How to roll your r in Spanish, Italian or Indonesian and dialects

Flag of Spain

First the bad news. There are two kinds of rolled r. Second the good news. Once you can do it, it will help you sound right when speaking Spanish, and Indonesian. And several more. Italian. Russian. Arabic. Also regional dialects of several countries.

The advice is quite simple. Pull your tongue back from the right behind your teeth and blow. Just keep doing this several times a day for several days and one day you will find you have relaxed and are doing it right.

If you want to locate articles and demonstrations, it is called a rolled r, or an alveolar trill. The alveolar is the ridge in the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth.

Other systems include practising saying pot of tea.

Pull your tongue back saying three,but pretend you are falling asleep, open your mouth wide and hardly touch the roof of the your mouth with your tongue.

Even if you cannot yet say it, listen out for it. You will be able to identify people from Indonesia speaking English. It is a handy conversation opener that you know which country they are from or that you want to learn how to roll your rs.

You could also visit a bilingual Spanish speaking Toastmasters Club. Or and English speaking Indonesian club such as Empire.

 Useful Websites

A jolly couple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTR6gYYW5xU

A cute girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sid6MQvTRQ

https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/04634690-spanish-bilingual-sf

https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/01491511-empire-toastmasters-club

https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-good-way-to-practice-the-alveolar-trill-rolling-R-that-is-present-in-many-Romance-languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental,_alveolar_and_postalveolar_trills

How travel broadens your mind about birthdays and ages

I have two family birthdays this month. Celebrated in different countries. So I got to thinking about birthdays.

Do you insist on celebrating your birthday only on the day, or do you celebrate the day before or after?

Or the weekend before or after, depending on the day of the week and circumstances.
What if your birthday is Xmas Day, or St Patrick's Day? If it's Xmas Day and you celebrate that day, you miss out on having a second set of gifts and meals and parties.
On the other hand, if you live alone, at least you can join in the general celebrations.
What about celebrating everybody's birthday?

Birthday Month Celebration Cake

Toastmasters clubs often buy a birthday cake for members and guests. Yes, every month there's usually somebody with a birthday, often two, or three, or four. Cake is bought. Photo opportunity.

Especially if there's only one meeting a month, the club celebrates with photos of the birthday babies of the month.

I was thinking of extending celebrating my birthday for a whole week, or month. Or a year! Any thoughts?

Flag of South Korea

South Korean Birthdates

In at least one country, they celebrate everybody's birthday the same day, once a year.
In South Korea, they also count your birth from conception (like anti-abortionists) so the day you are born is your first birthday, and when the British say a school child is 16, to the Koreans he or she is 17.
I learned this when I was a home tutor in the UK. I asked my Korean pupil to write about himself and his family and asked how old he was. He hesitated and replied, "In Korea I am 17 - but in London I am 16."

I went white and chilled. For a horrible moment I was thinking, "I have to spend an hour alone with a young man who is out of touch with reality. He might be schizophrenic. He has two ages, in different countries. He is a split personality. What will he say next? Am I safe?"
I feigned total calmness. I said,"Would you like to explain this interesting fact? Why are you different ages in different countries? Did you just have a birthday, with different time zones?"

He explained. Korean traditional thinking. So different. Birthdays are numbered from one a year from your birth in the UK and much of the Western world. It has not always been so in the East, and still another system is used. Your birthday, numbered one year old. What I had thought was a simple, undeniable fact, an obvious fact, was simply the convention of my culture, my era, my country.
Have you any thoughts on this?

Interesting Websites About Birthdays Around The World
Celebrating Everybody's Birthday at a USA church
https://sumc-sacramento.faithlifesites.com/events/2702551/3122014
Age Reckoning in China, Japan, Korea and Asia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning#Korean

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Coronavirus Masks in Singapore and Free Masks, precautions, and info worldwide

Coronavirus started in China but is spreading worldwide.


Thursday March 30 2020

The Good News
I see noticeably more masks being worn in Singapore.Three different toastmasters clubs are sending me updates on WhatsApp.

I declined to shake hands at a Toastmasters Club and instead did a namaste greeting. I bowed my head and brought together the palms of my hands.

On the MRT, at Cashew MRT, I saw a man wiping down the places where you touch 'tap in' your MRT travel card.

The government plans to distribute masks for free, from Saturday February 1st. Four masks for each household. More on request when needed.

You pick up your masks from local Community Centres, showing your ID which lists your home address.

My husband asked me, 'How can you speak at a Toastmasters club if you are wearing masks?'

I replied, 'You can wear your masks in public places, as you walk through the building, and when sitting next to somebody. You take off your mask when you are in the centre of the stage well away from others.'

Masks only last effectively 24 hours.
The government website I looked at said wear a mask only if you are sick.
I presume this saves the masks for when you need them.

I am glad I joined Singapore Online Toastmasters Club.

Around the world
Cruise ship grounded
Taxi driver in China wearing complete hazmatcombat kit
Plane Passenger wearing cycling helmet
Airport passengers in China wearing cut off giant plastic bottles upturned on their heads
Dogs in masks

Useful Information From The Web
SINGAPORE
Information from the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH)
www.moh.gov.sg
https://go.gov.sg/whatsapp
https://www.gov.sg/article/masking-up-how-and-when-you-should-do-it
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Singapore

Information from newspapers
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/wuhan-virus-every-household-in-singapore-to-get-4-masks-collection-starts-on-feb-1

UK
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7947315/Scientists-develop-vaccine-Chinese-coronavirus.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-information-for-the-public

USA
Map regularly updated showing new sources and cases.
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

WHO
https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus

Travel
singaporeair.com

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

Travel the world at London Toastmasters Clubs in England

LONDON TOASTMASTERS

In London you can go to six foreign language toastmasters clubs:

1 Experience French, meets at Fitzrovia Centre near Goodge Street station.

http://experience-french.org

2 London Italian -almost reached the 20 members needed to start a club

3 London Portuguese

4 Polish your Polish

5 Russian—English

6 Spanish Speakers 

- at the Plumbers Arms, 5 minutes from Victoria station, upstairs

It's easy to translate their welcome page using Google translate.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
ACG Advanced Communicator Gold

Singapore - voting day count down

Today has been voting day in Singapore. People working in offices have been given the day off. Voting is compulsory. If you don't vote, I was told, you are barred from voting in later years. The campaigns have generated a lot of excitement. The majority party is sure to get it. But one of the opposition parties might win a seat or two. Locals will be sitting up into the night watching TV and phoning each other agog to hear the news. The papers have been full of election news for days and this is likely to carry on. (Along with news about the haze.)

Election as a topic for talks
At Toastmasters clubs one of the table topics for impromptu speeches is likely to be something to do with the election. In the past month meetings have started with 'what will you be doing on election day' for every person to answer.

One of the speeches might be on elections. One speaker talked about electing a monitor at primary school, elections in China which he visited, and finally elections in Singapore.

Update:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapore-ruling-party-popularity-tested-general-election-000458562.html

Angela Lansbury, BA, author, writer, speaker.