Lost in translation - American, British English

 

American - British English

backup lights - reversing lights

blinkers/turning lights - indicators

elevator - lift

emergency brake / parking brake - hand brake

faucet - tap

fender - mudguard/wing

gas station - garage

gas tank - petrol tank

hood - bonnet

lug nuts - wheel nuts

pavement - tarmac/road

sedan - saloon

sidewalk - pavement

station wagon - estate car

tail lights - brake lights

truck - lorry

trunk - boot

windshield  - windscreen

British English - American

bonnet - hood

boot - trunk

brake lights - tail lights

estate car - station wagon

garage - gas station

hand brake - parking brake / emergency brake

indicators - turning lights/blinkers

lift - elevator

lorry - truck

mudguard - fender

pavement - sidewalk

petrol tank - gas tank

reversing lights - backup lights

saloon - sedan

tarmac/road - pavement

tap - faucet

wheel nuts - lug nuts

windscreen - windshield

Useful Websites

https://www.familyhandyman.com/list/do-you-know-these-15-british-terms-for-auto-parts/

https://blog.intlauto.com/2019/04/30/us-english-uk-english-car-parts/

https://www.adrianflux.co.uk/uk-us-car-part-names/

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

Please share links to your favourite posts

Getting To Grips With Chinese Language

  When I get in the lift (elevator) in Singapore I read the Chinese and English instructions. I look for the simple signs, like the double curve like the running legs pronounced ren for person. The English instruction mentioning the guard uses three symbols, including this one.

Another simple source is the children's card book I bought which shows the flags. I have learned the sign for Japan. Ri ben. Sun origin. Sun, like a squared off sun, doubled, like sunrise and sunset.

The Chinese sign for America is beautiful country, or beautiful kingdom. Wei, meaning beautiful is the sign for sheep. 

(That reminds me of the slightly rude joke about sheep in New Zealand: 'Why do you have to fetch the sheep in before it gets dark? So you can see them and recognize them. Otherwise, you only get the ugly ones.')

Useful Websites

books

Chinese for toddlers and beginners

Academic

The language of Language by Madalena Cruz-Ferreira and Sunita Anne Abraham

duolingo.com

wiki Chinese language

Braille Signs In Your Lift - and Braille in Singapore, France and the USA

Many lifts when upgraded have added the Braille signs.


Singapore flag

Braille signs in lift (US elevator). Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Here are the ones from Cashew Heights in Singapore, a series of skyscrapers 12-16 storeys high, 30 years old, with apartment units up to four bedrooms often containing one or more residents over 50.

The couples with small children are often visited once a year or more by elderly relatives from overseas.

The point is that not only the residents but any visitors can find out where the lift is going and register the floor they are visiting and check if they have stopped at the right floor. The lifts also have robotic voices announcing the floor number on arrival.

The first thing I noticed in the lifts, before the Braille was installed, is the strange way, strange to me from the UK, of ordering the lift buttons. I would expect the buttons to go up in a line. But two is to the right of one. All the odd numbers are on the left. All the even numbers are on the right.

More About The Invention Of Braille
Braille was a blind teenager at school near Paris when he started workign on his system to communicate with his schoolfriends. He adapted his raised dots for the blind from a system used by the military at night. When they could not see at night, before the days of electricity and battery torches, they would use raised dots. Another reason for using dots, was that you did not want to speak at night and give away your position to the enemy.

Louis Braille, the inventor of Braille.

Braille experimented as a child at school with communicating with his friends. The sighted teachers did not want the pupils to have a secret way of communicating not known to the teachers. But eventually Braille's system caught on amongst the blind school age pupils and adults so the sighted people had to learn it and could see that it was a success.

Now there is an increasing campaign to get sighted people to learn sign language and Braille in order to communicate with blind people. Learning sign language and Braille when you are young has a second advantage for the learner. It also means that if you lose sight later in life you already have the language at your fingertips, literally, and have less of a challenge learning and can cope immediately with daily life.

Places where you can see and learn more about Braille
1 Braille Museum in France, east of Paris.
2 The American Printing House For The Blind Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
3 Lifts in Singapore and other countries.

Useful Websites

USA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_the_American_Printing_House_for_the_Blind

Picture of Braille bust in French library. Public domain from Wikipedia.
See my other post on Braille.

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

Beautiful Temple In Singapore

This beautiful temple is in a side road. Worth a trip. Visitors are welcome. You take off you shoes and   wash your feet at an area surrounded by seats and shoe boxes to the right of the entrance - foot washing on a hot day very welcome and refreshing. 

The gold tower gateway, a feature of such temples is eye catching and colourful.

Here's the history of the temple.

All the statues of the Gods are entrancing. These two are my favourites. 

Travelling there

The temple is on the Changi airport side of the island.

How to get there? By public transport, MRT (underground train) to Aljunied which is stop EW9, 9th stop on the East West line which splits to end at Changi airport or Pasir Ris (EW1). From Aljunied take a number 40 bus. On your return the number 40 bus stops on the opposite side of the road to the MRT station. If you can't face climbing all the steps up to the overhead bridge, there's a lift (elevator) up and down on both sides of the bridge.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. 

Photos copyright Angela Lansbury