Years ago I went to a Chinese speaking Toastmasters club in Singapore after I saw somebody had written on Facebook that he went to a Chinese Toastmasters club to learn Chinese.
Chinese Challenges In Singapore
I could not understand a word.
In the interval. I had enormous trouble finding the toilet in the interval. I tried pointing to my groin and miming hand washing. Eventually somebody showed me the floor with the toilets and left me. I did not know which toilet was which.
Now I have learned the sign for women from the Chineasy flashcards, with their explanation that the old-fashioned idea was that a woman is kneeling, I prefer to think of it as a woman in the ladies toilet, maybe a Japanese woman, adjusting her hair with a hat pin or adjusting her hat.
I know that men is the other sign. To me it looks like a man running, maybe running to the toilet.
At the end of the meeting I had trouble explaining that I needed a taxi or railway station to get home. If you are a complete beginner, your best bet is a bilingual club. I looked at some Spanish speaking club websites and found I could get the gist of one in three paragraphs and by turning on translate I could check my understand end identify individual words without having to copy them and paste them into Translate Google
Today I discovered what I have been looking for. A glossary in various languages. Below are the links. I shall add some individual words later.
French Challenges
I went to a French speaking club in Singapore. For years I had considered myself almost bilingual. However, I was missing out on slang words.
Tipsy in French
In my table topic (impromptu speech subject) the topic including a word not known by me nor my friend who was a member (she teaches French). Neither of us knew the French word for tipsy. Saoul mens drunk. I had learned only the word ivre.
Reunion in English
Another challenge was the words which sound the same but are slightly different. For example, a meeting in French was called reunion. In English a reunion would be an infrequent, once off or annual event such as a meeting of people who met on holiday, or went to school together. But in toastmasters the reunion was the regular monthly meeting, in English called a meeting.
I had for a long time toyed with the idea of using the foreign language manual alongside the English one to pick up the terms. I went to a physical meeting in a Community Centre and saved the programme sheet (agenda) and wrote in some of the terms.
Glossary
In case you don't know the word glossary, it is like a mini-dictionary of abbreviations and technical or foreign words used in a document.
Whether you intend to attend a bilingual meeting in person, or view in online, or read the website, or look at a manual or leaflet, or contact them on Facebook or LinkedIn, this glossary could be helpful.
You don't get a one word translation, which is what a speaker needs, but a whole paragraph to explain the English language concept in the other language.
Here is my translation of individual words you might hear or read at a meeting of Toastmasters or any other organization.
The same as in English, you add an s for plurals. Think of Los Angeles, the American city, whose name means the angels.
English - Spanish
and - y
archives - archivos
documents - documentos
glossary - glossario
level - nivel
obligatory - obligatorio
of - de (the same as the French word)
official - oficial
officials - oficiales
on line - en linea
permission - permiso
President - Presidente
project - proyecto
secretary - secretario
speech - discurso
(the) website - (el) sitio web
Spanish English
archivos - archives
de - of
discurso - speech (the Spanish word is like the English word discourse)
documentos - documents
en linea - on line
glossario - glossary
nivel - level
obligatorio - obligatory
oficial - official
oficiales - officials
permission - permiso
Presidente - president
Proyecto (plural proyectos) - project
secretario - secretary
(el) sitio web - (the) website
y - and
Useful Websites
Toastmasters International Find a Club
Note that is it not toastmasters dot com but org for organization.
About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, fashionista. Please share links to your favourite posts or one or more of the blogs
travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com
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