Problem
I was writing my previous post on the food from B & K, chopped liver, salt beef sandwiches, and cheesecake, and wondered how I would ask for these foods (or explain what they were) when speaking to somebody who spoke a foreign language, in a restaurant or supermarket in England, America, Europe or Asia.
Answer
I know that the easiest thing to do when travelling is to go into McDonald's or Starbucks and point to the menu in McDonald's or Burger King or the display cabinet in Starbucks.
Story
I have managed to order, with some difficulty, and help from a friend in Hong Kong whose girlfriend was Chinese.
However, after I ordered by pointing, the serving staff asked me, in Cantonese:
'Small or large?', and,
'Would you like fries with that?', and,
'Is that all?' and instructed,
'Pay at the till!'
I was flummoxed. I had to ask my friend to interpret, and when his limited Cantonese was inadequate, to call a bilingual member of staff.
Learning Food Names
I decided the quick way to get what I want in a supermarket or restaurant with more choice, would be to learn the words for half a dozen of my favourite foods, in fact, if I could buy or order one dish which I liked, that would be a success.
All I had to do was to list my favourite foods, or indeed any half a dozen foods, in half a dozen languages.
Revise that every day, or whenever I was bored or had time. Or keep it at the back of my diary for when I was travelling or in a restaurant.
It would be sure to impress the waiters or serving staff that I knew a couple of words. Also it would impress friends and acquaintances.
Most important, I could use the words for all sorts of scenarios. For example, pointing to a food and asking, 'What's that?' Then understanding the answer. Or asking, 'Where is ...'
Or, if you have a friend who knows how to ask, 'Where is ...?' but they don't know the foreign language word for liver, or asparagus or raspberries, you can supply the vital word.
Translation Using Google
How would I find the words? That's easy. Use Google translate. It might not always be accurate translating long sentences with ambiguous words sub-clauses and metaphors, but it should be exact when it comes to translating potato and sandwich. (Although chips and crisps cause trouble in translation from British English to American.)
Single Words
My first thought was that I would take all the German words first, which I would do when learning or writing about learning German, then the Italian, and so on. If I typed the words one by one and deleted them, that would take forever.
My second thought was to type one word in English. I started with liver.
Photo of chopped liver by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Then I added chopped liver.
Translating Lists
My third thought was that I did not need to go one word at a time.
I could type all ten words in English in the left hand box, then switch languages in the right hand box.
Notebook
So I made a list of half a dozen favourite foods down the left hand margin of a large A4 notebook. I assume that you can go into McDonalds and most places and use the word Beef or beef burger. I started with the word Liver.
Across the top I wrote left to write some languages I am learning or want to learn:
German, French, Spanish, Italian.
What about the language I need most in Singapore? Chinese. Let's stick to simplified Chinese. Add Malay/Indonesian, the adjacent countries.
Whilst I am scrolling down the list, take a look at:
Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Hebrew, Japanese, Latin, Malay, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish. To finish, second time around, I add Finnish.
You might have different findings, depending on your first and second languages and which languages you like or find easy. But it was immediately clear to me that I stood no chance or recalling the Chinese, Japanese, Korea, Philippine language Tagalog, Russian, and Vietnamese. The Finnish and Esperanto did not relate to anything else either, nor did they prove easy.
I had forgotten Portuguese!
On the other hand, the good news was that the words in Spanish and Italian were similar to each other. They were also similar to the French.
The Danish, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian were similar to or the same as each other. They were almost the same as the English.
TRANSLATING LIVER
First, Europe (and USA)
English - liver
French - foie (easy, as in foie gras)
German - leber (sounds and looks similar, similar letters, similar vowels, similar consonants, same number of syllables)
Danish+Dutch+Norwegian+Swedish - lever (only the first vowel changed, and four languages just the same!
It may be a challenge for me to remember the German, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish. But I'm pretty sure that if I were to go into a supermarket or look at a menu, something would go click in my brain, I would look at the words leber or lever and think, 'That's liver!'
Europe and USA - Spanish+Italian
English - liver
Spanish - higado
Italian - fegato
Now, Asia - Chinese+Malay+Indonesian
English - liver
Chinese simplifed - gān
Malay+Indonesian - hati
I don't think I'll ever remember Chinese for liver is gān, even though it looks like gain weight. It is easy to remember that the a has a horizontal line above it. When you depress the letter a with your left middle finder, and hold it down to get the pop up symbol on the vowel key, the a with the line is the last in the list and to select the symbol you simultaneously hit the key for 8, with the pointing finger of your right hand, and 8 is the lucky numbe for the Chinese (and Singaporean Chinese).
Malay+Indonesian The Malay and Indonesian word hati is easier to pronounce. I might use a picture remembering device, such as imagining a top hat covering a bowl of liver.
However, I still have a much higher chance of remembering or recognizing the European (and American continent) languages.
That made me think, if my dream was to do a degree course, a masters, a PhD, or just some study for fun, which language would give me quicker success and more sense of achievement? I should concentrate my energy on Spanish + Italian, or Dutch + Danish, or Swedish + Norwegian. Or German+Dutch, or German+Danish.
Looking at the maps of the world, if you live in America, your best languages for holidays and work are Spanish and Portuguese, which ties up most of South America.
If you like eating out in restaurants, or ordering in food, your best languages are Italian and French. Italian is good for Italian restaurants, ice cream bars, and pizza places.
French, Spanish and Italian get you around the Mediterranean's northern coast as you drive down from England. Good for cities, culture and beach holidays.
Language Lists - food vocabulary
Let's take the first word, liver. That's a fairly unusual food. If I were to make a list of ten, or a few every day, internationally recognised foods, they would be - a lot more than ten but maybe choose one of two from each group or two or three groups:
Rice / potato / pasta / bread
Water, juice, beer, wine
Hm - maybe I should prepare for the next question, the server replies offering a choice of juice.
Orange juice, apple juice, lemon juice, mixed juice
How about some fresh fruit and vegetables?
apple, orange, banana, grape
cucumber, tomato, lettuce, peas, beans corn
(These are good for me, healthy friends and vegetarians.)
For main meals, lunch and dinner out, I shall want to buy:
beef, chicken, lamb, fish
no shellfish, allergy
salt, sugar, no salt, no sugar
Frankly, at tea time, or on a budget, I am likely to want to order or buy:
biscuits, chocolate biscuits, cheesecake
chocolate cake, rice pudding, ice cream, fruit pudding.
I'll put up my food translation list in the next post.
Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, teacher of English and other languages.
I have several more posts on learning languages. Please share your favourite posts.
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