BUDAPESCHT ( BUDAPEST) Yiddish song Karsten Troyke with Chagall Paintings

I like both, Yiddish songs and Chagall paintings. How lovely to combine both.

Please share links to your favourite blog posts.

Food & Drink by country E-K England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, from cheddar and stilton, to kir and sake

 England

Food - savoury

Cheddar cheese, stilton blue cheese 

Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

Fish and chips.

Sweet

battenburg cake, Crumpets, Scones

Cadbury's chocolate

Fox's biscuits

UK ice cream brands, tubs, bars and sticks, include Cornetto, Mangum, Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Daz.

Wine

Sparkling white wine from Nyetimber and others.

Cider. Beer.

France

Food - Savoury

baguette, coq au vin, duck a l'orange, French onion soup

Food - Sweet

chocolatines (pain au chocolat), croissant, nougat, macarons

Drinks

Bordeau, Burgundy, Champagne, Kir (aligote grape and cassis which is black currant) 

Dubonnet, a sweet, fortified red wine, drunk as an aperitif.

Germany

Food - Savoury

Wurst (sasages)

Food - sweet

Stollen

Drink

Riesling

Greece

Food savoury

rice in vine leaves, moussaka

Sweet

baklava, kataife, 

Drinks

Ouzo (anise plant which gives us aniseeed)

Greek coffee

Hungary

Food, savoury. 

Hungarian ghoulash is the national dish of Hungary. 

Food - sweet

Hungary has a marzipan museum, in Budapest, the capital city. The museum's name is the Szabo Marcipan Museum.

Wine

Bull's blood wine

India & Pakistan

Food - savoury

Tandoori chicken

Food sweet

Gulub Jamun

Jelabi

Drink

Lassi - sweet, sour, mango

Ireland

Food - Irish stew, sourdough bread, 

Drink

Guinness

whisky (no e, the e is Scottish whiskey)

Israel

Food - savoury

Israeli salad.

Kosher food

Food - sweet

Halva, slabs of wrapped confectionery, based on sesame seeds.

Parve - neutral, not containing milk, nor a meat product or by-product such as gelatine, therefore can be eaten at both meat only or milk only meals and restaurants.

Kosher wine

meshuval - heated to a high temperature or pasteurised, and can then be already purified and safe to be handled by non-observant Jews and non-Jewish catering staff.

Rules vary from country to country, rabbi to rabbi and year to year and product to product. Please consult locally.

Sabra chocolate orange liqueur

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

Italy

Savoury

Pasta spaghetti bolognaise, carbonara 

Sweets

Amaretti di Saronno macaroons

Bitter and crunchy little biscuits in half moon shapes.

Ferrero Rocher chocolates

Nutella hazelnut spread

Zabaglione

Cassata Siciliana

biscotti

Drinks

Asti spumante

Prosecco

Illy coffee

Jamaica

Japan

Food

sushi - rice cylinders with topping of  raw fish or egg

Drink

sake - rice wine

Korea

Food - Kimchi (pickles)

Drink - Soju - rice wine

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.

Planning A Club Meeting or party in October and want a theme? Biro, Black History and national and international days and other ideas

  October 

October is the start of autumn in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere. In Ocober you can celebrate black history month, space week, 

Black History Month. Black history month is celebrated by the museum of inventions in the USA by the story of the man who invented the breadcrumb machine. As you eat you can write a poem using a Biro, thinking of Virgil or older persons or teachers. Let's go, with our list.

1 International Day of Older Persons.

Birthday of Henry Clay Work who wrote My Grandfather's Clock.

2 International day of non violence. Birthday of Gandhi. World Statistics Day.

3 World Temperance Day.

Death of Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind: quotation Tomorrow is another Day.

4 Animal Day. Habitat Day. Space week (4th to 10th).

5 Unesco World Teachers' Day.

6 UK National poetry day. National noodle day.

7 World Cotton Day. (World Space Week from 4th to 10th.)

8 International Podiatry (foot health) day

9 World Post Day.

10 World mental health day.

11 Birthday of Eleanor Roosevelt who said, Nobody can ever make you feel inferior without your permission.

12 Columbus Day. Spanish national holiday.

13 UN Day for Natural Disaster Reduction.

14 World Standards Day.

15 Birthday of Poet Virgil who was epic poet Laureate under Augustus.

Global UN World handwashing day.

16 World Food Day

17 International day for eradication of Poverty.

18 (2021 - depending on the equinox, Bahai feast of knowledge.)

19 Mother Teresa's Day, Albania.

20 World statistics day

21 UK Apple Day.

22 Australia: Unofficial wombat day.

22 National nut day. International Stuttering awareness day.

23 Hungarian republic day.

The name of László Bíró (‘Leslie Judge’) is known worldwise because the Budapest-born newspaper editor invented the eponymous (named after a person) biro. Seeing fountain pen ink ran and smudged paper, Bíró with the help of his brother, György, a chemist, create a pen with a revolving tip - a ballpoint.

Bíró patented his pioneering everyday object in 1938, abut being a Hungarian Jew, he was forced to flee Nazi-occupied Europe. He settled in Argentina, where his biro was produced and his pens helped RAF aircrew during bombing missions over Germany. Bíró died in 1985 – but lives in our memory every 29 September, when Argentines celebrate his birthday on the nation’s annual Día del Inventor.

24 United Nations Day.

25 Start of World Diasarmaent Week

26 Birthday of Napoleon Hill, author of think and grow rich.

27 UNESCO Audiovisual heritage - words and music from the past (national anthems) 

28 UK National Chocolate Day.

29 Disarmament week (Oct 25 to 30th)

30 Death of Emma Wheeler Wilcox. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone. World Thrift Day.

31 Birthday of Keats: A thing of beauty is a joy forever. I never was afraid of failure, for I would sooner fail than not be among of the best. World Cities Day.

Useful Websites

https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/october-international-days/

Who Said What When by Angela Lansbury, a paperback book, printed on demand by www.lulu.com, ID 14952577, has a quotation for the birth, death or other event of famous people every day of the year.

Quick Quotations by Angela Lansbury, also from lulu.com, has a section at the end listing national and international holidays for each month.

Book Shape fountain with water illusion of turning pages, in Budapest

Red Fountain - Budapest, District 5, Egyetem Square. Hungary.

Pic by Globetrotter19 in Wikipedia.

Book fountain, Budapest, Hungary. in Egyetem Square, District 5.

The water jets create the illusion that the pages are turning.

Where is this wonderful fountain? In the heart of Europe. Hungary, the heart.

In the heart of the old city. The fountain is in Egyetem Square. hard to remember the name until you learn it means University square.

Then I looked up the translation of university in translate Google and found two options, university and academy. Think of the Greek letters c/g and y and d/t and y and although they don't exactly match in the right order that's enough of a reminder for the words university and academy and Egyetem to match.

My next way to remember it when typing was to break the word up into Eg (egg) yet- tem temporal.  Egg head, yes, time. the university is the university of law. How appropriate for the fountain to symbolise the lawyers turning the pages to find a law or precedent to win a case in court.

The building behind the fountain is an historic building with classical elements of arches (which to me look Roman) and columns (which to me look Roman or Greek).

This square is one of three nearby squares. Not a million miles from the river which divides Buda and Pest.

If this nvelty fountain intrigues and delights you: here's another novelty fountain:

See my previous post showing the book bench in the library in Egypt.

See it in action on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abim2WC2rUY

The Author
Author, Author! About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.)
Author of twenty books including: Quick Quotations; Who Said What When.
See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Also watch videos on YouTube.
See other posts on singers and statues and languages and destinations.

If you want to learn to speak the Queen's English, or Received Pronunciation. join me at my online toastmasters club,
Braddell Heights Advanced. Wednesdays, 7-9 Singapore time which is seven hours ahead of London, England.
I am also a member of
Singapore Online.9-12 pm, Singapore time, Fridays. I am also a member of
Tampines Changkat Advanced.
Harrovians, London.
Toastmasters International Find a Club
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=upSEBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=quick+quotations
lulu.com/shop/angela-lansbury/who-said-what-when/paperback/product-21713991
learncool.sg
Please share links to your favourite posts.

See post on translating and learning Italian

Which Languages Are Most Useful To Travellers And Easiest To Learn?

We have superfluous letters in English words.B Comb. Dumb. Womb.
Go to London to learn to speak ENGLISH with a British accent and listen to the BBC broadcasts and watch the debates in the British Houses of Parliament.




American English is easier than British English because it was simplified to be easier for immigrants, simplified by Webster who produced a dictionary and workbook for schoolchildren.



If you just want to travel and be understood, learn Esperanto which is a language without a country, used by people in countries whose languages are not learned by others, or where their language is so different that they have problems learning the surrounding country's languages. Such as Hungary.

Do you want to speak or just read signs?
Spanish is an easy language to learn - except you need to roll your r.

Useful websites
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/11/polyglots-multilingual-expo-and.html

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer who teaches English and other languages.

My Multi-Language Dream For Europe, Singapore And The World

Problem
Every day we struggle to understand somebody. Friends and family mumble, or the background noise or echo confuses an already unclear message. The telephone operator confuses us from the first word by rushing the company name.

Answers
Long ago a man called Zamenho, born in Bialystok which was then in Russia but is now Poland, saw this problem in his city where several languages were spoken. He spoke several languages. He devised a new simple language which is now called Esperanto. It has only sixteen rules. Where can you learn it? At one university in England. Esperanto is the second language taught in schools in Hungary.

Esperanto is also a culturally neutral language.

Over in America, a man called Webster wrote a dictionary and school workbook to help students and immigrants learn English. He simplified the spelling. If you want to learn elegant English, which sounds lovely, learn British English. However, if you want simplified spelling, learn American.

Now, my dream. Marketing and tourism are helping teachers and learners. When I sit on a train, I read the emergency and exit instructions.

What is my dream for the UK and Europe?

Wales
In Wales I can read Welsh and English on the train. They have just (2018) ended the toll on the beautiful bridge for entering Wales, which welcomes drivers. I
 love the sound of Welsh, and Welsh male voice choirs. Probably the most often heard song for tourists is the Welsh national anthem.

Welsh and Scottish Songs
So the easy answer would be to teach everybody in England the words of Auld Lang Syne and 100 Scottish words and the Welsh national anthem and 100 Welsh words and phrases in primary school.

I regret I have to admit that Welsh and Scottish are minority languages and not a lot of use worldwide, although everybody likes to sing the Scottish song, Auld Lang Syne.
What about some more widespread languages?

European Languages. (to be continued.)

Could We All Be Bilingual?
Yes, if governments insisted on it. It is done in Canada.

Canada
Canadians speak French and English in the capital, Ottawa. being bilingual is a requirement for government jobs.

Why stop at two languages?

Chineasy - learn Chinese on YouTube

Singapore flag. Hear four languages in announcements on the MRT train system.

Singapore
Singapore has four languages, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, English, Tamil. Not many people speak all four. However, most people speak two, with a smattering of one or two more.

Lee Kuan Yew, first prime minister and founding father of Singapore, had a vision of every child in Singapore being bilingual.

To learn languages for free online, use Duolingo.

Use Grammarly.
grammarly.com

Travel Tips

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

australia.com

visitbritain.com

visitbritain.shop.com

visitbritain.org

visittheusa.co.uk

visit-canada.com

visitsingapore.com

Singapore Airlines: 

singaporeair.com

Author

Travel writer and photographer, Angela Lansbury.  

Teacher and tutor of English and other languages.Please bookmark and share your favourite posts and websites.

Serbian Language Secrets revealed, the Cyrillic alphabet, sounds and colours

Problem

A colleague of mine is employing some people from Serbia to do work for him online, helping with his news website. He says it's cheaper than employing people in the UK. If he writes to them, no problem. 

But speaking to them on the phone or on Skype would be a problem. So would going to meet them. He can't pronounce their names!

How often would you meet people who speak the Serbian language? Even if you are not planning travelling to Serbia in the near future, you might meet Serbian speakers in Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic or Romania. Wiki says:

Official status
Official language in	Serbia  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Kosovo[a]
Recognised minority language in	Croatia  Hungary[3]  Montenegro  Slovakia[4]  Czech Republic[5][6]  Macedonia[7]  Romania

Serbian Letters

Cyrillic Latin IPA value А а A a /ä/ Б б B b /b/ В в V v /v/ Г г G g /ɡ/ Д д D d /d/ Ђ ђ Đ đ /dʑ/ Е е E e /e/ Ж ж Ž ž /ʐ/ З з Z z /z/ И и I i /i/ Ј ј J j /ʝ/ К к K k /k/ Л л L l /l/ Љ љ Lj lj /ʎ/ М м M m /m/

Cyrillic Latin IPA value Н н N n /n/ Њ њ Nj nj /ɲ/ О о O o /ɔ/ П п P p /p/ Р р R r /ɾ/ С с S s /s/ Т т T t /t/ Ћ ћ Ć ć /tɕ/ У у U u /u/ Ф ф F f /f/ Х х H h /x/ Ц ц C c /ts/ Ч ч Č č /ʈʂ/ Џ џ Dž dž /ɖʐ/ Ш ш Š š /ʂ/

How do you remember them? You'll have to make up some memory aids. Here are some of mine:

The b looks like a Big B written in a hurry so it's like a small b and the small b looks like a b written in a hurry of a number 6. Six bees. however the B shape is like v. I think of the word believe. When I see the letter b, which is at the start of the word believe, I go to the end of the word believe and find the V.

The Gamma is next. (Alpha, beta, gamma). It looks like a pointing r. Revving up. Go go go! Get the Gamma.

The D or delta looks like a door.

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

http://mylanguages.org/serbian_alphabet.php

Serbian Latin Alphabet

From Wikipedia; credit author Albatalad.

Serbian Names

Once you have managed to read the names, you need to know how to say them. I found a helpful website which gives names in both a Latin and a Serbian lettering plus a recording of the sound.

How do you get to hear the name? You see a wide oblong with the triangle on the left. At first I kept clicking on the oblong or on the teeny symbol alongside the triangle. I would tap several times and eventually hit the right place by chance. I thought the site was slow or not working. Then I wondered if it was me.

You have to be sure to click on the triangle, not just anywhere in the oblong.

The girl's name Anna looks like AHA in the Serbian script. (I remind myself, 'aha - it's Anna! But the vowel is pronounced more like u n n a , or uh-ha.

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-boy-names/

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-girl-names

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-surnames

I decided to try to learn a couple of words. I went onto another website and chose colours. At first I could not see the icon for play. Then I realised I had to download flash player in order to see the bar which starts with the triangle pointing forward for go.

My next problem was that the words didn't match up with the colours in the columns. then I realised you read the two words on each line horizontally, zig zagging down the page. The words which sounded almost the same as English were Orange and Brown.
http://mylanguages.org/multimedia/serbian_audio_colors.php

If you go to Serbia, what is there to see? The Nikola Tesla museum. It is in Belgrade, the capital city. Belgrade is known as the White City, The White Castle, and The city which never sleeps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_Museum
http://www.nikolateslamuseum.org/web/index

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English, public speaking, and learner and speaker of other languages. Please share links to my posts.

Sweet wines? Sparkling wines? Sweet and sparkling? What to choose.

Clairette de Die is a new wine for me. How about you? It's a sweet muscat with sparkle. More details below. I've listed the wines alphabetically by country, to make it easier for me to compile my list and see nothing's missing, and so you and I can find what we want quickly on re-reading later.

Just in case you are wondering, if you prefer dry wines, why anybody needs to know about sweet wines, here's why:
1 If you like dry wines, you want to avoid the sweet ones.
2 If you are a host, you may need to suggest sweet wines to your companion.
3 You traditionally have a sparkling wine for a toast, or aperitif. Champagne is mostly dry.
4 You might want a sweet or sparkling wine before or after the meal.
You might prefer half bottles to go with different foods, including a sweet wine with cheese or sweet dessert.

My favourites are:

AUSTRALIA
http://winefolly.com/review/types-dessert-wine/

AUSTRIA
Wine marked W e l s c h r e s i l i n g - from W e l s c h or west side the Neu new lieder (sea).

FRANCE
Clairette de Die
Might be the traditional C l a i r e t t e grape but it is permitted to use muscat. My latest find is the C l a r i e t t e de Die which is 100% muscat, white sparkling, with a distinctive sweet and sour lime flavour. (If you see the word Claudette, blame spell checker which snakes up - I wrote s n e a k s after you have checked the copy.)

See sauternes - a region in the soutane most part of Bordeaux.

Alsace

GERMANY
Gewurtztraminer gewürzt means spicy or tasty.
Auslese - late picked. (Any fruit whether apple or grape or other starts green and late in the year changes to a darker red or brown or mottled or plum colour and grows sweeter.

HUNGARY
T o k a j i - without the final letter i you are describing the region. With the final letter i you are describing the wine from that region.
The main grape is f u r m i n t . A second grape is Harslevelu. H a r s (not hard - that's spell checker interfering) means linden or lime. Level is leaf. the final U = ed. Leafed.
The grape is not lime but grape and apple flavour.
Tokay can be sweet or dry.
Sweet tokay with botrytis (noble rot) is called a s z u.

ITALY
Prosecco
Popular sparkling white.
G l e r a (Gloria is spellchecker's nonsense) grape is the new name.
Originally both the region and wine were named the same which caused confusion. Janice Robinson in her tomes on wine uses the old name.

PORTUGAL
Mateus Rose. Pink wine.Very light sparkle.

SPAIN
Cava sparkling dry.
Sweet sherry from J e r ez pronounced h e r e z .

USA
Ice wine.
Zinfandel. This grape comes up white, rose, or red.
Grenache.

New Zealand
Ice wine.

I have previous posts on sweet wine. Follow me on Facebook, here on blogger, link to me on linkedIn, browse my books on Amazon and Lulu.com
Angela Lansbury - for the best fun travel: art and attractions, wine and dine, people and places, facts, factories and fun.
Also see my blog on English spelling.