How Long Does It REALLY Take To Learn a Language?

The easiest languages for English speakers include Esperanto, Swedish, and Dutch, Italian, French.

Other languages with the same alphabet are also easier. 

Easy in the sense of fewer rules, but also the number of hours required to study. The number of hours is not a guesstimate. The American dipolmats and miltary have to train staff on language courses for postings to foreign countries. Interpreters are trained in schools designed for this purpose. A very interesting video on You Tube shows what is required and done. 

The military interpreters who volunteer and have an aprtitue and the dedication commit to several hours a day for most days of the week as well as evening homework. Far longer than I would ever commit.

They are expected to be fluent in a year or maximum a year and a half.

They are fluent before they set foot in the country.

However, amateur polyglots often go to a coutnry speaking not a word and learn by immersion as well as intensive study.

O the oriental languages, Indonesian and Malay are easiest.

Of the African languages, Swahili looks easiest. 

Five Reasons Why You Should Visit Travelmasters Online

Angela Lansbury, member of Toastmasters clubs in the UK and Singapore and online LILT languages club (every Sunday; top right Sarah Cossette, Vice President of Education of Travelmasters Toastmasters Internnational Club, and Leesa, Vice President of Membership of Travelmasters Toastmasters Club.

Travelmasters is an online club for speakers, speech trainers, would be speakers, part of worldwide Toastmasters International which started in the USA a hundred years ago and now has hundreds of members and clubs worldwide and exciting, inspiring speech contests.

Why go to the Travelmasters club? Where and when is it? The second and 4th Wednesday evening every month, at 7 pm Eastern Standard time (New York time) on zoom. If you miss it or want to see a past meeting, you will be able to see the recordings

If you are already a Toastmasters you might want to give a speech on your travels overseas or travel in your country, or to take a role in a meeting, such as a timer, timing the speeches and signalling to the speaker how much time they have left and when to finish. Or as evaluator, give them encourgaing feedback and why you loved their speech, what they sid well, and useful suggestions on how they could improve and what to add. 

But this club doesn't just have a niche, a theme, of travel. The policy of the Vice President of Education, Sarah, who organizes meetings (she;s top right in the photo above) and of Leesa (lower in the picture) is to make the meetings fun. Instead of the usual, conventional titles for their role holders, each one has an amusing name on the theme of travel.

 1 You are bound to learn something interesting about travel because all the speeches are about travel

2 The meetings are fun. 

3 You have an opportunty to meet well-travelled, interesting people.

4 It is a fantastic networking experience - they link you up with lots of other groups, such as the Gastronomy Toastmasters Club.

5 They can tell you how they transformed from a physical meeting to online meetings, and rescued and rebranded a club to make it a successful club .

Network, get new ideas, and link to other clubs such as Gastronomy.

Sarah is a member of Travelmasters TMC US based but online, and Gastronomy, US based which meets for meals out with members. 

Leesa is also a member of Travelmasteeers TMC and Gastronomy.

Leesa met Angela by attending a meeting of Singapore Online Dynamic, whose meetings Angela posted in the WhatsApp group of Global (toastmasters) which has a large number of clubs in Asia, especially India and Singapore.

Angela is a member of: UK based clubs Harrovians (in Harrow) which is hybrid, one meeting a month on Zoom, another in person at a church hall in Harrow. HOD meeting at a library in North Harrow, London. Singapore based Tampines Changkat Advanced (in prson meetings, hybrid just for travelling and overseas longterm member Angela who was a former Area Director of Area S), and two online clubs LILT languages club meeting every Sunday, and Singapore Dynamic meeting every Friday   

Travelmasters and LILT are also on Facebook. Angela Lansbury is on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.

If you ever lose track of a person in a club or the club itself, you can track them down through the Ttoastmasters International websites

Look on Facebook for Travelmasters, also WILL (before we rebranded as LILT), and World Travellers. Sarah is not possessive nor confrontational. On the contrary, she welcomes the idea of travel clubs multiplying, one in every continent, one in every country, with pods or subgroups of particular interest. What a lovely, lively, warm, well-travelled woman. 

Useful Information

toastmastersinternational find a club. 

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

https://travelmasters.toastmastersclubs.org

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrf-qrrj8iHdCGM3FlI6jgudQ2cNRLvO1X

Please share links to your favourite posts.

How To Say The Word for Travel in several languages

UK flag


US flag

The English and American for travel are the same. But the British say holiday, whilst the Americans say vacation.

English - travel
Arabic - safar (like safari, also Bangla, Hindi, Urdu)
Catalan - viatge (spelling with a g like voyage, closer to the French than the Spanish)
Esperanto - vojaĝi
French - voyage

Hindi - safar (also Arabic, Bangla, Urdu)
Indonesian - perjalanan
Italian - viaggio
Malay- bepergian (to travel)
Norwegian - Reise
Portuguese (Brazil) - viagem



Spanish - viaje
Urdu - safar (also Arabic, Bangla, Hindi)

I tried the Chinese for I like to travel in Google translate. I could grasp wo for I.

我喜欢
去旅行

Wǒ xǐhuān
qù lǚxíng

Useful Websites
Polyglot page on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/2343793145839444/?comment

Duolingo

interlingua


About the author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a travel writer and photographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.

Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a language evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.

I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting the first Wednesday of the month, Usually on Zoom. But the other Wednesdays have workshops on app learncool.sg

Incoming president Faith from July 15th 2020 change dates and platforms so please contact the club.

Latest is only two meetings each month.

For meetings learncool it is quicker to type and easier to remember: 

 tinyurl.com/BHACOOL

Useful Websites On Speaking and Languages

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
translate.google.com
duolingo.com

https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/vi/en/Learn-Vietnamese

https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/

Other Useful Posts By Angela Lansbury Author

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogs
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-say-thank-you-in-several.html
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-yourself-in-english-spanish.html
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/01/second-set-of-portuguese-words.html 

Please share links to your favourite posts

How And Why To Translate Languages Such As German from the news

I keep reading that a way to learn to speak is to listen to the news. I have been learning German. By accident I clicked on Facebook on a link to a live broadcast of questions about

One suggestion I found on the Facebook polyglots page was to have the German (or other language your learning) news or radio paying in the background when you are doing something else, to get used to the intonation, reinforce the words and constructions you already know, and expand your vocabulary with similar words.

German - English
(note that in German the nouns have capital letters)
aber - but
aus - out
diese Minute - this minute
ersten - first
Bürger - citizens
diese - this
dramatisch - dramatic
gut - good (often used in surnames, as in the English Goodman)
kontakt - contact
kranken - ill/sick (think of the English word kranky)
krankenhause - hospital
Flugzeug - plane (add e on the end for plural)
Flüge - flights
frage - question
frangen - to ask
heute - today
informationen - information
influenza - flu
international - international
Kindergarten - kindergarden
lage - long
Maschine - machine (in German pronounced machine-er)
menschen - people
Muss - must
natürlich - naturally
nicht - not
noch - yet
funfzig - fifteen
Reise - travel
Spektrum - spectrum
sprechen - speak
statistiken - statistics
szenario - scenario
zu - to

I managed to finish the German basic course in Duolingo and I am now on the Spanish.

Useful Websites
www.google.com/search?q=google+translate+english
https://www.wordreference.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/
duolingo.com
memrise.com

About The Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker, teacher of English and other languages.
Please share links to your favourite posts.

How To Practise Speaking Foreign Languages: American and British English, Chinese, Greek, Italian and more

From Wiki article on speech. Click to see the mouth and tongue and throat move.

On the 'Polyglots (The Community' page in Facebook, somebody asked for recommendations on how to practise speaking a language.

Powerpoint Presentation
I have written an introduction to myself in powerpoint, with English in the left column and Chinese (Mandarin) in the right hand column. I shall practise it and eventually deliver it at a bilingual Mandarin-English Toastmasters club in Singapore.

Each slide is a simple sentence which I would use to introduce myself to a Mandarin speaker if we met. For example, My name is ...;- I am a teacher - of English; I am British; I live in London, England; I also live in Singapore.

My aim is to read this every day, once or twice a day, perhaps first thing in the morning if I wake early, over coffee, or last thing at night, and read it aloud.

Earworms
Another system good for spoken languages is Earworms. The vocabulary is great for travellers. You hear simple sentences you might say on a plane and around a city you visit.

You could keep it on your laptop. Or play it in the car. Or play it as you fall asleep.

Duolingo
Duolingo is also good. It is multiple choice and has symbols you can click on to hear the word said. Listen and say the phrase aloud three times. At the end of each exercise click on the review button. Even if you got all the words right when it comes to recognizing them, use this exercise to read the words aloud.

If you are not sure about your pronunciation, ask in the forums.

Skills Future
The Singapore government subsidises skills course for Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. Courses include languages such as Spanish.





Tinycards
Language cards, which say aloud the words so you can copy them. From the Duolingo people.

Wikipedia
When looking up the cities you will be visiting on your next trip, click on the sound button in the Wikipedia article about the city. The sound button is after the name.

You could try reading Wikipedia in your target language, such as French or Spanish or many other languages. Check the list of available languages in the left hand column of your wiki pages. Read the English version and then the other language and read that aloud.

Google Translate
You can also put the names of cities into Google translate. I type in 'Google translate' every time but the website is 'translate google'.

Learn With Buddies
If you want to practise speaking, find a buddy.
Online through Polyglots on Facebook.
In person through Meetup in your city.

You can list your interests on Meetup and attend meetings organized by others. Alternatively pay to organize an event or series of events on Meetup. Or list events in Facebook Events on a suitable page.

YouTube
Type in the language you want and the word learn and you will find several options. FluentYou has videos from native speakers and offers one month free trial. that is handy if you are going on holiday in a month's time or less or just want to get started with the right pronunciation. If you are on business with an expense account or think language is vital to negotiating, you might later use their paid for version.

Useful websites (listed alphabetically)
CONVERSATION
https://www.conversationexchange.com/



Duolingo.com

Earworms
https://www.earwormslearning.com/

Eurolingo
https://www.eurolingo.sg/spanish/

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity

FluentYou
https://www.fluentu.com/en/

Google Translate
https://translate.google.com/

Greek
https://www.iamgreece.org/culture/language/you-speak-greek/

Meetup
https://www.meetup.com/en-AU/start/organizing

Pronunciation of Single Words and Placenames
https://forvo.com/word
For the country name Cyprus pronounced in Greek
https://forvo.com/word/%CE%BA%CF%8D%CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%82/

Pronunciation in Dictionaries Online
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/british-and-american-pronunciation.html

Simple Wiki - see Wiki below

Skills Future
https://www.eurolingo.sg/spanish

Tinycards (Italian an an example and link)
https://tinycards.duolingo.com/decks/Q6xStDM/how-to-speak-italian?lesson=0


Translate - see Google above


TOASTMASTERS
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Tripadvisor
You can ask questions.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-g190372-s604/Cyprus:Important.Phrases.html

YouTube
Try FluentYou - see above

Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation

Simple Wiki
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet

About the Author
Angela Lansbury
travel writer and photographer
teacher of English and other languages. I have many more posts on language learning and destinations. Please share links to your favourite posts.

How To Learn A New Language On Every Holiday Or Business Trip

Are you keen on learning new languages?
✋
Polyglots' Tricks
I was looking at the Polyglot page on Facebook and read that one language enthusiast saves books in other languages just in case he ever needs to immerse in that language. What dedication!

Several polyglots replied that they do the same. I think this would work well in languages similar to English. You can download well-known books, either where you know the language and characters and plot, or where you can easily get the translation.

Wouldn't Alice in Wonderland in other languages be more fun for some people than lists of words? You can read the Esperanto on the left, the English on the right, with the original now out of copyright Tenniel illustrations.

For example, if you see the story of Cinderella or any children's book in French or Spanish or Italian, that might be a good start. You can find translations of the bible and fairy tales and classic children's stories which are out of copyright. Those which have been in print for years are available in Latin and the made up simple language, Esperanto.

Dictionaries
Until today I had never downloaded a whole book in a foreign language, but I did buy a mini dictionary in every language. I saved the translation pages in airplane magazines. Where to find them? The files of travel maps and brochues went out of date and eventually got thrown out by my family. So I began to fold the handy lists of common words and phrases and slide the page or part page under the front cover of one of my dictionaries.

Japanese is challenging. But the written language is more or less the same symbols as Chinese. Think of the symbols on your washing insructions and no smoking signs which are cigarettes with lines through them.

Leaflets
In Singapore if I see a leaflet in English and another leaflet in Malay or Chinese I pick them up and look for capital letters or repeated words or short sentences to learn or look up. I used to take the whole leaflet.

I would circle repeated words in the English. Or simple words I might need often. Looking at the foreign language, I would circle the equivalent word.

I would check in Google translate. Then I would create a page in a notebook if I had one handy. If not in my diary - no empty pages - sometimes back in January I had an empty page. Failing al else I found an empty half page in the leaflet or wrote the translation on both leaflets.

Then I decided that taking information leaflets was antisocial, costing the government money. I was also creating clutter in my home.

So I started taking photos insted. I would leaf through the leaflets. When I saw a useful page, with either very little text, (when I started learning thelanguge) or lots of text (later on), I took a photo of the English language cover and first page and back page, then the Malay or Chinese translations.

Travel Sites - Places for Polyglots to Visit



Flag of Austria from open Emoji, free to use Emojis.

AUSTRIA
Vienna has a museum on languages, specifically made up or cimplified languages. You can learn about the origin of Esperanto which is like a mix of Spanish, Italian, Latin, English, German, but following set rules, no exceptions. You don't have to worry about accents. Accents don't matter because no country pssesses this language.

Who speaks it and where? You can find Facebook pages and an annual conference. Several smaller countries whose language you might find hard, or too many to master, favour Esperanto. Handy in Hungary where the older generation could take their exams in Esperanto as a foreign language because Russian and German were too complicated and different from Hungarian.


Flag of Belgium.

BELGIUM


Bilingual road signs in French and Dutch.



Flag of Bulgaria
The top is white which does not show up well against the white background of this blog post..


So here's the OpenEmoji which shows the Bulgarian flag framed.

BULGARIA
Easy to learn Cyrillic if you take the free tour then the cheap Cultural walking tour (after one free tour, you will be hooked, maybe glad to leave a tip, if not you may decide that two tours for the price of one is a bargain. On the cultural I was given the card with the Cyrillic letters and was helped to write my own name in Cyrillic.


Flag of Canada.

CANADA
Start at Niagara Falls - who wouldn't!
Ottawa - everything in two languages, French and English. Inspiring, encouraging.
Montreal - to immerse yourself in French. The Montreal accent is more like Marseilles in France.
Toronto - to immerse yourself in English.
A beautiful bilingual holiday, two cultures and two languages in one country.

FRANCE
Paris - to get the standard accent, not the Canadian accent which is more like Marseilles.

Flag of Germany

GERMANY
A surprisng number of words sound similar to English. Kindergarden in English is child garden. Garten is garden. Kinder as in Kinder Surprise is child surprise. Kinder looks a bit like child or children. Be kind to children, especially your kith and kin.

German is similar to English, Dutch and Scandinavian languages, as well as being understood in those countries.


Flag of Singapore.

SINGAPORE
Pick up Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Tamil and Singlish.

UK
London is becoming a polyglot capital. You have restaurants of all nationalities. Some areas are inhabited by speakers of specific languages.
For example, such as Southall for sari shops and Indian restaurants and halal or vegetarian food.
Chinatown has restaurants which is Cantonese speaking from immigrants from Hong Kong, Most High streets (main streets) have at least one Chinese (Cantonese speaking) restaurant, and one Indian restaurant (mostly run by Pakistanis).

You will also find israeli restaurants for Hebrew, often middle eastern foods such as Jewish restaurants (Yiddish speaking - a European menu with variant on German and Russian which and kosher).

Plus Greek restaurants (Greek language and songs! Don't ask for Turkish coffee, it's Greek coffee here.

Turkish restaurants (Turkish menu). Lebanese (Arabic - could be halal and Muslim, or Christian - check website and menu before trying out your languages.

Malay - often combined with menus and staff of Chinese or Indonesian or Thai. (Malay national might be Chinese or Indian or Malay by race. by religion they could be Muslim but Asian not Middle Eastern, not Arabic and not Arabic speaking. Malay language is an easier language in the Roman alphabet)

USA
Pick up Spanish from bilingual signs, especially in public places such as hospitals and cities near borders. You will pick up some words effortlessly. Los Angeles means the angels. Now you know the plural and plurals for nouns.

ARMCHAIR AND AIRLINE SEAT LEARNING

Useful Websites
List and links to stories in other languages including Alice in Wonderland in Esperanto and several other languages.
http://bilinguis.com/

duolingo.com
memrise.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/





Bilingual English and Spanish Toastmasters Club in the USA
https://bilingualaustin.toastmastersclubs.org/

https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/these-singaporeans-can-really-talk-0
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Toastmasters International
You can practise your languages at toastmasters clubs in person and some clubs are online. For example, In Singapore, clubs in Chinese Mandarin, Chinese dialect Teochew, French, Malay (similar to Indonesian), Tamil (south Indian and Sri Lankan laguage).

In the USA you can find Spanish speaking clubs. Canada has French speaking clubs.

Europe has clubs in various languages. You can buy the Toastmasters literature in several languages including English, French, Arabic. Once you have joined a toastmasters club you will be welcome at Toastmasters clubs worldwide where you can network and socialise and find friends.
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages. president of Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Club in Singapore (see Facebook page.) I have many more posts on language learning, specific languages such as easy Esperanto, symbols and stories in Chinese, Cyrillic, Japanese, Indonesian, Malay, Mandarin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Welsh. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite pages.

Learning Languages

I'm a Duolingo addict. I like learning for free. I like having multipel choice questions with three or four answers, and matching pairs of words. Great for learning to read signs in foreign countries. Essential vocabulary such as Entry, Exit. Man and woman. Sandwich. Potato.

I am learning esperanto.

Esperanto flag

Now I have heard of a new system italki, which links you up to teachers so you can learn to speak. You pay for a professional teacher, less for a native speaker.

Useful websites
duolingo.com
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/?multi_permalinks=2317929445092481&notif_id=1560233138126677&notif_t=group_highlights
italki.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Workshop leader, English language and business English.

Japanese words you already know - a reminder

UK flag

Japanese - English
1 coffee
2 sayonara - goodbye
3 hoteru - hotel
4 takushi -taxi
5 terebi - tv

6 deska - isn't it (so) / is that so? / really? (Universal question word at the end of a sentence, which does not have to agree with any other word unlike the English isn't it or aren't they)
7 mushi mushi - hello, hello  (on the phone, memory aid think of it's me, it's me)
8 arigato - thank you
9 hello - konichiwa
10 tea - ocha (like the old fashioned English from Chinese, a cup of cha)

11 rajio - radio
12 basu - bus
13 kamera - camera
14 supa - supermarket
15 depato - department store

16 konpyuta - computer
17 kurimu - cream
18 miruku - milk

Katakana is simplified signs used for modern conversational Japanese or slang as opposed to formal Japanese.  Formal words are more often Japanese or Chinese.

As Wikivoyage explains:
Japanese is written using a convoluted mix of three different scripts: kanji (漢字) or Chinese characters, together with "native" hiragana (ひらがな) and katakana (カタカナ) syllabaries. There are thousands of kanji in everyday use and even the Japanese spend years learning them, but the kana have only 46 characters each and can be learned with a reasonable amount of effort. 

Of the two, katakana are probably more useful for the visitor as they are used to write loanwords from foreign languages other than Chinese, and thus can be used to figure out words like basu (バス, bus), kamera (カメラ, camera) or konpyūtā (コンピューター, computer). However, some words like terebi (テレビ, television), depāto (デパート, department store), wāpuro (ワープロ, word processor) and sūpā (スーパー, supermarket) may be harder to figure out. Knowing Chinese will also be a great head start for tackling kanji, but not all words mean what they seem: 大家 (Mandarin Chinese: dàjiā, Japanese: ōya), "everybody" to the Chinese, means "landlord" in Japan!

Flag of China.

Japanese and Chinese writing
The written language uses the same signs as Chinese. So if you know or learn Chinese writing you can read Japanese. If you know or learn Japanese writing, you can read Chinese. A bit like the 'no smoking' sign consisting of the outline of a cigarette with a line through it, understood by everybody in Europe, although their spoken languages are different. Learn Chinese from Chineasy.
Below the top level centre sign is king. the lower level far left sign is hill.

Flag of Singapore

In Singapore I can recognize Chinese sign for Hillview station from the sign for the hill. I can recognize King Albert Park station from the sign for King.

Chineasy. Picture from Wikipedia.

Useful Websites
Free internet language learning for computer or mobile phone
duolingo
duolingo.com

google translate
wikipedia Japanese language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language

simple wiki
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language
Language and travel:

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

To ask questions join facebook polyglots
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/2286624571556302/?comment_id=2286632228222203&reply_comment_id=2286660528219373

Travel
https://www.jnto.go.jp/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, Teacher of English to Toastmasters International clubs, colleges and businesses. Please share links to your favourite posts.