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.

Why Learn Another Language? (Plus 7 easy Swedish words)

Flag of Esperanto. From Wikipedia.

1 Be Bilingual

 Being bilingual could stave off Alzheimers for five years. Giving you quality of life. Saving you from sad visits to grannies. Saving the government money.

2 Why Start Language Learning With Esperanto?

If you only speak one language, (English and louder English) and are scared of languages, the easiest is to learn Esperanto. It is a made up language designed as an intermediary language for Europeans. 

What use is it?

a) People who learn it go on to learn another language and pick it up faster. 

3 Where can I speak Esperanto?

b) You can find or start Esperanto clubs on Meetup. In the UK there is one in Reading. 

c) Although no country speaks it, you can join the homestay system and stay with another Esperanto speaker for free for three days to practise the language. 

d) Countries like Hungary, whose language has little in common with neighbouring languages, favour Esperanto. Hungary has had Esperanto as an A level.) I bought the Esperato-English dictionary and did a correspondence course in Esperanto. You can see a map of where to find Esperanto speakers.

e) Esperanto speakers hold an annual conference.

3 A sense of achievement

Which languages are easiest? First Esperanto if you are European or speak English. Then Spanish, from that Portuguese or Italian. If you are learning Chinese or Japanese, they are a pair. The written language uses the same symbols, like the no smoking sign and washing symbols, the signs are the same, although the spoken words are different. Bulgarian uses Cyrillic like Russian. Cyrillic combines Greek and Hebrew with new letters. Spoken Arabic and Hebrew are similar. Salaam and Shalom mean peace or hello.  

German and Dutch and the Scandinavian languages are a group. Finland has Swedish as one of two official languages. Chinese (Mandarin) is also used in Taiwan, and Singapore. (Hong Kong uses Cantonese.)

Humour In Language

Lots of mistakes in language are funny in retrospect. I wanted trousers in a US department store. They say pants for trousers and underpants for pants.

I asked for rubbers.  

'Not stocked here. Try a drug store.' 

I found them. I confronted the assistant. 'What's this!'

An eraser.

The American for rubbers is erasers. Rubbers are contraceptives.

Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are a group.

Some simple Swedish words

Swedish - English

1 arkitekt - architect

2 modell  - model

3 polis - police

4 pappa - papa/Dad (notice the a, unlike American Pop)

5 professionell - professional

6 syster - sister

7 tomat - tomato

English - Swedish

1 architect - arkitekt

2 Dad/pop/papa - pappa

3 model - modell

4 police - polis

5 professional - professionell

6 Sister - syster

7 tomato - tomat

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

Please share links to your favourite blog posts.

Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre, Acrobatics and a song about mother's love

Vietnam Flag.

In Hanoi we booked seats for the Vietnamese show My Village (Lang Toi in Vietnamese), which is at 6 pm and lasts an hour.

Opera House & Vietnam Tuong Theatre
The show is confusingly at two venues, one of which is the Hanoi Opera House. We were looking forward to seeing the opera house. We were surprised when out taxi driver took us in another direction. Our taxi driver fortunately knew that the show as on at the Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre.

So we missed out on seeing the grand Hanoi opera house, built by the French in 1911. However, instead we got to see a smaller Vietnamese-style theatre with masks on the walls.

Free Tea
The event starts with a pre-show free drink of lemon grass tea. You walk through an alcove into a side room and pour yourself your tea from an urn made of porcelain.

The theatre lobby has red pillars and masks on the walls.


Colourful pillars at 'Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre'. Photo by Angela Lansbury.




Masks in the lobby of the theatre. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Birdsong
We can hear birdsong recordings. The show was delightful, although it had no programme, no translation, no discernable plot.

Acrobatics And Poles
The main props are giant bamboo poles used to create x shapes which agile girls and boys climb. Feats of acrobatics. One girl must be double-jointed. She bends backwards and forwards. The most amusing moment was when she scratched her forehead with her toes, from a leg up her back!ll u

The later part of the show included some amusing juggling with three jugglers. Plus some singing.

Song of Mother's and Father's Love
Luckily we were with a friend who speaks Vietnamese. She was able to tell us later over dinner that one well-known traditional song was about a father's love being as high as Vietnam's tallest mountain. The mother's love is deep as the sea. Apparently this refrain is repeated many times.

You were not allowed to take photos during the show. but afterwards the performers came into the foyer.

Cambodia Show Plot
In Cambodia we saw a show with dancers and singers, much more colourful, with a plot, boy chases girl, girl rejects boy, rival boy courts her. he abandons her. Girl is consoled by attention of first true love. He marries her. Happy end with much joyful singing and dancing.

I can't help thinking that this whole show could be so much better.

We walked back to our hotel in the old quarter via the night market.

If you go to Hanoi, do see it. The other big show in Hanoi is the water puppets. The Lune Production group also has performances in Saigon (also now known as Ho Chi Minh city).

www.luneproduction.com
email reservation@luneproduction.com
tel:+84 1245 18 11 88
For reviews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City#Museums_and_art_galleries
https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/ShowUserReviews-g293925-d4542125-r195747380-A_O_Show_Lune_Production-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html

For hotels
booking.com
Comparison site:
https://www.clicktripz.com/rates/search/index
For airlines
travelok.com
vietJetair.com (Comprehensive list of budget airlines in Wikivoyage.)
For transport
https://www.grab.com/vn/en/

Language
Duolingo.com 
(Remember to click on the sound symbol to hear how words are pronounced.) 

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Please share links to your favourite posts. I have several more on Hanoi, Halong Bay and Vietnam.

Learning Languages - a peek at Polish - some easy first words

Problem
How to get over fear of starting Polish?

Answer
I would start with some easy vocabulary. I was sent a message in Polish about a meetup. I translated it in Google translate to see if I could recognize some easy words. Then I went back to Duolingo, lesson one to look for some simple words and hints on structure.

English - Polish
colleague - kolega
mum - mama
father - tata
wine  - wino

Polish - English
kolega - colleague
mama - mum
tata - father
wino - wine

Polish and Slavic languages do not have 'a' and 'the'. You would say I am man for I am a man.

Duolingo
Go to the forum in the first lesson for lots of useful tips from other learners.

Useful websites
duolingo.com

I shall add more to this post later.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.

Why you should label family and travel photos

Problem
The day after my mother died I started going through family photos to find a nice photo of her to display at the funeral, and put on the dining room table for the prayers and meal at home afterwards.

I stayed at my father's home to comfort him and went through my father's photos. He's with my mother and somebody else. "Who's this?" I asked. "Where was this? When was this?"

Dates, Places, People's Names
Some of the photos had nothing written on the back. Others had one word such as Venice, or a date, such as 1999. From the one word, helped by the pictures, he was able to identify many of the photos. From the date, he could identify a place. From a place name, he could identify a date.

He could identify family, friends, and strangers. I added as much detail as I could. "Aunty Carrie? What was her surname? Who was her husband? Your aunty or mother's aunty? Did she have any children?"

If she had children, I wrote the children's names. I might want to call them later, or recognise them on a genealogy site such as Ancestry.

I didn't bother to write childless. I should have done. It would save time searching for possible descendants, who didn't exist.

Writing Carefully
I wrote carefully behind the white frame of each photo, careful not to indent the photo, especially not the faces. When I worked at a photo agency, we typed out the captions and stuck them on the back of photos. You never wrote on the back of a photo. However, with a funeral to arrange, I didn't have time for such neatness.

Now, go back to your family's wedding photos. Add as many names as you can, and dates, and the place where the photo was taken.  When you have time, type it all up neatly. Stick the label on the back. Add a caption inside the glass of any framed photo.

If you have just got married, or recently married, type out a label giving the date, the venue, the people in the main wedding photo, and another sheet listing all the guests. Years later you will be saying: "What was the name of the people you used to work with? What were your parents' neighbours called?"

I have an old wedding photo taken in around 1910. I have no idea if it's a family wedding or one they attended. I don't recognize any of my relatives in the picture. I wish they had written the date on the back, and the name of the bride and groom.

 I went back through my family history to see who would have married then. The only people were my late mother's parents in 1910. But they are not the couple in the photo.

Now that another ten years have passed, I am starting to wonder whether I had mixed up photos from my family with my husband's. Could it be somebody on his side of the family?

When you write your family history or memoirs, you will want captions in the book, giving the names of every person in the photo, the date and place.

Please label your photos.

You can thank me, later.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Writer of family histories:
My Secret Life Revealed.
The Mad Musician - a musical by Angela Lansbury.
This is your life Pearl Sharot.
Soup and Sympathy.

TRANSLATING Dutch - how to start even if you don't know one word!

Problem
A Dutch sentence is on the screen in front of me. I do not know Dutch but I know about 100-200 common words of German. What does the sentence mean in English? Let's have a go, a try.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

At first glance it means nothing. Then I took it word by word looking for one word to see if I could identify the subject.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

The first two words are 'Een kind' . Ah! Kindergarten. Kind is German for child. German and Dutch are very similar. What is een? Either one child or a child. Now I know the general subject matter. It's about a child or children, or mankind.

As I read on the next word which makes any sense is kinderen. 

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

That must be plural for kind, children. Twee kinderen. Twee sounds like twins and three. Either two children or three children. If the sense had been one, two, three, that would have been logical. My guess is that the logical jump is from one child to two children.

At this point, even that doesn't matter. I am gaining confidence. I have the subject of the first sentence and the subject of the second sentence.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

What is niet? It appears twice!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Niet is Russian for no. Long ago I saw a film featuring Goldie Hawn with the song containing the phrase: "NIET. NIET. NIET - not any more!" Niet means no. "No, no, no - not any more." The German is nicht. The common element is the letter N starting: Negative, Null, Never, No, Niet, Nicht, Neither, Nor, Nil, None, Naught.

So sentence one is a child ... not

Sentence two is about two children ... not

Look again. The word kinderen is repeated at the end!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

A child is also repeated.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

I can't work out the start, a child vraagt, but een kind kan - sounds like a child can!

That's very common in many laguages from Europe, K for c. C is S.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

After the first comma, I see 'en'.  And or but? My guess is and.

We still don't have any idea what it's all about, but we are building up the sentence word by word, learning Dutch, growing in confidence.

If kan is can, and en is and, I guess that dat, which appears twice means that.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

What else sound familiar, related to family life and the world of a child and its father and mother?

vader of moeder ? Either murder or mother? My guess is mother.

Vader of moeder? Further of murder or father of/off/or mother?

Vader of moeder - obviously father or mother!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Still no nearer the sense, but we are gathering a word with every re-reading.

Back to the start:

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,

A child doesn't eat its leavened bread or a child doesn't live its life?

Leven - a noun, must be life.

Het must be his or its. Het leven, his life.

Om must be on or of.

two children 'geadopteerd' looks like adopted. 

Ge in German is the prefix, fixed ahead of the word, for the past tense. Ge-adopteerd means adopted.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Mijn eigen kindered - my / mine own children, my / mine eye children?

I don't know eigen but I'm pretty sure mijn is mine.

Now I know that in Dutch ij is simply an i sound, so that confusing j can be ignored. IJ is simply their way of spelling i pronounced eye.

I have had enough. I am now willing to go to Google translate. Next time I see Dutch I will be able to recognize that it is Dutch, and will make an attempt at trying to get the gist of it before translating.

I'm taking a short break. Later I shall add the whole translation.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.Take a look at my other travel blog:
http://luxurytravelforless.co.uk

Planning A Trip To Bucharest, Romania: Station Names, Placenames, Language

Problem
How to I get around? How do I plan a hotel near a station or landmark? How do I remember names? How can I learn a few Romanians words fast?

Answers
Start with a map of the city and a map of underground stations.
Find a list of stations.
Underline or circle major place names or those which translate easily into English or another language you speak such as French.
List the words and add you own memory aids.

Romanian - English
1Mai - First of May
central - central (adjective)
c e n t r u - centre (noun)(I inserted spaces because spell checker rushes to help and change to alternative words)
centru comercial - commercial centre
de - of
eroii - heroes (add h in front of the Romanian word, say the English like a person who drops their H, think of ii as plural, the same as Malaysian and Indian languages which say something, a word, twice for plurals eg Malay for children is anak aka which is literally child-child
gara - train station (Why do I bother adding the word train? Because station could mean bus station and in New Zealand s h e e p station.)
lac - lake
h a r t a - map (sound like in other languages it might be cart or card)
noi - new (starts with the same letter N, only three letters in both words, most likely word in a place name)
Nord - north
P a r c - park
Patriei - fatherland (as in Latin pater for father, patrilineal - father's family tree line, patrician - father figure of city, Papa for father)
Piata - square (plaza)
Politehnica - Polytechnic
republica - republic
Revolutiei - Revolution
Romana - Roman (or Romanian)
Sud - south
S u d u l u i - south
v i c t o r i e i - victory

English - Romanian
central - central
centre / - centru
commercial centre - centru comercial (Romanian language simplifies the spelling which is phonetic, meaning the written word is always just like the sound - phone means sound - and the adjective comes afterwards, whereas in English the adjective is first)
fatherland - patriei
heroes - e r o i i
lake - lac
map - h a r t a (How can I remember this? Map of the heart of the city, slang dropping the last letter of 'of' - hart-a the city - h a r t a.)
May - Mai
new - noi
North - nord
of - de
republic - r e p u b l i c a
revolution - revolutiei
park - p a r c
polytechnic - politehnica
Roman / Romanian - Romana
south - s u d u l u i
square - p i a t a
victory - v i c t o r i e i

I can now recognise 14 Romanian words on station maps and city or country maps. How about you?

Story
I look at the train map. At first glance it is all just foreign words. Wikipedia points out that the lines are M and numbers (like British motorways which start with the first motorway, M1, running from London in the south to the north).

M1
The main M1 line is the circle line. (In London, England, the circle line is yellow but in Bucharest it is red.) How do I remember - stop you are in the centre! The central line links the Gare de Nord in the north (west) going clockwise via

I go back to the map of the Metro (in French) which in Romanian is spelled Metrou, just add 'u' on the end, 'you' are here in Romania.

Now I try to remember the position and colour of each line and the landmarks. To anybody living there, you do it so often that you remember without trying.

MI
The red circular line starts with Gara de Nord, the northern station. Next, going clockwise, a square or place or plaza, in Romanian, Piata Victoriei. Place or Square of Victory.

Continuing clockwise, let's work on it, we reach P i a t a M u n c i i - Work Square (or Labour Square - American spelling l a b o r).

How do you remember that it ends i e i and no e i e ? Think of it as having two bed posts with the word e in the middle like the word bed which has uprights at both ends. Alternatively think of it as ending with an i instead of a y, then add an e, than another i.

Victory, v i c t o r i e i, we are victorious at learning Romanian language and the lines of the metro, called m e t r o u. (Memory aid, the metro is called m e t r o u, that's true.

Pronunciation Guides
D u o l i n g o language learning for free website has symbols before many of the Romanian words. You can hear them so you can recognise them when they are spoken. You can r e p e a t them for practise. You can keep clicking on the symbol and repeat listening to the word or saying the word as many time as you like.

You Tube videos including learn numbers in three minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBPwwi6oI7E
Three big surprises for me were:
1 Many Romanian words drop that vowel they add on the ends of words.
2 They roll the letter r.
3 I've struggled with rolling the letter r in Italian on D u o l i n g o. But listening to the Youtube video on Romanian I found myself automatically imitating the rolled r.

Tips
http://romaniatourism.com/maps/bucharest/subway_map.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bucharest_metro_stations

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer,a author and speaker. Please share links to my posts.