick up Spanish from bilingual signs, especially in public places such as hospitals and cities near borders. You will pick up some words effortlessly. Los Angeles means the angels. Now you know the plural and plurals for nouns.
ARMCHAIR AND AIRLINE SEAT LEARNING
Useful Websites
List and links to stories in other languages including Alice in Wonderland in Esperanto and several other languages.
http://bilinguis.com/
duolingo.com
memrise.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/
Bilingual English and Spanish Toastmasters Club in the USA
https://bilingualaustin.toastmastersclubs.org/
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/these-singaporeans-can-really-talk-0
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Toastmasters International
You can practise your languages at toastmasters clubs in person and some clubs are online. For example, In Singapore, clubs in Chinese Mandarin, Chinese dialect Teochew, French, Malay (similar to Indonesian), Tamil (south Indian and Sri Lankan laguage).
In the USA you can find Spanish speaking clubs. Canada has French speaking clubs.
Europe has clubs in various languages. You can buy the Toastmasters literature in several languages including English, French, Arabic. Once you have joined a toastmasters club you will be welcome at Toastmasters clubs worldwide where you can network and socialise and find friends.
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages. president of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club in Singapore (see Facebook page.) I have many more posts on language learning, specific languages such as easy Esperanto, symbols and stories in Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Indonesian, Malay, Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Welsh. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite pages.
✋
Polyglots' Tricks
I was looking at the Polyglot page on Facebook and read that one language enthusiast saves books in other languages just in case he ever needs to immerse in that language. What dedication!
Several polyglots replied that they do the same. I think this would work well in languages similar to English. You can download well-known books, either where you know the language and characters and plot, or where you can easily get the translation.
Wouldn't Alice in Wonderland in other languages be more fun for some people than lists of words? You can read the Esperanto on the left, the English on the right, with the original now out of copyright Tenniel illustrations.
For example, if you see the story of Cinderella or any children's book in French or Spanish or Italian, that might be a good start. You can find translations of the bible and fairy tales and classic children's stories which are out of copyright. Those which have been in print for years are available in Latin and the made up simple language, Esperanto.
Dictionaries
Until today I had never downloaded a whole book in a foreign language, but I did buy a mini dictionary in every language. I saved the translation pages in airplane magazines. Where to find them? The files of travel maps and brochues went out of date and eventually got thrown out by my family. So I began to fold the handy lists of common words and phrases and slide the page or part page under the front cover of one of my dictionaries.
Japanese is challenging. But the written language is more or less the same symbols as Chinese. Think of the symbols on your washing insructions and no smoking signs which are cigarettes with lines through them.
Leaflets
In Singapore if I see a leaflet in English and another leaflet in Malay or Chinese I pick them up and look for capital letters or repeated words or short sentences to learn or look up. I used to take the whole leaflet.
I would circle repeated words in the English. Or simple words I might need often. Looking at the foreign language, I would circle the equivalent word.
I would check in Google translate. Then I would create a page in a notebook if I had one handy. If not in my diary - no empty pages - sometimes back in January I had an empty page. Failing al else I found an empty half page in the leaflet or wrote the translation on both leaflets.
Then I decided that taking information leaflets was antisocial, costing the government money. I was also creating clutter in my home.
So I started taking photos insted. I would leaf through the leaflets. When I saw a useful page, with either very little text, (when I started learning thelanguge) or lots of text (later on), I took a photo of the English language cover and first page and back page, then the Malay or Chinese translations.
Travel Sites - Places for Polyglots to Visit
Flag of Austria from open Emoji, free to use Emojis.
AUSTRIA
Vienna has a museum on languages, specifically made up or cimplified languages. You can learn about the origin of Esperanto which is like a mix of Spanish, Italian, Latin, English, German, but following set rules, no exceptions. You don't have to worry about accents. Accents don't matter because no country pssesses this language.
Who speaks it and where? You can find Facebook pages and an annual conference. Several smaller countries whose language you might find hard, or too many to master, favour Esperanto. Handy in Hungary where the older generation could take their exams in Esperanto as a foreign language because Russian and German were too complicated and different from Hungarian.
Flag of Belgium.
BELGIUM
Bilingual road signs in French and Dutch.
Flag of Bulgaria
The top is white which does not show up well against the white background of this blog post..
So here's the OpenEmoji which shows the Bulgarian flag framed.
BULGARIA
Easy to learn Cyrillic if you take the free tour then the cheap Cultural walking tour (after one free tour, you will be hooked, maybe glad to leave a tip, if not you may decide that two tours for the price of one is a bargain. On the cultural I was given the card with the Cyrillic letters and was helped to write my own name in Cyrillic.
Flag of Canada.
CANADA
Start at Niagara Falls - who wouldn't!
Ottawa - everything in two languages, French and English. Inspiring, encouraging.
Montreal - to immerse yourself in French. The Montreal accent is more like Marseilles in France.
Toronto - to immerse yourself in English.
A beautiful bilingual holiday, two cultures and two languages in one country.
FRANCE
Paris - to get the standard accent, not the Canadian accent which is more like Marseilles.
Flag of Germany
GERMANY
A surprisng number of words sound similar to English. Kindergarden in English is child garden. Garten is garden. Kinder as in Kinder Surprise is child surprise. Kinder looks a bit like child or children. Be kind to children, especially your kith and kin.
German is similar to English, Dutch and Scandinavian languages, as well as being understood in those countries.
Flag of Singapore.
SINGAPORE
Pick up Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil and Singlish.
UKLondon is becoming a polyglot capital. You have restaurants of all nationalities. Some areas are inhabited by speakers of specific languages.
For example, such as Southall for sari shops and Indian restaurants and halal or vegetarian food.
Chinatown has restaurants which is Cantonese speaking from immigrants from Hong Kong, Most High streets (main streets) have at least one Chinese (Cantonese speaking) restaurant, and one Indian restaurant (mostly run by Pakistanis).
You will also find israeli restaurants for Hebrew, often middle eastern foods such as Jewish restaurants (Yiddish speaking - a European menu with variant on German and Russian which and kosher).
Plus Greek restaurants (Greek language and songs! Don't ask for Turkish coffee, it's Greek coffee here.
Turkish restaurants (Turkish menu). Lebanese (Arabic - could be halal and Muslim, or Christian - check website and menu before trying out your languages.
Malay - often combined with menus and staff of Chinese or Indonesian or Thai. (Malay national might be Chinese or Indian or Malay by race. by religion they could be Muslim but Asian not Middle Eastern, not Arabic and not Arabic speaking. Malay language is an easier language in the Roman alphabet)
USAPick up Spanish from bilingual signs, especially in public places such as hospitals and cities near borders. You will pick up some words effortlessly. Los Angeles means the angels. Now you know the plural and plurals for nouns.
ARMCHAIR AND AIRLINE SEAT LEARNING
Useful Websites
List and links to stories in other languages including Alice in Wonderland in Esperanto and several other languages.
http://bilinguis.com/
duolingo.com
memrise.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/
Bilingual English and Spanish Toastmasters Club in the USA
https://bilingualaustin.toastmastersclubs.org/
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/these-singaporeans-can-really-talk-0
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Toastmasters International
You can practise your languages at toastmasters clubs in person and some clubs are online. For example, In Singapore, clubs in Chinese Mandarin, Chinese dialect Teochew, French, Malay (similar to Indonesian), Tamil (south Indian and Sri Lankan laguage).
In the USA you can find Spanish speaking clubs. Canada has French speaking clubs.
Europe has clubs in various languages. You can buy the Toastmasters literature in several languages including English, French, Arabic. Once you have joined a toastmasters club you will be welcome at Toastmasters clubs worldwide where you can network and socialise and find friends.
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages. president of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club in Singapore (see Facebook page.) I have many more posts on language learning, specific languages such as easy Esperanto, symbols and stories in Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Indonesian, Malay, Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Welsh. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite pages.
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