Language misunderstandings

 Duolingo tells me that my friends will 'defraudara' me. Defraud me? Cheat me? That can't be right.

I looked it up with a little help from handy AI. Defrauda means will disappoint.

I wonder what else I am misunderstanding?

I half remember that there are lists of false friends in Wikivoyage. Spanish and Italian and Portuguese have false friends - words which sound similar in two languages but have different meanings. Often they are cognates Let's look at them again.

Useful Websites 

 

Easy and useful Spanish words

Flag of Spain

Spanish is one of the easiest languages to learn if you speak English. (Or if you speak Italian or Portuguese.)

Many countries speak Spanish, so you can start using it there, picking up the accent. Or use it there to improve your Spanish and make use of what you already know and practice it.

 Spanish is spoken in Spain in Europe, as well as in Gibraltar and Andorra. Offshore are the inhabited islands of Mallorca,, Minorca, and the Canaries - Grand Canaria and Tenerife.

Spanish is spoken in most countries in South America, such as Venezuela, with the exception of Brazil where Portuguese is spoken.

 In the USA Spanish appears on signs and is widely spoken as a first or second language. It is also spoken in Mexico, Cuba, and several Caribbean countries such as Puerto Rico, and central American countries such as Belize. 

Flag map of Brazil 

The written accents are easier than French. You have only one accent. It indicates that you stress the syllable. The accent goes diagonally upwards.

 Spanish - English

aeropuerto - airort

(Los) Angeles - (the) angels

blusa - blouse

castillo - castle

diario - diary

el - the (masculine, no accent)

Él - he (the accent on el shows a VIP, a person, rather than a thing)

en - in

familias - families

famoso - famous

grupo - group

Información y Comunicación - information and communication 

introducción - introduction

isla/islas - island/islands

museo - museum

o - or 

(Los) paraportes - (the) passports

no - no

proximo - next (like approximate, near or close)

puerto - port

Puerto Rico - rich port, a Caribbean country. Notice that in Spanish the adjective is after the noun or name.

rico - rich

san (short for santo) - saint / holy

San Francisco - Saint Francis

(el) taxi - (the) taxi

tren - train

(las) vacaciones - (the) vacations (USA) / holidays (UK)

visitar - to visit

English - Spanish

airport - aeropuerto

blouse - blusa

castle - castillo

(the) angels - los angeles

diary - diario

east - este

families - familias

famous - famoso

group - grupo

holidays - vacaciones

in - en

introduction - introducción

information and communication - Información y Comunicación 

island/islands - isla/islas

museum - museo

next - proximo

no - no

or - o

(the) passports - los pasaportes

port - puerto

rich - ricco

saint - san

Saint Francis - San Francisco

(the) taxi - el taxi - (the) taxi

train - tren

the - el (masculine) - la (feminine) 

visit - visitar

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

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

wikivoyage phrasebook Spanish

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/50-spanish-words-and-phrases-to-start-learning-spanish

https://www.berlitz.com/blog/goodbye-in-spanish

If you want to practise your Spanish, several Toastmasters International club are Spanish speaking, and you can attend online meetings and read their announcements and information on the web.

I have several posts on learning Spanish. Please follow my blogs and share links to your favourite posts.

New Zealand Place Names & Restaurants Using Maori Words to recognize and remember

Flag of New Zealand

Pronunciation

Wh is pronounced f

Word Order

In the Maori language, adjectives follow nouns, the same as in French (moulin rouge, red mill), Italian and Spanish (casa mia is my house).

Double Words

Rotorua  →  roto  "lake" +  rua  "two" = "two lakes" 

Common Words

Te is the, singular. Think of it as the word the shortened with the letter h missing. 

Maori - English

iti - small (think of bitty and little, itty-bitty)

kia ora - hello, thanks, 

kiri - bell, bark (of a tree), skin

komiti - committee

maunga - mountain

miti - meat

motu - island

motuka - motorcar

nau - come / ship

Nau mai / (and or) haere mai - welcome / welcome to (seen on signposts as you enter a region or city)

Nui - big (think of e-normous)

panana - banana

pea - pear

pune - spoon

Rotorua (place name) - literally lake two = two lakes

two

te - the (as in Kiri Te Kanawa the opera singer, New Zealand soprano, sang at British royal wedding) te reo - the language i.e. Maori

Te Arai - The River (the name of a wine from chenin blanc grape, made by Millton Vineyard 7 Winery, Gisborne, North Island, New Zealand

Tereina - train

wai - water (in landscape), drinking water

Wahine - woman/ wife / ladies (toilet)

Waiheke - water cascading /trickling /ebbing

Wai hirere - waterfall

Waitangi - weeping waters (waters weeping) place of Waitangi treaty

whanga - harbour, bay

English - Maori

big - nui

hello - how are you - kia ora

island - motu

lake - in the lake

small - iti

the - te (singular)

two - two

 

 http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/maori-language-week/100-maori-words

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Māori_words_and_phrases

http://www.maoridictionary.co.nz/

https://languagedrops.com/word/en/english/m%C4%81ori/topics/drinks/

Learn Norwegian with Duolingo

 

Norwegian is an easy language.

I have started learning on Duolingo.

These are the words I have learned, and most of them are short version of the English word. Effortless. Instant success. I noted them all down on today's diary page. I have a page a day diary big enough for making notes like this as well as my appointments. (In case the notes obscure my appointments, the appointments are already in my phone alarm).

English - Norwegian

a - en

bread - brod

brother - bror

father - far

hi - hei (pronounced high, the same as in English)

mother - mor 

no - nei  (pronounced nigh)

sister - soster (with a line across the letter o)

tea - te

thanks - tagg

water - vann

wine - veen

Norwegian-English

en - a

brod - bread

bror - brother

far - father

mor - mother

nei (pronounced  nigh or ni as in night) - no

soster (line across the o) - sister

takk - thanks

te - tea

A little more and harder?

Norwegian-English

du- you (similar to French tu)

er- is/are

Ja - yes (similar to German and Malaysian and South African)

kaffe - coffee

melk - milk

min - my (like mine, but the Norwegian adjective comes after the noun)

og - and

vin - wine

Useful Websites

duolingo

wikivoyage norvegian phrasebook

Please share links to your favourite posts from this blog.

Learn Greek, for travel to Greece or Cyprus, on a Greek airline, when visiting a Greek restaurant, or for fun

Greek Language

  For travellers, you can use the phrasebook in Wikivoyage. Pick your country, in this case Greek, or several countries if you have a multi-destination holiday. You get a long list of handy phrases. Print off the entire list of phrases, or those you are most likely to need. Print in a convenient size, large enough to read, small enough to be lightweight, to go in your pocket. If it gets lost in a wad of papers, print a Greek flag and attach it to the front as a cover, or just to the top left or right corner of the first page.

Wikipedia makes everything comoplicated and I have to look up technical terms. Simple Wiki is useful. 

So is Wikimedia Commons, for pictures.

Double-sided Greek card

OOOZU - Compact, Pocket Size

You can get a small card from Ooozu.com to carry around and consult. It is laminated. Language only, not the alphabet.

Duolingo 

I am using Duolingo to learn twelve languages including Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Swedish, Esperanto and other lanaguages. Duolingo has a lot of repetition to help you remember.

LILT Polyglot Club

I run an online polyglot languages group with my good friend Carolyn Street, who used to teach French and German at a Polytechnic in Singapore. You can attend  this clubon Zoom every Sunday, 9.30 pm Singapore time on Carolyn's Zooom. Send her your name, your full name, so she recognizes you and can admit you to the meeting. 

You can contact her or me by direct message on Facebook and on the Lilt page. (Earlier version were WILL but that got confused with [ages on writing a will so we changed it to LILT.

We are probably doing a reprise of Japanese at the future meeting on Sunday 25th February 2024 if requested. This week is Greek. To attend 1-to 3 meetings is free. We hope that if you become a rgular supporter you will want to join Toastmasters and pay the 60 dollars fee for 6 months access to the TI website, pathrway programme innluding videos on public speaking and managing meetings, the online magazine, and opportunities to take attend and take part in speaking contests. These two online clubs can be contacted via Advancity in Singapore which is in Toastmasters International Find a club. Advancity also meets in person in Singapore.

SGI Dynamic Toastmasters International Club

I often do a rehearsal on Friday at SGI Dynamic. The club started in the evening in Singapore but moved to later in the evening so that members and visitors from the USA could join. The timing is early morning in the USA and Central and South America. Lunchtime in London, after lunch in France and Europe, evening in Singapore, which is the same time as Japan and China.  

Resources

Duolingo

diolingo.com

ooozu.com

busuu

toastmasters international 

Greekpod101.com

You tube (greek pod)

24 letters. 

The Bronte Trail, Haworth, Yorkshire, England

 Our friend Tim who lives in Yorkshire guided me and my husband via some Bronte sites on the way to the Bronte parsonage Museum.

Our first (historically) stop was their birthplace. Just a plaque.

You can find a good summary of the places on Wikivoyage under Haworth with a condensed list. 

A readable guide to their lives with photos is on the local Haworth website. 

To reach Bronte country by car, you drive up the M1, motorway one, the first one which was built, going north from London.

Useful Websites

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Start Albanian with ling app

Flag of Albania. Wikipedia.

The Ling app course on Albanian started with the alphabet, not too difficult. Then it progressed to pictures of a man, women, boy and girl. You matched them up with pictures and written words.

English - Albanian

you - ju

boy - djalë

he - ai

girl - vajze

man - njeri

she - ajo

Woman -- gruaja

please - ju letem (my memory aid is it is two words like por favor, in Spanish, ju is you, think if you let me,  or do you let me ju letem)

Now you can use translate google

and - dhe

thank you -faleminderit 

hello - Përshëndetje - (more challenging)

goodbye - mirupafshim

Albanian - English

you - ju ( similar to the French tu, but more like d'you, to remember the j, I think you juvenile)

Well, folks, that's all. faleminderit, dhe mirupafshim.

Useful Websites

 https://play.ling-app.com/learn/unit/1/lesson/1

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

How Long Does It Take To Write A Blog Post? And grow readership? Ten Tips On Getting More Readers and a bonus tip

 

I have just checked how long it took me to write my previous post on Fusion 381 restaurant. 

First, the time includes editing the photos. That involved cropping them to show the food and not bits of hands and arms on the table. Add the writing, editing, adding photos, captions, labels, rewriting title. Adding names. Promoting. Total time, an hour and a half. 

The reason I have noted this is because friends in Toastmasters International need to write a blog of a minimum of eight posts for a project. (An option in Pathways.) I have given several speeches and a couple of workshops on writing a blog. One of the frequent questions I am asked is, 'How long does it take to write a post?' 

After you have written the text, you check the spelling, add the labels. 

Add another five minutes to mention your post in Facebook or other media. Remember to include the blogspot link, not the blogger link where you create the post.

Tripadvisor

If you are writing a review, of a restaurant or museum or destination, or anything about transport, you might like to write in Tripadvisor which gives you a framework. But they don't like to publish a copy of what you wrote elsewhere, and you cannot copy words from their posts, so its best to write two separate pieces, or to write two days apart so that your phrasing and emphasis is different. You might also write one piece about your view of the meal. The other piece could be written after you reminisce with whoever ate there with you. 

Allow another fifteen minutes to write on Tripadvisor. Allow longer if you are adding photos. Decide whether you want to use photos of yourself in your personal blog, and impersonal photos on Tripadvisor. You might decide the other way round.

Good reasons for including yourself. 

1 Self-Promotion

That's why you write, to promote yourself, gain status as an expert, show off. To establish copyright. To enable you to identify your own photo, if anybody else re-uses it.

Other options for promoting yourself as an expert include writing on Google maps reviews. Writing on Wikipedia, Simple Wiki, Wikitravel and Wikivoyage. And writing in a local newspaper or national newspaper.

A Spin-Off Post

If the post is too long, or you have another thought on a slightly different subject, you will write the second post faster by extracting a paragraph or two from the first post.

This takes only about 30 minutes for a shorter post. But you might need another ten to fifteen to hunt for a different photo or a free caricature or to take a photo.

Timing

I went to listen to a panel of the most prolific and widely read travel writers at The World Travel Market, a travel trade show in London, England. Some travel writers choose to put out a new post at a time of day when they think readers will be most likely to be looking for something to read, first thing in the morning local time - unless you are writing for a foreign market.

Newsworthy Stories

The most widely read blogger in the UK wrote to get a high number of readers so he could sell to advertisers and earn money from affiliate marketing. He made a point of attending every cinema opening and every event. He tried to get an invitation and take a picture of himself with the stars or to get an exclusive picture of the stars. If he did into get an invitation, he would photograph the outside of the building, interview the stars outside as they arrived and left, and if all else failed, phone them up afterwards for a quotation, or interview passers by to get their forthright opinion on whether the stars were stunning or a waste of time. 

How did he get the courage to do this? Quite simple. He told me, 'I needed the money!'

Famous Names

My son is in Search Engine Optimization which is a fancy way of saying marketing websites to increase the number of times the website or post is being found by searches, and read.

He told me two vital facts. The first was regarding photos, 

TIPS

1 Prolific Photos Promoting Blogs

Yes, you must have at least one photo at the start of each post. No one is not enough. you need lots of photos. Ideally one above each paragraph for each new idea. So my idea restaurant review would show the outside, the inside, the seat, the table, the menu, the starter, the main course, the dessert, the drinks, the water, the server, the owner, any special offer or later event such as book now for Christmas or sign up with your birthday to get a special offer on your birthday.

2 Text Translations

The text should be easy to read. Translated into other languages. On many website creation websites, you simply click boxes for the languages you want to add.

3 Call To Action

If you want readers to act, by making a purchase, you need to have a buy now button. This must appear on every screen they see whatever size screen they are reading on. So you might need call to action after every paragraph, not just the end of the page because it could be off the screen and they might not read that far because they are tired and bored or because they did not realize that the post continues below.

4 Mention Famous People and places

To increase clicks, use as many famous names as possible, of places and people. For example, supposing I am writing about an inexpensive or new hotel near Niagara Falls, I must include the words Niagara Falls, and Canada, and mention Marilyn Monroe who made a film there. Plus the words cheap and bargain. 

5 Sales - Urgent! Buy Now!

People who promote promotion often tell you that you increase sales by making people buy now. Show that a special offer is being made. 

6 Show that you are cheaper than rivals. 

7 Give testimonials. 

8 Add number, such as three reasons why you should buy, 5 places to see, the top ten museums, 10 countries to visit before you die, the 100 best restaurants.

9 Have An identifiable Alliterative Product or Person or Brand

You have heard of Apple, Automobile Association. For example, I as a teacher would be Angela, English Expert. 

As a fashion writer, I could be Angelic Angela. Look like Angelic Angela. Dress of the Day with Angela. 

10 Test Titles

Try two titles for your blog and see which gets the most readers. I tried Angela's dress of the day and dress of the day angela and the latter got the most clicks. 

As a traveller, ... I could ask on Facebook which title people prefer and get votes. A or B. But remember that people may prefer a to b but not like either enough to buy the book or product. So you might allow a vote for neither or a vote for another suggestion.

BONUS TIP 11 Time Saving

Plan your year's blog posts. Copy your own posts from last year, adding new photos and updated prices and people and quotations from famous people.

Write all your posts for the week on Sunday. Each day just release the next post.

Useful Websites

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Help For Armchair Travellers: What's the difference between Wikivoyage and Wikitravel? Which should I use?

What the difference? In simple terms, Wikitravel was bought by a commercial firm and carries advertising.

Wikitravel eventually re-established an encyclopaedic travel website with contributions.

Which should I use as a traveller?

If you want to receive ads so you can book travel and see up to date information on prices, use Wikitravel.

If you want no ads go to Wikivoyage.

If you don't care either way, check them both, but there may be a lot of overlap.

If you are writing for one and considering writing for the other, check the website below.

Tips for Armchair Travellers
1 You can sign up to the Facebook pages of countries and hotels, restaurants and museums.
2 You can buy goods from museum shops online.
3 Cashing in on unused flights (eg Singapore Airlines) can give you some cash to tide over a month of unemployment.
4 Singapore Airlines has some offers of extra money if you leave your money with them for later flights.
5 Now you are at home you can use your time to learn languages on Duolingo and elsewhere.
6 Websites in foreign languages can often be translated into English if you click on the language flags at the top of the home page.
7 If not, you can copy into translateGoogle the most often repeated words or headlines.
8 Now you have spare time, go through your old photos and label them with the country and details.

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage_and_Wikitravel

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, has lived in the UK, USA and Singapore, currently with family in the UK and Singapore. Learning Spanish, Italian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Malay/Indonesian and Mandarin. See previous posts and posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters, Meetup. 

Travel to Croatia - where to find information

This is the Croatia flag, same as the Serbian flag, red white and blue from the top down, but with the added picture in the centre.

Where is it? Who are the neighbouring countries? What are the major cities and tourist places?


TRAVEL
CROATIA
Tourist Board
croatia.hr

Independent Information
wikipedia (detailed including history) no ads . Orignally from out of date encyclpaedias, supplemented by a few nerds and people. Increasingly written by full time or retired experts in a confusing amount of detail and jargon. Original reserach and opinions and promotion not allowed, or marked as such - must be from outside independent sources, with references. Out of copyright photos, or notes of in which country the photos may be used.

simple wikipedia (language for people for whom English is a second language, less jargon, quicker to find a fact or photo of a well-known place)

wikitravel (with ads)

wikivoyage (without ads)

tripadvisor (reviews from the public of hotels, museums, landmarks, tours) ads. Reviews may be critical. Hotel managers, restaurant staff and other owners are given the chance to reply with apologies, explanations or retorts.

Travel Advice for your nationality and from your home government

Tour operators (Often for specific regions, or types of travel, such as budget or luxury)
Outgoing operators
Outging (usually show flights from your country of origin). If you are researching on holiday in Italy, the tickbox allowing them to know where you are will give flights from where your phone or laptop is physically, which is handy if you are planning on ongoing journey, no good if you want to go home and start from here later in the year.

Incoming
After you have booked your flights, these operators arrange tours within the country. It's worthwhile comparing which combination gives the best deal. For example, some airlines will give you a reduced price hotel room for a stopover.

Why The Reduction?
The airline might own the hotel or have some deal. I imagine that's an incentive from either the hotel, or the tourist board giving a subsidy or reducing tax to get visitors because the spend per day in the country (there are tables for figures on how much visitors from each country spend, broken down by age groups, time of year and all sorts of things - they know from the VAT they collect. The visitor's spend will be higher than the reduction on the room.

On the other hand, you might find that booking locally on the ground at local prices is cheaper.

See my previous posts on Croatia.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I can offer you courses, one to one online or in person in the UK and Singapore, and workshops or entertaining after dinner speeches for clubs and businesses in the UK, one-off or a series. This can be worldwide anywhere if you can organize a ipad or screen connection by whatsap, Skype, visual conference call or something better, or fly me to your destination.
Please share links to your favourite posts. I have posts on learning many languages.

Advice On Travel Safety

Map of East Timor. Wiki.

Problem
How safe is it - in crowded places and out in the wild?

As American Benjamin Franklin said (and he travelled a lot, all the way to the UK before the days of  flight: Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

You can get information from the websites of Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA on laws and health, riots and civil unrest and war and what might get you thrown in jail.

Wikitravel, Wikivoyage and Lonely Planet have advice overlapping with the govenment, which includes more on public transport, bribes, buying a visa at the border, cons, thefts, and being polite so you don't start a fight.

Useful Websites
Here are the pages for East Timor, but in each website you just pick the country you are visiting.
CANADA
https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/timor-leste-east-timor
AUSTRALIA
smartraveller.gov.au
UK
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/timor-leste
USA
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Timor-Leste.html

Author
Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer

Burgundy's Reproduction Medieval Castle (work in progress!) now on BBC TV

Want to know how to build a medieval castle? (For the man who has everything.) You can't get it in time for Christmas because they are still building it. (I know - building work always takes forever.) 

At the World Travel Market I stopped at the Burgundy stand and I wrote up my account of the medieval castle building in one of my travel posts for you.
Now Mr Christopher Kelly has written to tell me you can see it on TV.

The BBC 2 series "The secrets of the Castle" at 9pm next Tuesday, 18th November.  The last of the five programmes includes sequences filmed in Vezelay http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04sv5nc 
Should you urgently need any information, please contact us.Chalon : Jérome Marché, Tel : + 33 (0)3 85 46 65 89 jeromemarche@achalon.com    www.achalon.com 
Guédelon : Sarah Preston, Tel : + 33 (0)3 86 45 69 15 sarah.preston@guedelon.fr    www.guedelon.frVézelay : Agnès Millot, Tel : + 33 (0)3 86 33 23 69 , vezelay.otsi@wanadoo.fr    www.vezelaytourisme.com

Burgundy is in France. Take a look at this map. It's nearer to the Channel ports than I remembered. If you've driven south through France down east from the Paris area towards Chamonix for skiing you may have passed though Dijon, or you might wish to take this route on your next trip.

I must admit I could not place Vezelay. You've probably heard of Santiago de Compostela. Santiago is Saint John translated into another language. The basilica is a pilgrimage point and   

a world heritage site.

More travel information on the Basilica you can visit in Vezelay:

http://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Vézelay