Learning German For English Speakers - easy and confusing words

 Where can you learn and practise speaking German? 

Flag of Germany

Flag of Austria

Flag of Switzerland

You can use German in Germany, Austria and German-speaking parts of Switzerland.  Also Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and parts of Belgium and Italy.

Flag of Luxembourg.

Flag of Liechtenstein.

German - English Confusing words

The German word Chef is not a chef but a boss.

Chef - boss

das ist kein - that is not (not that is small which is klein)

klein - small

Strand - beach (not street, unlike The Strand street in London and La Strada which is street in Italy)

German - English Words With Similar Spelling or Similar Sounds

Remember that nouns start with a capital letter in German

(eine) Banane - (a) banana 

braun - brown

das Dokument - the document

frustriert - frustrated

hier - here

Idee - idea

kollegin - colleague

laut - loud

oft - often

das Projekt - the project

das Shampoo - the shampoo

schwer - difficult (makes you swear)

Spinat - spinach

suchen - to search for / look for

Please follow me and share links to your favourite posts.

English - German Words With Similar Spelling Or Similar Sound

a banana - eine banane (remember to change the final a to an e as in eat)

brown - braun 

colleague - Kollegin

difficult - schweg

the document - das Dokument

idea - idee

loud - laut (the letters t and d sound similar and involve the same movement of your tongue)

often - oft

the project - das Projekt

shampoo - das Shampoo

shoe - schuh (add the letter c like see, and other h, for a pair of shoes)

small - klein (If you know anybody with the name Kleinman, that means small man. Calvin Klein, fashion designer. Naomi Klein, psychoanalyst.)

spinach - Spinat

vegan - vegan

Useful English-German websites

duolingo.com

https://wikitravel.org/en/German_phrasebook

translate.google.com

-ends-

Please share links to your favourite posts.

An easy language for travellers - ten words which are almost the same

 

Swedish - I wish I had started it earlier. It is like a cross between English and German. 

Look at these words

Swedish - English

är - are

bruna - brown

cat - katt

dotter - daughter

kaffe - coffee

katt - cat

sommar - summer

son - son

syster - sister

tomat - tomato

vinter - winter

English - Swedish

are - är

brown - bruna

daughter - dotter

coffee - kaffe

sister - syster

son - son

summer - sommar

tomato - tomat

winter - vinter

I could not find how to change to Swedish in blogger so I copied the letter a with the two dots above it from translategoogle.

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

https://translate.google.com/

Handy tips which make travelling easy and fun from Angela.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

Learn Colours in Italian - and greetings for Christmas, New Year, birthday and anniversary

English
Red
orange
yellow
green
blue
purple
pink
brown
black
white



Italian
Rosso
arancia
giallo (young like yellow, ends with lo, but g, another letter with a hanging tail, instead of y)
verde
blu (Just drop the e)
viola (violet, well, close enough, but the Italians are so musical they say vila instead of violet)
rosa
Marrone
nero (as in Caffe Nero, black coffee)
bianca



English
Good morning (or good day)
Good afternoon
Good evening
Hello
goodbye



Italian
Buongiorno (giorna is like our word journal, a daily account or diary)
Buon pomeriggio
Buonasera
ciao
addio



English
Happy Christmas
Happy New Year
Happy Birthday
Happy Anniversary

Thank you

You're welcome/my pleasure/don't mention it



Italian
Buon Natale
Felice anno nuovo (Felicie is like the English word felicitations and the girl's name Felicity, nuovo is like the English words new and novelty)
Buon compleanno (sounds like a completed year)
Felice anniversario

Grazie

Prego

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. teacher of English and other languages. Workshops in business English and languages for colleges and workplaces. contact me through Facebook or LinkedIn.

Learn Your First Ten Words in Portuguese: Colours (start a monthly learn a language plan)

Problem
I need to learn Portuguese for my next holiday. Portuguese is used in Brazil and Madeira. What should I learn?

Answers
On Tinycards by Duolingo I can learn colours and foods. That takes time every day.

Some of the questions are annoying. You seem to get asked to guess a colour before you've been told it. One reason is that it's really a revision card for what you have already learned on Duolingo.

What has gone wrong? You might have rushed on to the test question, forgetting previously to click to reverse the card to see the translation.

I'm short of time so I'm typing into Google translate my favourite words in the order I want to learn them. I then order the words from Portuguese into English, followed by English into Portuguese.

Any popular phrase book does the same thing. You can pick groups of words to learn, sometimes at the start or end of the book, such as numbers, days of the week. If I were to learn 10 words a day, and keep adding, in a month of 28-31 days I would have a basic vocabulary of 280-310 words.

Which words will I need most? I can select 28-31 sets of words. Let's make it 30 for neatness, and add another 10 or do a revision on day 31. If I am busy one day, my cumulative list will help me catch up. Add one to three whole sentences.

Earworms by Berlitz does something similar. You can play it in your car to help you learn words for your next holiday.

1 Colours
2 Food
3 Wine bottle labels
4 Days of the week
5 Months
6 Numbers 1-10
7 Travel brochure /website
8 On the plane
9 At the airport
10 On a ferry or boat
11 On a bus
12 Walking
13 At the hotel
14 In a restaurant
15 On a tour
16 Shops and prices
17 Speaking to a museum guide
18 Emergency
19 Verbs - to be (present), to be future, walk, run, stop, go, like, can,
20 Recipes
21 Clothes labels / washing instructions
22 Sewing and repairs
23 Pharmacy and doctor
24 Police and theft
25 Driving and traffic signs
26 Greetings and meetings
27 Time
28 Numbers 10-20
29 Celebrations
30 Weddings: bride, groom, photographer
31 Feelings: happy, sad, hungry, full, angry, worried, busy, tired, keen, need, want
Question words: where, how much, how many

Once I have worked out the words I need, I can use the same set of English words to learn any other language. Obviously the words you need on a ski holiday are different to those on a beach holiday.

This would keep me organized.  However, if I want to learn out of sequence, such as doing colours today, I need to re-structure my list, or create a draft of all 30 days of learning.

Here are colours:

English - Portuguese
black - preto (p and b are like upside down or each other; pret-end to be invisible wearing black)
brown - castanho (like a brown castle)
blue - azul
green - verde (like the Italian verdi but the I-tal-I-an has i and Portugu-E-s-E has E) vinho verde green wine
orange - laranja (like the Spanish naranja but L shape Portugal which is long has laranja)
pink - rosa (rose pink)
purple - roxa (r in purple)
red - vermelho (like vermilion)
white - branco (like blanco but with an r as in PoRtuguese)
yellow - amarelo (the endings rhyme; spelling like the town Amarillo simplified, imagine yEllow amarillo - amarElo)

O and A endings
Five of the words end with the letter O, (preto, castanho, vermelho, branco, amarelo).
Three Portuguese colour words end with the letter a: laranja, rosa, roxa.
One word ends with e, verde.
One ends with l, azul.
...
grey
striped
patterned
plain
bright colour
darker
lighter
navy
lovely colour
to match this colour

Portuguese
Preto
Castanho
azul - azul
verde
laranja
Rosa
roxa
vermelho
branco
amarelo
...
cinzento
listrado
padronizado
avião
Cor brilhante (cor rhymes with more, but cor short for colour, brilhante like the English word brilliant)
mais escura (mais is more, escura obscured - darker)
isqueiro
marinha
linda cor (Linda is wearing a lovely colour - cor blimey, that's a lovely colour, Linda)
para combinar com esta cor (to combine with this colour - for combining with this colour).

Five of this second set of letters end with o: cinzento, listrado, padronizado, avião, isqueiro. Three end with a: escura, marinha, linda.

Now you can write to your friends called Linda and tell them they are lovely - in Spanish and Portuguese.

http://duolingo.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_language
https://translate.google.com/

https://www.visitportugal.com/en/destinos/madeira
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/madeira-wine-two-hundred-year-old-found-fortified-cellar-new-jersey-liberty-hall-union-a7835881.html
http://www.kean.edu/libertyhall/about/history

duolingo.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/port-and-portuguese-wine-labels-and.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-to-ask-for-food-and-drink-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/learn-your-first-ten-words-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-do-you-say-please-in-portuguese-is.

visitportugal.com

visitbrasil.com

http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

earwormslearning.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English, learner of 12 other languages.
Please see my other travel blog:
http://www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk

Serbian Language Secrets revealed, the Cyrillic alphabet, sounds and colours

Problem

A colleague of mine is employing some people from Serbia to do work for him online, helping with his news website. He says it's cheaper than employing people in the UK. If he writes to them, no problem. 

But speaking to them on the phone or on Skype would be a problem. So would going to meet them. He can't pronounce their names!

How often would you meet people who speak the Serbian language? Even if you are not planning travelling to Serbia in the near future, you might meet Serbian speakers in Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic or Romania. Wiki says:

Official status
Official language in	Serbia  Bosnia and Herzegovina  Kosovo[a]
Recognised minority language in	Croatia  Hungary[3]  Montenegro  Slovakia[4]  Czech Republic[5][6]  Macedonia[7]  Romania

Serbian Letters

Cyrillic Latin IPA value А а A a /ä/ Б б B b /b/ В в V v /v/ Г г G g /ɡ/ Д д D d /d/ Ђ ђ Đ đ /dʑ/ Е е E e /e/ Ж ж Ž ž /ʐ/ З з Z z /z/ И и I i /i/ Ј ј J j /ʝ/ К к K k /k/ Л л L l /l/ Љ љ Lj lj /ʎ/ М м M m /m/

Cyrillic Latin IPA value Н н N n /n/ Њ њ Nj nj /ɲ/ О о O o /ɔ/ П п P p /p/ Р р R r /ɾ/ С с S s /s/ Т т T t /t/ Ћ ћ Ć ć /tɕ/ У у U u /u/ Ф ф F f /f/ Х х H h /x/ Ц ц C c /ts/ Ч ч Č č /ʈʂ/ Џ џ Dž dž /ɖʐ/ Ш ш Š š /ʂ/

How do you remember them? You'll have to make up some memory aids. Here are some of mine:

The b looks like a Big B written in a hurry so it's like a small b and the small b looks like a b written in a hurry of a number 6. Six bees. however the B shape is like v. I think of the word believe. When I see the letter b, which is at the start of the word believe, I go to the end of the word believe and find the V.

The Gamma is next. (Alpha, beta, gamma). It looks like a pointing r. Revving up. Go go go! Get the Gamma.

The D or delta looks like a door.

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

http://mylanguages.org/serbian_alphabet.php

Serbian Latin Alphabet

From Wikipedia; credit author Albatalad.

Serbian Names

Once you have managed to read the names, you need to know how to say them. I found a helpful website which gives names in both a Latin and a Serbian lettering plus a recording of the sound.

How do you get to hear the name? You see a wide oblong with the triangle on the left. At first I kept clicking on the oblong or on the teeny symbol alongside the triangle. I would tap several times and eventually hit the right place by chance. I thought the site was slow or not working. Then I wondered if it was me.

You have to be sure to click on the triangle, not just anywhere in the oblong.

The girl's name Anna looks like AHA in the Serbian script. (I remind myself, 'aha - it's Anna! But the vowel is pronounced more like u n n a , or uh-ha.

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-boy-names/

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-girl-names

https://www.hearnames.com/pronunciations/serbian-names/serbian-surnames

I decided to try to learn a couple of words. I went onto another website and chose colours. At first I could not see the icon for play. Then I realised I had to download flash player in order to see the bar which starts with the triangle pointing forward for go.

My next problem was that the words didn't match up with the colours in the columns. then I realised you read the two words on each line horizontally, zig zagging down the page. The words which sounded almost the same as English were Orange and Brown.
http://mylanguages.org/multimedia/serbian_audio_colors.php

If you go to Serbia, what is there to see? The Nikola Tesla museum. It is in Belgrade, the capital city. Belgrade is known as the White City, The White Castle, and The city which never sleeps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_Museum
http://www.nikolateslamuseum.org/web/index

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English, public speaking, and learner and speaker of other languages. Please share links to my posts.

French words of the day: fondant; fondue; sucre roux

French words of the day are sucre roux, brown or raw sugar.
Fondant means melting.

Fondue is popular in restaurants in Switzerland, the home of cheese and chocolate. Fondue is melting cheese or chocolate, served in a bowl over a small tea light, candle light or burner, usually with two or more people using skewers or pincers to pick up and dunk cubes of bread or vegetables in the cheese; or cake, or marshmallows or fruit such as strawberries in the chocolate.

Fondue sets are sold in supermarkets and department stores in the crockery departments, packaged as gifts at Christmas time. I bought what I thought was a fondue set. It is an oriental stir-fry set.

This set was sold in Tesco as an oriental gift set, with a stir-fry sauce.

English - French
Sugar-sucre
brown sugar-sucre roux

French - English
brun - brown
fondant - melting
rouge - red
roux - raw
sucre roux - brown sugar / raw sugar

Brown and white sugar served with coffee at Fulham Wine Rooms in London, England.

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