A Souvenir Jacket From Alpe d'Huez in France

 

A Sharot wearing a black Alpe d'Huez jacket. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

The name of the ski resort is embroidered in orange. Above are mountain peaks outlined in white. Also in white is the height of the mountains, 3330 metres. (10,992ft).

3330 is the height of the highest peak, named Pic Blanche. That means white peak. Pic for peak. Blanche as in the girl's name, means white.

Why do I need to know the height? Is that very high? My search question produced an AI answer which was a copy of an opening paragrph froom Wikipedia -

'altitude, as Alpe d'Huez's Pic Blanc summit at this height makes it one of the highest points in France and a reliable source of snow for its long ski season. For context, this altitude is higher than the summit of the Eiffel Tower (about 300 meters) and most of the highest peaks in the British Isles, such as Ben Nevis (1,345 meters).'

Huez

Ski Jacket Selling Points

Black is practical. But it is offset by touches of orange. To match the orange colour of the embroidered name, also in orange are the zip with long fabric pulls, and the ribbon around the face of the hood. 

The ribbon can be tied in a bow under the chin, so as not to hide the embroidery. The zip is in the centre front.

The jacket has an integral hood. The hood keeps the neck warm. It cannot get detached, left behind, lost.

The motif is a memory aid and conversation starter.

The word de is French and means of. Alpe is the French for Alps. Our English word alpine, meaning a high mountain, like the Alps, comes the word Alpe.

Language Reminder - French - English

de - of

blanc - white (masculine)

blanche - white (the e ending is feminine in French and other Romance languages such as Italian)

Blanche - girl's name meaning white\

Huez - the name of a French mountain village, a ski resort

pic - peak

How To Remember Foreign Words In Italian & Romance Languages

 

I am learning Italian on Duolingo. Italian should be easy for me. Why? 

Because I learned French at school.

 Also I learned Latin at Grammar School. 

I did a course in Spanish on Duolingo last year. AFTER visiting Spain! I started in June. This June I started Italian.

Next year I shall move on to Portuguese. Portuguese is similar to Spanish. The challenge in learning all these languages is not the root words, which are easy, since they are based on Latin. But the problem is remembering the right endings. 

Duolingo gives you sentences to translate. A dozen or so examples of sentences, teaching you the sentence structure and vocabulary which you will learn, are in the guidelines at the start of each section.

It would help to copy these sample sentences into a notebook. However, I am usually keen to start the exercises. I plan to learn by doing. I want to complete my '15 minutes to one hour' daily goal before I start my day, whilst having breakfast and drinking my coffee.

Today's first challenge was a simple sentence. I read the newspaper. 

I should have known the words, and the endings, the vowels, and the double letters. I have a tab for translate google, English to Italian, which I can reverse by tapping the arrow to get Italian to English. I looked at the words. Leggo il giornale. Only three words.

That sounds easy to remember. Giornale in Italian is like the French journal, with the same soft j sound, and the English word for diary, journal, with a stronger J. 

I repeated the sentence aloud three times, to help myself remember it. Leggo il giornale. Leggo il giornale. Leggo il giornale. I have learned the pronunciation. So far, so good.

Then I wrote it down, or rather typed it into Duolingo.  Boom, bong - wrong! 

What had I done wrong? I wrote giornalo instead of giornale.

Italian has feminine and masculine endings which we don't have in English. French and Italian have the masculine and femeine endings. At first I remembered the Italian names Maria and Mario. But it is not as simple as add o for male words, like the name Mario, and a for female names and words, like Maria. The e is the Italian feminine ending, like the English names, Anne, Annette, Belle, Carole, Clare, Diane.

I wrote my new words in my A6 notebook, which I have labelled Italian Language. I fold back the pages vertically and write the Italian sentence on the left, the English translation on the right. 

I also fold the page a second time, to make four columns for vocabulary. I write down giornale - newspaper. I underline the e in giornale. Giornale. The last letter is e.

I look at the English word newspaper.  I underline the e, newspaper.

But I have a second error. Instead of LEGGO, Italian for I read, I have typed Lego, like the Danish building block toy. (Leg being Danish for play.)

How will I remember the Italian double G? I underline the double letter. Le gg o. I think of it as Leg-go.. 

But what is the pronunciation? I check in Translate Google. The GI in giornale, is soft, like J, like the GE which appears twice in the English boy's name George.

However, the double g, GG, is hard, like the K in the English word Kick.

Now I have written a blog post about my method for learning, correcting, remembering spelling and pronunciation. This helps you, if you are learning Italian, or any other language.

By going over it while writing this blog post, I have reinforced my memory. You learn by teaching. So here is another way to remember. Work in pairs, or, as you advance, teach beginners.

Useful Websites

Duolingo

Albanian easy to remember 55 words, 40 revised - how many words can you recognize!

 

After returning from Albania, I've looked back at the words to remember. to my list of 40 words which I found before I went to Albania, I have added a few more.  The easiest word was 

1 TUALET for toilet. You walk to the back and to the left or right of the bar you see this word. Again and again.

Here is my original list, with a few extra memory aids.

Arriving by plane or car, in Tirana, the capital, at Mother Teresa airport, you see the name of the airport, and the name mother Teresa on the statue on the roundabout 

2 Nënë Tereza - mother Teresa

The second e with the double dot is prounced the same as the two later letters er in the word mother.

You might make your first stop the museum cafe, Komiteti Kafe Muzeum. Not a cafe turned into a museum, but a collector who opened a cafe to attract people to see his collection. Items from all eras include embroidered felt dresses. 

However, the good news from a linguistic point of view is that the word 

3 Komiteti means committee. 

4 Kafe is coffee and 

5 muzeum is museum. 

They say you can see Tirana in a day. Which means a two night stay. (I couldn't.) After that, it's off to the wineries.

 Albania has lots of wineries, all over the country. 

Useful words for maps and street signs

The double dot is like the German unlaut

I copied it once, then used paste to put it in all the words where I needed it in the dictionary or glossary list

Albanian - English

6 rruga - street (like the French word rue)

Similar words, 

7 hotel, 

8 menu, 

9 tualet (toilet) 

10 restaurat (restaurant) 

Kafe is coffee

11 coffee bar is coffee bar

12 kafene is cafe, like caffeine

13 snack bar - snack bar

14 delicious food - delicatessen (meaning delicious food literally provisions of delicious)

15 food is food, food is food

English - Albanian

1-10

16 alcohol - alcohol

17 bay - gjiri (pronounced jeery - forget the first letter, memory aid - a bay like the letter Jay) 

18 beach - the beach 

20 bill - fature (my memory aid, I'd rather pay this bill in the future, after the meal and coffee)

21 breakfast - mëngjes (like manger, French for eat)

22 bridge - gji (masculine)

23 castle - what is it?ë (looks like castle, or the Italian castello, e with the double dot is er; kala (feminine)  Kalaja 

24 cheap - i lirë (memory aid just one lira!)

25 closed - closed

26 dinner - darkë (dinner time, after dark)

11-20

drink - drinks

entrance - hyrje /exit - dalje (here we are, entrance, don't dally, leave)

expensive - shtrenjtë (shocked at the price! - but you can bargain in Albania, Turkish bazaar influence, so asking price in a family business can be high to allow for you to bid lower, and you might be given a souvenir such as a magnet which means either you paid too much, or thank you for your custom, come back) 

no entry -ndalohet hyrje (no don't let anyone in here, you)

hill - kodër (up and over this hill)

hotel - hotel

house - ispi (step up to this house)

left - majtas  - right - djathtas  (starts with a d, like right in French is droit)

straight (ahead)/to drejt (starts with the letter d, later letters re, and ends with t, like the English word direct, or the romance languages, toute droit)

lunch  - drekë (Dinner, that is lunch, but not late night dinner which is  darkë (dinner time, after dark)

main street/high street - main street. ruga e lart ë (rruga like the French word for street, rue, krysore, is this street an eysore, we saw in in the street, larte pronounced later like larger street)

21-30

menu - menu

mountain - mali (both words start with m and have the vowels a then i, but in Albanian you add the l like hill)

museum - museum

new - i ri  

north - the north

old - l years oldr (like the French for old, vielle)

open - hapur (Happy to be open)

park - park

parking (lot, or car park) - parking

please - ju lutem (you let him - please!)

31-40

restaurant - restorant

right

road/path - rrugë (as in the French for street, rue)

sea/salt water - deti (dirty water, with salt or sewage)

south - jug (yes, let's jog south from the UK to Spain or the USA to S America or from Albania to Greece, letter U in south and jug )

square - katrore (like quarter, four sides)

street / path  (or spell it ruga )

thank you - faleminderit 

toilet - tualet

breakfast/lunch/tea/dinner - morning meal, drink and dine at lunch, cha tea time, dark so dinner)

yes - po (yes, it's possible)

no - jo (yo, yo,yo, no, no, no!)

Address

Fatmir Haxhiu Street, Tirana, Albania

Useful Websites

Museum Cafe In Tirana

https://thebalkanista.com/2018/02/28/komiteti-kafe-museum-one-favourite-spots-tirana/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g294446-d7912633-Reviews-Komiteti_Kafe_Muzeum-Tirana_Tirana_County.html

Find the e to copy into Albanian words in the right size here in Wikipedia from German or from the word reëntry under the side heading English"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8B

Please share links to your favourite post

French words in English - Brasserie, brassiere - how many do you know?

 

My family has been keeping a list of French words which pop up in English. We have found more than 300, not counting  food and words used in cookery.

Wikipedia has many more. But a lot of them are obscure.

Flanders and Swan wrote and performed an amusing song in which all the rhymes were Fench words.

The ones which immediately spring to my mind are these>

ballet

belle

bouquet

brassiere

brasserie

chauffeur

coiffure

portmanteau

nom de plume

banquette

That's ten. Let's see if I can find another ten quickly.

bourgoise

bureau

cuisine

gourmand

gourmet

chef

hors d'oeuvre

matinee

rendez-vous

rsvp

Useful Websites

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

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

BHA

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee was by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

Next meetings will be on these dates (unless a national holiday in Singapore or worldwide)

Themes and word of the day are tentative

2021

JULY - JUBILANT JULY

Theme/WOD Jubilant

WORKSHOPS & EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS (based on level one of Pathways)

1 Your first speech or role EASY ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Articles A and The, Plurals, Tenses, Pronunciation, Singlish)

2 CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Wed July 7th What Your Committee Can Do For You

Saturday 17th

July 4th American Independence Day.

2021 AUGUST - AWESOME AUGUST

1 Pathway Level 1 Introductory Speeches

2 Evaluations

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2021 SEPT - SUPER SEPTEMBER

Wed 1st

Sat 18th SPEECH CONTESTS

Humorous Speech Contest

Table Topics Contest

2021 OCT - ODD OCTOBER

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

2021 NOV - NOVELTY NOVEMBER

Wed 3rd

Sat 20th Wed

Diwali Hindu Festival of lights Nov 4th.

Nov 25th American Thanksgiving.

Hanukah starts 28 Dec 8 days until Dec 6. Jewish Festival of lights, celebrated by Jesus.

2021 DEC - DARLING DECEMBER

Wed  1st (Hanukah if not previous month. Festival foods.)

Sat 18th

Speech on 

JAN 2022 - JOYFUL JANUARY

Wed Jan 5th New beginning - forget the past

Sat 15 Long-term plans = for the future/Chinese New Year (CNY for short)

2022 FEB FUN FEBRUARY

Theme Love and romance - Chinese New Year

Feb 1st and 2nd are holidays - do we move this Feb 2nd meeting date?)

Wed 2nd (Valentine's Day Mon Feb 14)

Sat 19th

2022 MAR - MARVELLOUS MARCH

Theme

Wed 2nd

Sat 19

March 1st is Christian Pancake day. 

2022 APR - APRIL'S AIMS

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

Muslim Ramadan 1-30 April.

Jewish Passover (Seder meal=Last supper) April

 16

2022 MAY - MODERNISING MAY

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2022 JUN - JUBILANT JUNE

Wed 1st

Sat 18th

Jul 6, Jul 16, Aug 3, Aug 20, Sept 7, Sept 17, Oct 5, Oct 15, Nov 2, Nov 19, Dec 7, Dec 17.

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts.