Who Is Bilingual Or Multilingual?
Sign in Singapore's four official languages, English, Chinese (Mandarin) Tamil and Malay.
Language can be used to greet friends and customers, and to warn of danger.
How many of you recognize hello and welcome in another language? In the film Cabaret Liza Minelli sings to the audience, Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome.
Croiso - welcome in Welsh.
How many of you - stop!
An old rude saying in English is, mind your own business.
What is 'your business'? Your life is your business. What you are busy with. In an office or shop, restaurant or hotel. What you are selling to other people, and learning or buying from them.
Postpone Alzheimer's
There are three good reasons for being bilingual.
1 Being bilingual, on a personal level, postpones Alzheimer's in your family. Being bilingual can postpone Alzheimer's for five years. Studies in the USA and Italy have confirmed this. So you can prolong your active life, and that of your parents and children by encouraging the study of languages and use of languages. This is important for both the quality of life and family finance and government spending.
2 You can make friends.
3 It looks good on your CV. Status. Kudos. Skill. Confidence and pride.
4 Travel is less stressful. Read road signs and maps. Ask the way when lost.
5 You can read and understand ingredients and washing instructions. Good shopping at home and overseas for souvenirs.
6 It is FUN!
Hello, goodbye and thank you in Swedish.
hello
goodbye
thank you
HELLO IN MULTIPLE LANGUAGES
GOOD evening. French, bonsoir. Spanish .... German .... Portuguese ...
You can download a picture of hello in several languages if you travel to foreign airports, or just on the internet, or use google translate.
Hello a-z of languages, hello in Arabic, Saleem, meaning peace, Shalom, in Hebrew.
You already know lots of Hebrew, and Yiddish. Yiddish is German, written in Hebrew.
Languages A to Z
How are you, Chinese, ni hao, sound like how are your knees, ni hau.
Bienvenue, Wilkommen, Welcome.
Why learn another language? What use is it to you, your family, and your workplace.
If you are a parent or grandparent, your offspring's life is your business. Do you speak and teach good English? Are you learning and teaching two languages, four, or six?
If you learn and teach a new language every year, in ten year's time, you and your colleagues and employees, your spouse and children, could be speaking ten languages - in ten years time.
Will everybody in this room live another ten years. I am 80. If I live to 89, 90, or older, like my father, mother, my grand-daughter will be able to say, my grandmother spoke 8 languages, as well as good English.
When I went to Canada on holiday, I was impressed by the fact that in the capital city, people in restaurants and hotels, staff and customers, were bilingual. They spoke English and French. Nowadays, the top three languages spoken worldwide are English, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. When I lived in Singapore I decided Chinese was difficult. Spanish is the easiest language, taking the fewest hours. That's a fact. The American military have language schools for interpreters for their troops. They know how many hours of lessons are needed for a course to make you fluent. Every time you go on holiday, you have a free immersion course. In four hours, without booking a holiday, you could be in Wales.
If you speak English, you already know a huge number of foreign words. My husband and I have a lsit of French words used in English. Of course we all know lots of words from food, and French menus. Such as croissant. Italian cappuccino. English is one of the romance languages. I learned Frere Jacques, brother Jack, in primary school. I buy Jacques Vert clothes. Vert is green in French.
Latin at secondary school.
A parent at a Toastmasters meeting told me that her child's kindergarten teacher told her that the tiny children had no problem learning six languages, and did not muddle them up. Children can learn languages from flashcards and Duolingo ABC. Adults likewise, also from Wikivoyage phrasebooks and
Welsh words on tea towels from
Land of my Fathers | eBay UK Stores
Learning languages can be challenging. But it is also fun, and full of entertaining and interesting surprises.
For example, languages which use the same word for blue and green. Welsh. Like our English word turquoise.
Easy Plurals
In English, children and foreigners learn nouns first. This is a table, a chair, a house, a cat, a dog. The Japanese learn action words, verbs. I asked a Japanese friend for the Japanese translation of Hamlet's speech about his decision not to commit suicide. To be or not to be. She translated it as to do or not to do.
If you struggle with English plurals, you might like Chinese and Malay. For plurals you simply say the word twice. In Singapore I had two Chinese Singaporean friends, called Shan and Shan-Shan, her name meant mountain. the other was Shan-shan, plural, meaning mountains. She was a big girl.
W XYZ
Welsh, xhosa, yiddish and zulu.
Yiddish for good morning is gut morgn.
We can end on Zulu. Hello is Sawubona to a single person. It means I see you. I remember it as I see you, good, sawu, bona. To a group, ninjani.
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