How to progress from basic to advanced in German or any language in ten simple steps.

1 Start with some loan words which are the same in both languages.

2 Learn 5 to 10 basic words, hello, goodbye, please, thank you, one, two, three, and, the. 

3 Add one simple sentence, such as my name is or where is the toilet, or  (I want/need) water, a sandwich.

4 Learn I you, he, she, it, we, you plural, they.

5 Learn the sentence structure. Is it subject, verb object, like English, or subject, object verb?

6 Learn plurals. Add s, as in English, x as in French, es, as in Spanish, or double (repeat) the word as in Malay, Indonesian and Chinese.

7 Learn some common first names or surnames.

8 Learn some common place names.

9 2 Take up an online course such as Duolingo. Do one exercise every morning, while waiting for breakfast, or coffee, or waiting for transport. 

10 Start a notebook with target language words and start talking to yourself in the target language and noting words you don't know and need.

  Where can you learn and practise speaking German? 

Flag of Germany

Flag of Austria

Flag of Switzerland

You can use German in Germany, Austria and German-speaking parts of Switzerland.  Also Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and parts of Belgium and Italy.

Flag of Luxembourg.

Flag of Liechtenstein.

A one week plan - beforehand

Learn ten words a day for 7 days and at the end of the week you have 70 words. 

During a one week holiday note ten words a day. that's another 70 words. 140 total. You will recognize people speaking your target language, and be able to identify magazines, newspapers and street signs in the target language.

On a one week or fortnight's holiday take a language course. Or organize a homestay with a family who speak the other language. A meal, a weekend, a long weekend, or whole week. You can invite them back to your place later the same year or another year. 

Aim to learn 1000 words in a year. If you learn only one word a day, most days, you have 300 or more words in a year. If you learn ten words a day, without breaks, and with revisions, you have 3,650 at the and of a year. 

A the end of five years you will be fluent in one language or get by in five languages.

Some online courses match you up with native speakers. 

Failing all else buddy up with a friend or new friend who wants to try the new language.

Buy or make sets of stickers for around the house in the target language, if you live alone or your family agree. 

Play songs in the target language and learn the words. 

Know clothes sizes, colours, the date, your favourite foods, favourite sports, or business words such as meeting, buy, sale, discount, entrance, exit, open, closed.

Know simple danger warnings such as stop, go, danger, fire, flood, river, airport, no parking, no smoking, no entry.

Advanced Language Learning

Know plurals, past, present and future, a statement and a question, 

1 Read bilingual labels on clothes, addresses on food and drinks and wine bottles.

2 Read a newspaper in the target language.

3 Watch a film with subtitles, twice.

4 Learn English from the target language in Duolingo.

5 Switch your Wikipedia to the target language. Have the other language on your phone or a second phone or another computer screen.

6 Switch your phone to the target language.

7 Switch your satnav to the target language.

8 Join a Toastmasters International or other social or sports group which speaks the target language.

9 Find a friend, marry somebody who speaks the other language, or work for a company which uses the target language.

10 Take holidays in the target language country, and other countries which speak dialects.

Useful Websites and books

duolingo.com

Useful |Books

First thousand words in (Usborne books)

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German Words In Several Countries - Placenames And Memorable German Words Similar To English

 

Where can you use German? In Europe: Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

Also in parts of several other countries. 

Belgium (co-official language in the German-speaking Community in the east.

Liechtenstein (official language)

• Luxembourg (co-official language alongside Luxembourgish and French)

Also Recognized & Spoken In Regions 

• Italy: Recognized as an official regional language in the South Tyrol (Alto Adige) region.

• Namibia: Recognized as a national minority language (due to its colonial history).

• Minority Communities: German is also spoken by recognized minority populations in parts of 

• Poland, 

• Czech Republic, 

• Hungary, 

• Romania, 

• Slovakia, 

• France (Alsace and Lorraine), 

• Denmark, 

• Russia (Volga Germans).

Some words you might spot when travelling. 

Austria

Innsbruck

The word Bruck means bridge as used in the Austrian city of Innsbruck.

Salzburg

Salzburg in Austria means salt city.

Germany

Frankfurt

Furt means ford, as in the German city of Frankfurt.

Dusseldorf

Dorf, like the English word thorpe, means village. You see that is German towns like 

Dusseldorf, and in the English attraction, Thorpe Park. 

German - English

Bus - bus

Film - film

oft - often

Maschine - machine

English - German

bus - Bus

film - Film

machine - Maschine

often - oft

-ends-

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Countries I have visited - best places, worst moments, wish lists

 I have visited fifty countries.

 My family have had homes in the UK, the USA, Spain, and Singapore.

We have had au pair girls living with us, who came from France, Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia. 

I speak French fluently. I have restaurant Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German and Dutch. I am struggling to read menus and signs in Greek, Hebrew and Russian (Cyrillic also in Bulgaria) and Chinese symbolic signs (also used in Japan).

ALBANIA

The Best Thing In Albania? 

The colourful capital is Tirana. The colourful buildings in the capital city centre and throughout the country were designed to raise morale at a time of economic crisis.

The Scary Thing In Albania

- Cliffside roads in the remote north. More near Greece, up to wonderful mountaintop cafe viewpoints, and resort south to busy beach resort. 

ANDORRA

Best Thing about Andorra - learning linguistics, languages.

The country's capital is the city of Andorra la Vella. Like the Latin word villa, the word vella originally meant city. 

Wishlist. 

Three countries tour in one day from Barcelona, covering France, Spain and Andorra. 

The Caldea Spa my daughter in law visited while our son was skiing. The Caldea Spa is the biggest in Southern Europe and has multi-level lagoons.

AUSTRALIA 

The best things in Australia

Super cities, Sydney and Perth. 

Pavlova meringue dessert with fresh fruit in the middle. Lamingtons, sponge cubes covered in chocolate and coconut.

The Twelve Apostles, on the great Ocean Road photo opportunity of rocks in the sea.

AUSTRIA

Best things To See And Do in Austria

 Grinzing wine tasting area in Vienna. Learning about Sachertorte cake. I loved Salzberger Nockerl, a large soft floating meringue. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzburger_Nockerl. Mozart Chocolates sold on the plane and everywhere.

Worst Moments In Austria: The hotel where are room was on the top floor and you needed a coin to operate the lift going upwards. 

The city map which had south at the top which made me as map reader say turn left when signposts told the driver to turn right. 

Wishlist For Austria

Esperanto Museum of the National, library, Vienna, Austria. 

BAHAMAS

The name comes from the Spanish for shallow water.

Wish List for the Bahamas. Hear calypso and watch dancing to soca music at the New Year parade. 

BELGIUM

We went to the Melipark, based on bees, which is now Plopsaland.

https://www.plopsa.com/en/plopsaland-belgium

Best Things In Belgium

Chips (potato chips). Waffles. Chocolate. Beautiful Bruges. Looking at lace, buying lace ear-rings.

Worst problem in Belgium. We were looking for signs to Ghent and only saw signs to Gand. Place names in two languages, French and Dutch languages. You need to know both when driving and looking for signposts. 

Serious and saddest sites, are all the WW2 area of Flanders, such as the Menin Gate. We always seem to stop at In Flanders Field in Ypers. You can find monuments to various nationalities in the places where they fought.

https://destinationwwii.com/wwii-sites-in-belgium/

https://whichmuseum.com/place/belgium-2/t-war

BRAZIL

Wish list. Rio Carnival. 

BULGARIA

Best. Opportunity to learn Cyrillic script, used in Bulgaria and Russia.

CAMBODIA

Best moment - Siem Reap for a tour of: Ankor Wat. Wat means temple, but it is a walled city, takes most of the day to walk along the causeway and around the walls and into the centre and up a central temple. 

Angkor Thom, approaching South Gate, 

Scary moments. Losing our rickshaw at the entrance. One rickshaw when we said goodbye. At the end of the day, a national holiday, there were hundreds, and our vehicle had been told by police to move to the next car park. 

Second scary moment. I lost my rickshaw. Supposed to meet me by the gold Buddha at the entrance. The route through a temple was in one entrance and out the other side. All four entrances had a large gold seated Buddhas. 

CANADA

Best Views - Niagara Falls. 

Quebec City - you can see history, the cliff climbed to conquer the city, by British General James Wolfe. Historic hotel Chateau Frontenac.

Canada Wish List - see the mural revealed by falling tide on the wall of the St John Harbour at the Bay of Fundy.

CHINA 

Best - Shanghai waterfront. Great Wall. 

Wishlist - Terracotta warriors. 

Scary moment - losing my tour group in China where I could not speak a word of Chinese. Getting on a coach tour bus and half a mile down the road discovering they were a German-speaking group.

CORSICA 

Worst disaster - Guitarists played late into the night keeping me awake. The coach to the airport broke down and we were told to cross the road. I was knocked down by a car, had multiple injuries and was not expected to survive.  (1984.) 

Wishlist - Maison Bonaparte.

CROATIA  

Best - Dubrovnik which I visited with my parents from a cruise ship back when it was Yugoslavia.

CZECH REPUBLIC

Best Moments - in Prague, Charles Bridge statues; Franz Kafka Museum. 

CYPRUS Greek and Turkish. 

Best moments - The wine museum. 

Walking across to Northern Cyprus, Greek to Turkish and back to Greek.

Worst - Embarrassment, first asking for Turkish coffee, then Greek coffee, being told it was Cyprus coffee.

DENMARK 

Best - Hans Andersen's Home

Wish list. Legoland in Billund, Danmark.

ENGLAND 

Flag of the United Kingdon

Flag of England.

Best sights, so many: Brighton Pavilion, York Shambles, Cornwall , Lake District - Wordsworth's House, Waddesdon, Bronte House Museum, Yorkshire, Oxford, Cambridge, Hadrian's Wall, Cadbury's Factory. London's Keats House, Dickens House, National Gallery, Tate Modern Gallery, National Portrait gallery, London Zoo, Windsor Safari Park. 

Worst moments, wondering whether you have missed the last train and wondering there the night buses go.

FINLAND 

Best moment. Meeting Santa Claus. 

Worst moment, finding we were naked in saunas, with a large group of people, journalists I was travelling with.

Worst moment. On the same travel press trip, I was offered beef steak or reindeer meat. The latter is rare and very expensive in the UK, so I ordered the former. Later I learned that reindeer meat is cheap in Finland, whilst beef steak is exorbitant.

Wish List

Music museum - Sibelius Museum, Turku, Finland.

FRANCE  

Best Paris

You can visit the chateaux of the Loire Valley. Do a Champagne cellars tour in Rheims.

Worst disaster. My family drove from overnight at our ex au pair girl's home in Rheims, across France to the border. I then realized I had left my passport behind in a passport neck bag on the back or a chair.

GERMANY

Best sites: Romantic road cities such as Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Heidelburg barrel. 

Wish list. Upside down house, Bayern, Germany. Legoland.

GREECE 

Best moments. Restaurant meals in Athen's hillside restaurant district, La Plake. 

Learning the story of Alexander the Great in the tomb at the second city, Thessalonkia. 

Scary moment - Earthquake whilst I was in a hotel on Zakinthos island. The drinks in our glasses shook.

HAWAII

HONG KONG 

Best. Sun Yat-Sen museum. Funicular. Disney. Visiting the famous Peninsula Hotel.

Worst - smog.

HUNGARY

INDIA Scary moment. Losing my taxi at a shopping centre with four entrances. All the taxi drivers had dark skins, dark hair and black moustaches. All the taxis had number plates ending in the same three letters which was code for a taxi from that city.

INDONESIA

IRELAND

ISRAEL 

Best sights: Historic and biblical Jerusalem, Art deco (Bauhaus) beach city of Tel Aviv (founded in 1909), kibbutzim, Ein Gedi waterfall into the water by the cave. 

Worst moments: 

Searched before catching a local bus from the bus station in Jerusalem, riding with teenagers carrying what looked like machine guns. At first scary, later reassuring.

Hitching a lift in a van whose driver fired gun shots into the hills which echoed around alerting everybody for miles that we were there. 

At a university in the 1960s finding they did not take money on Friday night so you had to pre book and pay and get a ticket for the meal. Luckily, a student whose friend did not turn up was able to give me and my friend a spare meal ticket.

In 2026 learning that you might be woken twice or more in the night to sirens warning you to go down to a shelter.

ITALY 

Best Sites

Roman Rome, 

Opera in La Scala Milan, 

Umbria Cliffside Etruscan gateway at the entrance to Perugia. Venice.

Wish List. Trulli.

JAPAN 

Miyajima Torii giant gate on the beach, in the water at high tide in Hiroshima.

Worst moment, being asked to how how to eat a fried egg, with chopsticks.

JORDAN Best sigh - Petra. Scariest moment: getting on and off a camel which knelt down and tried to tip me off.

KOREA (SOUTH KOREA)

LUXEMBOURG

MALAYSIA

Best sites. Hill stations. 

Museum and observation deck in Petronas twin towers centre of Kuala Lumpur.

MALTA

MEXICO

MOROCCO Marrakesh - best moment, pigeon pie, and bread kept under conical rafia hats.

NEPAL Best moments - the domed temples with eyes watching you.

NEW ZEALAND

Best moments. Skiing in New Zealand, at Queenstown, South Island. The maze museum. Lam on every menu. BYO. Vineyard Visits. Op shops (which the Americans call thrift shops and the British call charity shops.)

POLAND 

Best moments: eating Borscht in underground restaurants in rebuilt Warsaw. 

Most chilling moments - Auschwitz  Birkenau, but a little ray of hope in the Schindler's Factory Museum

Wish list - Ludwig Zamenhof museum about the creator of the made up language, Esperanto, in Bialystok. 

Wroclaw dwarfs, tiny pavement statues.

Arthur Rubinstein at his piano, statue in Lodz.

PORTUGAL 

Best site. WOW wine theme park on a city hillside overlooking the river. Restaurant with peacocks parading outside.

Mountainside s-bends along the Douro valley from Oporto to Regua which has a museum with smells of wine and flowers, and onwards to Spain. 

Madeira, saw triangular A frame houses called Casas Tipicas at Santana. Walked along the levadas, cliffside walks originally carrying water to farms, now pleasantly overhung by trees and leading to a waterfall. Madeira wine shop Blany's offering guided tour of their historic building and tastings in the capital, Funchal.

ROMANIA

Best. Second Langauge spoken is Italian. Dracula's castle and tourist area. 

Worst - Dracula's Castle. Beware of bears.

RUSSIA

Wish List

Underground stations.

SAN MARINO

SAINT MAARTEN

Best - two languages, French and Dutch, two experiences. 

Worst - Confusing. You might need two visas or passports.

SCOTLAND 

Best Sites

Edinburgth and Edinburgh Festival. Hilltop Castle. Portrait Gallery. Poets' area of old town and museums.Tartans and bagpipes.

Worst Experience. The first time I had breakfast porridge with salt, as is usual in Scotland, instead of sugar, as in England, and sent it back, resulting in confrontation and embarrassment.

Wish List. Burns House. Shetland Islands.

SINGAPORE 

Singapore Best moments - Giant Jewel waterfall, tallest in the world, in Changi Airport. The airport's free Butterfly Garden (two floors, one way, allow time). 

Any journey on the underground, with glass doors separating you from the rails until the train arrives, protecting people on platforms. Everything running frequently, about five minutes average, so sometimes even less. Free toilets on every station. Demonstrations banned. Litter swept by the elderly attendants given employment in food courts. Durian in season in ice creams and cakes. Hotel and apartment complexes with giant or ornamental swimming pools. Marina Bay Sands with an Observation Deck, and infinity swimming pool at the top, and boats on a created canal in the basement.  Get invited to dinner at the Tanglin Club.

Night Safari. Gardens by the Bay. Botanic Gardens, free, containing the Orchid Garden (paid?) 

Raffles hotel. 

The museums including the history museum, with docents (guides) Philatelic (stamps) museum.

Singapore Worst moments, a live crocodile under a boardwalk.

SLOVENIA

Slovenia wish list - Cliffside castle in a cave. Train ride through caves. Poppyseed pastries.

SOUTH AFRICA 

Johannesburg. Pretoria. Cape Town's Table Mountain, with inquisitive dassis (a bit like squirrels) ogling crumbs when we had cake. Memorable Moments in South Africa. Table Mountain. Nelson Mandela sites. Jewish museum mentions Mandela hidden on a farm bought for that purpose by his Jewish supporters.

Wishlist for South Africa - wine trail.

SPAIN

My parents had a one bedroom home in Marbella for years.

Best Moments:In Spain, weirdly shaped hotel Marquez de Riscal, Rioja region. 

In the Canary Islands in 2026, Tenerife, Hotel La Joia Mirador, Absurdia illusions attraction. Vino Museum and Honey Bee museum. 

Worst Moment in Spain - my bag stolen in Marbella. Previously my mother's bag was stolen.

Spanish wishlist - Barcelona's Gaudi Cathedral and other Gaudi monuments in Barcelona and other cities. Some of them require you to park your car and can't be seen from the road. 

Spanish Scary Moments. Cliffside S bends in Picos de Europa.  

SWITZERLAND 

Best Sights

Alprose Chocolate Factory. 

Covered bridges.

THAILAND 

Best sites - Royal Palace. Floating Market.

TUNISIA

TURKEY 

Best sites:

Istanbul Blue Mosque; and Green Mosque

UAE (United Arab Emirates)

Best site: Dubai, largest city

Huge hotels, opulent and gold. Shopping.

UK

Best: London Tower Bridge, British Museum, Science Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum. Handel and Hendrix museums, Madam Tussauds, Trafalgar Square, Bethnal Green Museum, Horniman Museum and mini zoo, London Zoo, Dickens House. Out in the suburbs, Ruislip Lido train. Harrow School. Sherlock Holmes Museum. Get invited do dinner at the Cavalry & Guards Club or the Civil Service club, or one of several clubs, some with military or overseas associations.

Day trips to Roald Dahl Museum. Waddesdon Manor, 

Lake District. Cornwall, St Ives.

Wishlist Charles Rennie Mackintosh House, Northampton, England. Optical Illusion museum in London. Any Winehouse statue in Camden. Museum of Illusions. Paradox Museum. Twist Museum. Legoland, Windsor. Last Night of the Proms, promenade concert in the Royal Albert Hall.

USA

Best Sites

New York. Empire State Building. Boat tour. Smithsomian Museums, DC. Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada. Blue Ridge Mountain drive along the East coast. Washington DC. Florida art deco. Disney. House museum of Webster who gave us the dictionary and American spelling. House museum of Nobel prize winning author Pearl Buck. Peabody Ducks. Bryce Canyon. Dallas. San Francisco. Golden Gate Bridge. LA Disney. Hollywood stars walk.

Wish List - Graceland, home of Elvis. Napa Valley Wine train. Hemingway House at Key West, Florida. Houdini Museum at Niagara. Queen Mary on Long Beach, LA.

Worst list - crocodiles in Florida.

VIETNAM 

Halong Bay. best sight

Scary moment - first tuk tuk ride at speed from airport to checking at hotel.Tuk-tuk (motorcycle carriage) transfer to hotel in Siem Reap. 

YUGOSLAVIA Dubrovnik, now CROATIA

WALES Brunel's bridge Fishguard Last Invasion Tapestry, Caerleon Roman Museum. Worst disaster. I was driving to my annual writers summer holiday in Caerleon, Wales. On the M4. Another car drove into the back of my car. I had to transfer by train to my destination.

USA Disneyland LA, Disney World Florida, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon.  New York's Jewish Museum, Sex museum and many more.

WISHLIST

CHINA

Terracotta Warriors are on my wishlist.

UKRAINE

BEST TRANSPORT

Tuk-tuk (motorcycle carriage) transfer to hotel in Sien Reap. 

TRAVEL TIPS

1 Keep a track of your own best and worst holiday experiences.

2 Make an Excel document of trips, hotels, museums, favourite food.

I am compiling this all week. Come back every day for updates on mine.

New Year's Day 2025 Fireworks & Concert Online

 I saw fireworks after midnight.

A chance to see last night's London fireworks on the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c205y3zwl27o

Sunburst patterns on the big wheel - once called The London Eye. Huge white fan shapes of vertical rockets from the embankment to left and right. of the London Eye.

The London Eye, an observation wheel, is known to Americans as a Ferris Wheel. 

I am all in favour of AI which handily tells me more than I thought of asking.

• Name history: The London Eye has had several official names, including the British Airways London Eye, the Merlin Entertainments London Eye, and the EDF Energy London Eye. It was most recently the Coca-Cola London Eye, but is now sponsored by lastminute.com. 
• Origin: The London Eye was originally submitted as an entry to a competition to design a new landmark for London's millennium. 
• Design: The London Eye was designed by architects David Marks and Julia Barfield of Marks Barfield Architects. Their design was inspired by the idea of a "flight" and was intended to provide a unique perspective of the city. 
• Height: The London Eye is 443 feet (135 meters) tall. 
• Location: The London Eye is located on the South Bank of the River Thames. 
Popularity: The London Eye is one of London's most popular tourist attractions, with over three million visitors annually. 


AI also tells me what time and which channel will broadcast the New Year's Day Concert from Vienna, Austria. Unfortunately when I copy it here I get the text in a column. If I try to delete a single space, the whole piece disappears.  I am happily listening to Johann Strauss Junior's lilting waltz music. If you miss it, or want to hear it again, or to play it to somebody else, you can get it later on the iplayer. For me the highlights are the dancers in the second half and the jolly song chosen for the encore.
AI Overview


The Vienna New Year's Concert was broadcast in the UK on New Year's Day at 10:15 AM GMT on BBC Two. It was also available on Radio 3 from 9:30 AM. 
The Vienna New Year's Concert is an annual performance of classical music by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in Vienna, Austria. The concert takes place in the Musikverein's Golden Hall at 11:15 AM. The orchestra performs the same program on December 30 and 31, but only the January 1 concert is broadcast on radio and television.











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Sweet kosher wine from Hafner Austria - and cat key rings

The one with the violin label almost even too sweet.  Organic as well as kosher. Run by a kosher family.  The cat wine is low alcohol. The owner's daughter was learning English and the word cat and what she heard the wine was muscat she drew a cat, so the owner put the cat on the bottle.

The next Vinexpo Asia is in 2024 in Hong Kong, May 28-30 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC)

https://vinexpoasia.com/newfront/marketplace/

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https://shop.oesterreichwein.at/shop/werbemittel/poster-weinfarben

Easter Eggs and Museums

 

Egg museum in Ukraine.

Easter eggs

In the USA we used to have Easter egg hunts. In Hawaii at the Halekulani hotel all the children of resident guests could take part in an Easter egg hunt.

I read recently a suggestion for how to prevent the biggest child from grabbing eggs first or even stealing eggs from the younger child's basket. Each child can only collect eggs of their allotted colour.

Decorated Shells

In Europe, the tradition is to decorate egg shells. You make a hole in the egg with a needle and remove the egg. Then paint the shell. (If in doubt check Wikihow.)

Another system is to make hard boiled eggs and colour the shell with food dye, which is edible. In Singapore for the festivals a delicious egg is made by soaking hard boiled eggs overnight in strong tea which gives a wonderful flavour to the eggs and leaves the eggs a purple colour. 

I must admit I did it and the flavour and colour were not as strong as I had hoped. But if you keep doing it, like every kind of cooking and decorating, you get to know the timing and colouring and flavour and your own cooking utensils and patience.

Chocolate brands

Alprose (Swiss), Cadbury's (UK), Ferrero Rocher (Italy), Hersheys, Lindt, Rowntrees of York (UK), Reese, 

Useful Websites

https://eggartmuseum.com/eggartmuseum

Egg Museum (Austria)

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

https://egg-museum.jimdosite.com/ (In German - but you can translate in google translate or in Wikipedia)

How to decorate eggs - 4 ways

https://www.wikihow.com/Decorate-Easter-Eggs

UKRAINE

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

Introducing yourself in another language

A useful course for introducing yourself is Earworms, from Berlitz but with soothing background music) which in level 1 on disc 1 lets you hear how to introduce yourself by name, country, married or single, to companions on a plane, asking for water or wine from the person serving. The second disc will take you through ordering taxis to airports and city centres and more. 

If you have time, you could start a Duolingo course, which is free.

If you don't have the time or money for this, you could compile your own shortlist of essential words.

Before going to another country, it is handy to compile a list of common words, especially things you might want.

For example

Greetings

Hello Spanish hola; a Chinese matey greeting is hey, like hi; the formal greeting ni hao pronounced knee how.

Good morning/afternoon/evening

A song in the film (the American word for film is movie) Cabaret, includes a song sung by Joel Grey, which starts: 

"Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome." That is welcome in German, French and English.

Goodbye - French au revoir, (see you again), adieu (goodbye forever). The Chinese sounds like sigh chen. Zhai chen. The Spanish is Adios.

Please - French por favor (for a favour). German Bitte. 

Thank you - French merci (Romanian the same, spelled mersi). German danke or danke schoen. 

Not at all/my pleasure. French de rien. 

Excuse me 

Sorry

Where is 

I need

I feel

I have lost

I want

a toilet (USA rest room)

a meal

a restaurant

a drink

water

milk

juice

wine

beer

a cocktail

healthy food

vegan food

vegetarian food/Kosher/halal

I am in a hurry

no hurry

no problem

wait a minute

Do you speak English/Spanish

My name is ... (French je m'appelle ...)

You can call me ....

What is your name?

How do I address you?

Would you like to stop for coffee?

I shall pay

Let's all pay for ourselves

Let's split the bill 

How much is it?

More, please

Please - French S'il vous plait.

Milk

Sugar

cold water

hot water

is it drinking water? - French eau potable

is it free? "Est-ce que c'est gratuit?

I must go

I have a meeting - J'ai un rendez-vous / reunion (meeting is reunion - different to the English)

I need to catch a bus/train/plane

I want to hire a bicycle/a car/a big car

I have one suitcase/2 suitcases/several suitcases - French valise

English - Spanish

country - pais

Spanish - English

pais - country

If this is all too complicated, learn a made up language which is totally predictable, Esperanto. You can visit a museum about made up languages including Esperanto in Vienna, Austria.

Useful Websites

KOREAN

https://domandhyo.com/2020/12/how-to-say-my-name-is-in-korean-introducing-yourself.html

SPANISH

Spanish speaking Toastmasters Club

https://cervantes.toastmastersclubs.org/

Author

The Author

About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.

Quick Quotations

Who Said What When

 

Egg Museums, Egg Restaurants, Easter Eggs, Hot Cross Buns, in Asia, Australia, England, Europe And the USA - where to eat and learn to cook and decorate eggs

The Egg Museum, Ukraine.

Egg Museum, Austria. Wikipedia.

In Singapore the decorations and supermarket gifts have changed from Xmas to Chinese New Year, in Fairprice in Bujit Panjang.

In Australia you can buy Easter eggs and hot cross buns in supermarkets and stores, such as Coles and Woolworths.

When I read the news on Google last night, January 6th, I was sent articles to read on making stollen and hot cross buns.

January 6th is celebrated as Christmas day in several European countries (with January 5th being Christmas Eve. I discovered this when visiting my parents in Marbella, Spain, where they had a one bedroom flat. 

January 6th, my diary tells me was epiphany. What is epiphany? The appearance of the three wise men. Some sources say Shepherds, others say kings, others say wise men.

The word epiphany, which I checked in the Oxford dictionary online, is from the Greek meaning to reveal. Revealing the birth to the gentiles, the non-Jews in distant lands.

If you like eggs, you might be interested in egg museums. 

Egg Museum

Austria has an egg museum.

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

Ukraine has a museum devoted to decorated Easter eggs. The museum itself is egg shaped. 

The museum is called Psyanka.

Egg Museum, Ukraine

Egg Museum, Ukraine

Egg Restaurants

Ohio, USA has two branches of City Egg which serve egg dishes from 6.30 am to 3.30 pm.

Eggslut.

Eggslut.

Eggslut has branches in  Japan, Kuwait, Korea; Singapore, London, UK. California and Nevada, USA.  

I ate ostrich eggs and got a souvenir huge ostrich egg in South Africa.

I gave a speech about cooking eggs to Toastmasters International in a contest, using my Ostrich Egg from South Africa as a prop.

Useful Websites

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10377693/Woolworths-Coles-shoppers-left-shocked-hot-cross-buns-easter-eggs-appear-stores.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10377693/Woolworths-Coles-shoppers-left-shocked-hot-cross-buns-easter-eggs-appear-stores.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed_article&ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

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

https://cityeggrestaurants.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CITYEGG-Menu-Nutritional-Info.pdf

https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/dining/eggslut-open-singapore-restaurant-277821

https://www.eggslut.com/locations

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

Decorated ostrich eggs

Author

About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Books by Angela Lansbury
How to be the best man. (Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Wedding Speeches and Toasts.(Ward Lock / Cassell.)
Unforgettable British Weekends.
Poetry Workshop Workbook.
The Tailor and the Spy. (Lulu.)
Larry The Talking Labrador. (Lulu.)
Writing Poetry for fun.

Quick Quotations

Who Said What When

 

What Are Stolpersteines? A new kind of holocaust memorial

 

Stones recalling the Frank family lived here. 

Maybe these are the first ones you have seen. But once you know about them, it becomes easier to find them. There are 70,ooo of these stones, in more than 700 locations,.

Countries include Austria, Germany

Stolpersteines sound like stepping stones but they are literally stumbling blocks. Stein is stone.  They are raised stones which make you stop and read the engraving that here lived a person before they were taken away by the holocaust. Mostly stones commemorate the last happy home of Jewish families such as the family of Anne Frank. But also other holocaust victims. 

The movement started small and spread city by city, sometimes unanimously welcomed, sometimes facing fierce opposition. Why put stones on the ground instead of the wall? Stones on the ground are harder to read.  You may have to stoop to see the writing. Is it disrespectful to tread on a memorial?

 Sometimes the actual house has gone. Sometimes you want the stones to stay even if the site is later redeveloped, unlike a plaque on a wall which could be removed. Sometimes the house is a private dwelling, but the road outside is public land so it is easier and quicker to get permission. Now these little memorials have spread through several countries.

Stolpersteine are found in Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Russia, Croatia, France, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, Norway, Ukraine, Switzerland, Slovakia and Luxembourg.^[4]

Useful Websites

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

About the author

About the Author Angela Lansbury

BIOGRAPHY

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 EH5 DL5 VC5 
The Author of several books, including  Etiquette For Every Occasion. Wedding Speeches & Toasts. How to be the Best Man. Quick Quotations. Who Said What When.

Blogs travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Club Vice President Public Relations (VPPR), Previous President

Join BHA 1st Wednesday 7pm and 3rd Saturday 2 pm Singapore time 

Vice President Public Relations (VP PR) of Tampines Changkat Advanced;

Secretary of weekly online Singapore International Dynamic Toastmasters Speakers’ Club;

Member and past president of Harrovians toastmasters club, UK; Past member of HOD Toastmasters, London. Past member in Singapore of: Toastmasters Club of Singapore (TCS); Tiarel; and Senja Cashew.

More details from Toastmasters International find a club.

Regular attendee at annual Swanwick Writers’ School, England.

Regular attendee at annual Writers’ Holiday, Wales.

Contributor to poetry readings, and after tea courses on: Speaking On Radio To Promote Books; and Plots And Character.

Winner of many club and area speaking contests in the UK and Singapore.

Language advisor to Empire Toastmasters club in Indonesia.

Language and speech workshops in Singapore.

Speaker on radio and TV in England, Scotland, the USA, and Australia.

Compiler of a school course on public speaking for teachers to prepare pupils for school open days with attending ceremonies before government ministers, Singapore.

Former member of Harrow Writers’ Circle, London, and two writing groups in Singapore.

Angela is on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter. She would be delighted to link up with new friends.

 Please share links to your favourite posts.