Translating Labels, real gold and silk, real silk, real what?

Is it real or fake? One hundred per cent or a mix? If you are buying gold or silver or jewellery, it helps to recognize the words for real silver and gold, and gold plated, or silver plated.

When buying leather, such as jackets, bag, or shoes, it helps to recognize both the symbols for leather and synthetics, and the words used. I have seen PU leather, which pops up in a search for leather boots, but it is fake lather, or leather look.

Sometimes you want the alternative. You might prefer plated items because they are cheaper. Or synthetic rather than leather or fur because you don[t want to be cruel to animals. 

You might want to find out the difference between 925 silver, and alloys. Also polyester cotton, which to my mind saves ironing

 I bought a scarf, second hand, pre-loved, whatever you want to call it. I loved it.

It had the label 100%. But 100% what?

 It had three letters I could not understand, not just in a foreign language, but also in a foreign alphabet.

It felt soft. But not quite as soft as silk. I had hoped for silk. Was it a good modern imitation?

I tried googling lists of words for silk in all languages. It was not silk.

What was the language. It looked like Russian. I worked out from another Russian word that the first letter was L.   What was the E with the two dots? The e pronounced like ay. The last letter looking like an H was N.  Lane?  The French for wool is laine. The word was not Russian for wool.

I had invited a friend to lunch with me at a restaurant. I showed her the scarf. She suggested linen. That sounded like the letters L A for ay, N. But the scarf did not feel thick and heavy and tightly woven, like linen suits which are stiff, resembling denim jeans.

Linen.

However, a search for the Russian word for linen produced a match. So did copying the word as an image and asking for a translation.

Photograph by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

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Buying Laptops & Phones Overseas - To Gain Or Avoid Different Keyboards, Accents, Dollar & Money Signs

 If you want a Webster's Dictionary or a keyboard with dollar signs, the USA is a good place to buy them.

Dollar sign on Keyboards.

If you want A Japanese, Russian, Greek or Hebrew keyboard, those countries would have the biggest choice of keyboards already in their language.

You can swich your keybaord in settings, but how do you remember which key to press? You need to buy an overlay of the right keyboard. Or print one out, as a temporary measure. 

On my Samsung phone, I simply click on the key showing the globe, and up pops the Hebrew language I set when I was trying to learn Hebrew on Duolingo.

The Globe Symbol

Once, long after I had given up trying to learn Hebrew, I must have accidentally tapped on the globe key. Everything went into Hebrew and I had no idea why. I was in shock, in panic, in despair. Fortunately, my husband knew what the problem was. He just tapped on the globe symbol and magically my keyboard was back to normal.

Dollar and Pound Signs On Keyboards

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 When buying a laptop overseas, or at home, note whether the keyboard has dollar signs or pound signs on the keyboard. America uses dollars. On my Dell keyboard, the dollar sign is above the number 4.

So does Singapore. In Singapore you add the capital leter S before the dollar sign, S$. 

To Change Keyboard Signs

If you are technically minded, you can go into settings and re-configure any key on your keyboard. We did this once when the key for full stop was stuck. We switched it with the colon which was rarely used. For several days I instinctively used the full stop key with no result. So we found that you need to print and stick on the new sign on the key.

Then one day we cleaned the keyboard with a blower. The Key must have been jammed by a microscopic piece of grit, or toast. We removed the sticker, then reconfigured the keyboard settings back to the way they were originally.

To Show Pound Signs On Laptop Keyboards

I have a Dell laptop which has dollar signs. To show pounds I can list them as GBP, as is done by some websites. I sometimes do that here in blogspot. You read my posts in blogspot where they are read-only and cannot be altered. I create posts in blogger with a passcode.

EDITING ON A PHONE

However, I can also use my Samsung phone which was bought in the UK. This has pound signs. So I can create posts on my phone with the pound signs. Alternatively, create posts on my laptop, then edit on my phone to insert the pound signs.

Keyboard Characters' Numbers 

If you have a separate numeric keyboard, you can type in the codes for certain characters which you use frequently. My husband has a list of those he uses a lot. But he knows off by heart the numbers he uses frequently. For example 0163 is the pound sign. For French and some other languages, the acute accent used frquently on the letter e is 0233.

The answers to most keyboard changes are found in your laptop manual online, or Youtube, or Quora, or Wikihow. AI nowadays often quotes wiki.

Another way to find out is to pop into a laptop or phone shop. Even if they don't sell your brand of laptop or phone, if they are not busy, some helpful extravert sales person will probably be happy to show you.

If you are stuck, and in a shopping mall, make for a McDonalds or Costa where a group of schoolchildren are doing homework on their laptops. You might not want to release your phone to somebody walking in the street, but a group stuck like sardines might be a safer bet.

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