THE ALPHABET EXPLAINED: The origin of every letter, and which countries will help you to be bilingual

I knew some of this about the origin of language. Very effectively presented. The presenter has a lovely, attractive English accent with perfect pronunciation. A pleasure to listen to him.

I have been studying Chinese (Mandarin). Chinese combines the earliest form of writing, pictograms. diagrams of natural objects, with signs representing sounds.

He shows how the modern Roman alphabet was derived over time. 

What he does not explain is how the Cyrillic alphabet was constructed at one point in time by Cyril and his borther. Just like Korean was invented by one person.

He has another video exaplining how German is easy to read if you can see how some letters in German are equivalent to others in English. 

Useing the existing Roman alphabet, the language Esperanto was devised to help Europeans who spoke several langagues, to speak to each other in a commong language which combines parts of each of the main languages, but kept to a regular structure with only 14 rules, quick to learn. 

If you are interested in languages you might be interested in these places:

SINGAPORE

In Singapore the four major official langauges and English Chinese (Mandarin), Malay (which is mostly the same as Indonesian) and Tamil.

Go on the MRT (underground railway) and you will hear announcements in four languages and see signs in four languages.

CANADA

You will hear English in Toronto and French in Montreal but in the capital all government empolyees are required to speak both languages. Most hotel and restaurant staff are also bilingual.

BELGIUM

You will see signs in two languages, French and Flemish (Dutch).

SWITZERLAND

A chance to practice three languages, French, German and Italian.

Learn Chinese Writing, Strokes & Simple Words - Chinese Writing - Chinese Time Courses - Page 1 - chinesetimeschool.com

A friend told me that Chinese writing follows a logic and just as you write strokes in a certain order. You may remember how you learned to write English from left to right right. I vividly recall learning to write on a straight line with another faint line on top to contain or limit the upward verticals on h or l. A faint line below was the limit for lower loops on g or y.

In Chinese, he told me, the lower line of a character is like the English (Roman) L or l, and has a base which is wide like the ground beneath a tree.

From Chinesasy book I learned that characters fit into boxes, so that when you put two characters side by side they are squashed up as if you were still writing them inside a box as you would when learning to write in primary school.

In Wikipedia I stambled across Chinese writing. I saw that characters could be divided into single stroke characters, two stroke characters, three stroke characters.

For me the easiest characters to learn at a glance were one, two three, written as single, double and triple horizontal lines. Just like the roman l ll lll but turned sideways. What I had not noticed was that in two in Chinese the lower line is slightly wider.

My latest discovery, whilst hunting for the flashcards with the names of countries, was a list of the basic strokes, showing them in freuqently seen and used words.

The words you often see on doorways and railway timetable are the characters for day and month and the numbers one to ten.

The lines with the little hooks at the end are not merely decorative like serifs in the font Times. They are essential. The two cubes piled on top of each other for day and night or sun and moon are distinguished by the curve on the moon. At first I muddled up sun and moon. then I larned to look for the curve, like a curned moon, on the left hand downward stroke.

Instead of viewing Chinese as a huge mystery, view it like those puzzles of spot the difference. Add a little spot the difference puzzle each day, or re-do a set of puzzles so they gradually become easier. You get a sense of achievement.


From Simplified wiki I find this handy chart:

山	shān	mountain	3 peaks
人	rén	person/people/humanity	a creature standing on 2 legs
口	kŏu	mouth	an open mouth
刀	dāo	sword/knife	a blade
木	mù	wood	a tree
日	rì	sun/day	a sun with a cloud in the middle
月	yuè	moon/month	same as 日, but in the shape of a crescent
女	nǚ	woman/girl/female	person with large breasts
子	zi/zĭ	child	a child wrapped in a blanket
馬 / 马	mǎ	horse	a horse with a head, a mane, a body, a tail, and 4 legs
鳥 / 鸟	niǎo	bird	a creature with a head and a wing with feathers
目	mù	eye	an eye with 2 eyelids
水	shuǐ	water	three streams of water

• Simple ideograms, zhi shi (指事): characters that use one radical, to represent abstract nouns, such as ideas and abstractions. Examples include:

Chinese character (traditional/ simplified)	Pīnyīn (Mandarin pronunciation)	Meaning	Looks like
一	yī	one	1 line
二	èr	two	2 lines
三	sān	three	3 lines
大	dà	big/large/great	a person 人 holding out his/her arms as wide as possible
天	tiān	heaven/sky/day	like 大, but one line above, so the greatest of the great
小	xiǎo	little/small	fingers holding onto a needle
上	shàng	up/above/previous	a plant's stem and leaf above the ground
下	xià	down/below/next	a plant's roots
本	běn	root	a tree 木 with its roots showing underground
末	mò	apex	a tree 木 with one extra line on the top, so the very top

• Complex ideograms, hui yi (会意), or characters that use more than one radical to represent more complex ideas or abstractions. Examples include:

Chinese character (traditional/ simplified)	Pīnyīn (Mandarin pronunciation)	Meaning	Looks like
明	míng	bright/light/tomorrow	a sun 日 and a moon 月 next to each other, indicating that tomorrow happens after the sun and moon passes
好	hǎo	good	a woman 女 and a child 子 next to each other, indicating that a woman with a child is good
休	xiū	rest	a person 亻(人) next to a tree 木
林	lín	woods	two trees 木 next to each other
森	sēn	forest	three trees 木 next to each othe

Useful Websites
Learn Chinese Writing——Stroke - Chinese Writing Chinese Time Courses Chinese Language - Page 1 - chinesetimeschool.com
https://quizlet.com/35569456/country-names-in-chinese-flash-cards/
https://www.nippon.com/en/views/b05605/getting-started-with-kanji.html

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

What's Your Name In Chinese? How to Read Accents. (My name's An -Ji La, An for peace)

Flag of Singapore.


Flag of Japan.

The same symbols are used for writing in China, Japan and Singapore.

My name is Angela.

I thought you must be able to translate this phonetically, as An something, because in the centre of Singapore is a buidling called Ng Ann City. A college is called Ng Ann ... after the benefactor.

That gives me Ann or Ann Ng.

I asked a lady in the swimming pool who speaks fluent English as well as Mandarin. She said she would ask the teacher who teaches Mandarin to her grandson.

A few days later she handed me the translation. It started with the symbol for An which means peace. She said that would be a positive and propitious, auspicious or favourable symbol, bringing good fortune or good luck.
The symbol for peace shows the symbol for roof above the symbol for woman.
安

The whole name is
Angela 安吉拉 (Ān jí lā)

Afterwords is the pinyin or pronounciation of a Chinese word shown in English or Roman alphabet.

The horizontal accent just means no tone. You see this at the start and end of the name Angela.

For a long time I found the accents hard to understand.
 When I learned French I learned the French word for pupil, eleve.
In French with the accents it is

élève
Then I realised that the upward accent in Chinese is the same as French. Ay like Hey!

A dipped or bowl shape accent is down and up, like asking a question in English, such as ending a sentence with your voice going up on the last word, as in a sentence ending with the word 'real-ly?'

Finally, the downward accent is low and emphatic, like saying NO! to a naughty child or dog. Or ending a sentence emphatically, with a low voice.

I later found the an symbol for peace in my Chineasy flashcards.

Now at last I have found a website which translates names.

So how do I remember how to write my name? One commentator says that Chinese parents have to consider both the meaning of the name and how easy it is for their tiny child to write his or her own name. The same goes for adult foreigners. You want a name which is easy to rmember and write.



Websites Translating Names
https://www.chinese-tools.com/names/list.html?n=ana

Angela

Angela 安吉拉 (Ān jí lā)

Angela Lansbury

Indonesian words you need to get around - and what to see and do first

Indonesia is a good place for a get away from it all holiday, great if you like the great outdoors, the simple life and you are on a budget.

Indonesian is one of the easier languages of Asia. It is written in the Western alphabet (also known as the Roman alphabet - which is a lot easier than the Greek alphabet, unless you are Greek). You can use most of the same words in Malaysia, like British English and American English.

Please and thank you in Indonesian and Mandarin speaking businesses run by the industrious Chinese are not as prevalent and obligatory as in English (and European languages and Japanese). You can generally get by with a smile and a nod.

The words you need to recognize and say most often are for food and drink and transport and accommodation. You can make yourself a list of common words and the memory aids you will need the first day or the first visit until you have picked up the vocabulary.

FOOD AND. DRINK
Food - makan /makanan (Memory aid: Mack, make me some food for Ann, and ...)
Drink - minum (I drink the minimum alcohol when driving but ...)
Water - air (I survive on air and water)
breakfast - makan pagi
lunch - makan siang (mid-day meal) pronounced see-ang
selamat siang (greeting at that time)
dinner (evening meal) - makan siang

selamat like salaam in Arabic and shalom in Hebrew - peace (be with you)

Minibuses are called different names in different places.

day - hari (as in hari raya festival)
hour - jam (Memory aid: We have been in this traffic jam for an hour.) 

ACCOMMODATION
Room - rumah (The rumour is you have a room, uh?)

TRANSPORT
Motorbike taxi - ojek
taxi - taksi
Left - kiri
Right - kanan
straight on - trus
di depan - in front of

Tourist Destinations
1 Bali
Temples with flower petals on the steps, the scent of tuberose, shows of gamelan music and dancing, shadow puppets. Clifftop hotels with infinity pools.

2 Batam island

3 Jakarta (if on business, at the weekend, or weekdays the hanging around spouse can take tours to assorted monuments and theme parks)

4 Borobodur temple

5 Trek one of the extinct volcanoes with a group, either commercial or privately organized.
If you take a commercial group, you might find a fellow enthusiast who knows private groups. They generally send one person to do a recce or fact finding mission on transport, accommodation, food and routes and costs of hiring guides.

Do you need a guide? Some routes are well-marked and can be done in half a day or less.

But you don't want to get lost on a volcano. It's best not to climb alone and in case of bad weather or sickness or injury.

You will need a lot of water. On an overnight or dawn trip, it helps or just to have somebody carrying a heavy bag with food and water, or going on ahead to set up a tent or two and supper for the group. Plus, of course, carrying your bulky empty containers and litter back with you. As they say, leave only footprints.

Websites
wiki
simple wiki
wikitravel
wikivoyage
tripadvisor
lonely planet
indonesiatouristboard.com
indonesiatravel/gb/en/home

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of languages to individuals worldwide by Skype, plus keynote speeches, after dinner speeches and workshops for businesses and colleges. I am very busy with Toastmasters International which has meetings every night and most days. I even attended a Speakers' club meeting in Prague, Czech Republic on Boxing Day (Dec 26). If you think I might be able to help you or your family or business please get in touch.

Sorting Out Cyrillic Alphabets and Slavic Languages

Problems
Who speaks what where?
How can I cope with Cyrillic writing?
Is Russian any use in Bulgaria?

Answers
Russian used Cyrillic writing. So does Bulgarian. However the Slavic languages are divided into West and East and south Slavic.

Who writes with which alphabet and why?
The Roman catholic countries under the Pope living near Rome use the Latin or Roman alphabet.
Cyril was a Greek priest sent to Constantinople in what is now the Turkish region and he and / or his followers took what we now call Cyrillic (which has some Greek style letters) to Russian and other countries, mostly East of France and Italy.

East Slavic Languages
Coming from the East, the East Slavic languages are
Russian - or Greater Russian - spoken in Russia - Cyrillic writing
Ukrainian - or Little Russian - spoken in Ukraine  - Cyrillic
Belarusian - or White Russian - spoken in Belarus - Cyrillic

West Slavic Languages
Czech - spoken in Czech Republic Republic (stress initial syllable) - Roman alphabet
Poland (stress last syllable but one) - Roman alphabet
Slovak - spoken in Slovakia - Roman alphabet

South Slavic
Bulgarian (uses article, a and the) - spoken in Bulgaria (Cyrillic alphabet)
Macedonian - Cyrillic alphabet
Serbo-Croatia split into Serbia and Croatia which have different alphabets.
Slovenian -  spoken in Slovenia - Roman alphabet

Serbian is written in Cyrillic but
Croatian is written in Roman alphabet.


Cyrillic Alphabets
The letter c is pronounced like s, as in palace.

Story
I started learning Greek, Hebrew and Russian on Duolingo because I thought it would be handy to know the alphabets. When I went to Romania I was surprised how easy it was to learn Romanian which is similar to Italian, derived from Latin, the language of the Romans.

Going south from Romania you reach Bulgaria which is popular with British travellers, partly because of good prices, Bargain Bulgaria. Some of my friends are considering a trip to Bulgaria next year and I might join them. However, on hearing that Bulgaria uses the the Cyrillic alphabet, which I find challenging, I decided I must start learning the Cyrillic alphabet now.


Tips
LANGUAGES
More details from
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/17638789 Ukrainian letters and links to pages on verbs. Personal pronouns grammar portal.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/language-and-linguistics/slavic

TRAVEL
https://www.cheapflights.co.uk/find-flights/to-Ukraine/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and other languages.