Albanian words are easy and useful? Yes and no!

The words hotel and bar appear everywhere in Albania.

When standing in a line to get a table at a restaurant, or being approached by the staff, you might want to hold up your fingers and indicate your group, for example, for one, two, three, four or five people. 

Yes and No in Albanian

In an Albanian hotel, at reception, I listened to a conversation an Albanian hotel manager was having on the phone. People in hospitality are positive. He kept sayign Po which means yes. 

At first I had trouble remembering Po is yes and Jo is no. Then I recalled that Positive and Po start with the same letters, so Po is possible, probable or positive. 

Numbers

Looking at numbers, if you are solo, or a couple, or parents with one child, or two couples, you could lean just the word for one, or two, or three, or four.

From Wikipedia

jë—one	tetëmbëdhjetë—eighteen
dy—two	nëntëmbëdhjetë—nineteen
tri/tre—three	njëzet—twenty
katër—four	njëzet e një—twenty-one
pesë—five	njëzet e dy—twenty-two
gjashtë—six	tridhjetë—thirty
shtatë—seven	dyzet/katërdhjetë—forty
tetë—eight	pesëdhjetë—fifty
nëntë—nine	gjashtëdhjetë—sixty
dhjetë—ten

Use these sources for Albanian and other languages as you travel.

My friends, ex colleagues of my husband and their wives and friend, from Europe and New Zealand, who met up with me in Albania did a tour through the region, covering Croatia, Albania, and other countries.

Useful Websites

https://www.google.com/search?q=translate+albanian+to+english

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Albanian_phrasebook

I hope you find my posts interesting and helpful. Please share links to your favourite blogs and blog posts.

Learning Languages From Maps: England, bible names

Maps provide quick and easy ways to learn words.  You could learn one word today in ten languages. One useful word. (Plus a few useless words.)

Let's take some well known place names. They take us Geography and history.

English Place Names From England:

English and Oxford
If you visit London you will probably see the main shopping street, Oxford Street. Americans shorten and simplify spelling and language. Americans often drop the word street which can be a disaster for getting directions in London. At least one American has asked for Oxford and been sent on a journey to the university city of Oxford many miles away. The Oxford street presumably originally led in that direction.

English and Cambridge
The Cambridge is - a bridge over the river Cam. Cambridge is the city famous for students punting up and down the River Cam, little boats with a standing student pushing on a pole.

Oxford street. A ford over the river Ox.
Oxford and Cambridge have a boat race with several rowers which ends in London.

Israel and Jerusalem
Capital Jerusalem. J e r u - salem. Origin - salem or peace. The Hebrew for peace is Shalom. The Arabic is Salaam. The Hebrew greeting, equivalent of Hello or Hi, is shalom. The Arabic greeting worldwide is local or dialect variations on Salaam.

Israel and El
The two names for God in the bible, the old Hebrew bible or Old Testament, are El or Al and Yahweh. The name Jo-El combines both.

El or Al gives us the Arabic Allah.

Yahweh gives us the word Jehovah and Jehovah's witnesses.

From Jo we get Joseph, Josephine, Josie, Jo, Joe.

Aramaic, the language at the time of Jesus, is the origin of Arabic, and of Hebrew.  The written language originally had no vowels. Only the rich and famous and highly educated could read. Later dots and dashes were added above as guidelines. So the earliest parchments have no vowels and we have to guess the pronunciation.

The English pronunciation of El appears in many personal names. For example El-ijah, El-izabeth.

Beth or Beit is building or house. Bethlehem is house of bread. Beth - house - lehem - bread. Think of bakery, which also starts with the letter b, but house of bread enables you to remember each of the two words.

A quick way to learn a few words of a language is to look at the map. What are the words for the top ten cities, the mountain, the river, the square, the house, the church? The numbers one to ten also appear in names.

Numbers
Beersheba or Beersheba is a down in the south of Israel which in the original Aramaic would have been seven wells.  Sh-ev-a or She-b-a is seven.

Other common names are new and old. In England we have Newcastle, a city with a castle which is now quite old.

In London towards the old East End we have Old Street.

Looking at the train stations will also teach you history and Geography, although many names reflect past ages and landmarks which have vanished.

In London, Shepherds Bush will not have any shepherds nor bushes.

Orchard Road, Singapore's equivalent of London's Oxford Street, no longer has an orchard but is full of shopping malls.

On the other hand, looking at the map of England, it's easy to recall that Norfolk is north of Suffolk, because Norfolk was the land of the North folk, whilst Suffolk was the land of the South folk.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, author, speaker.