What is the Chinese for Ladies toilet, the French for meeting, and Spanish for glossary? Glossary - translations for Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, German, French and other languages on Toastmasters

 

Years ago I went to a Chinese speaking Toastmasters club in Singapore after I saw somebody had written on Facebook that he went to a Chinese Toastmasters club to learn Chinese.

Chinese Challenges In Singapore

 I could not understand a word. 

In the interval. I had enormous trouble finding the toilet in the interval. I tried pointing to my groin and miming hand washing. Eventually somebody showed me the floor with the toilets and left me. I did not know which toilet was which.  

Now I have learned the sign for women from the Chineasy flashcards, with their explanation that the old-fashioned idea was that a woman is kneeling, I prefer to think of it as a woman in the ladies toilet, maybe a Japanese woman, adjusting her hair with a hat pin or adjusting her hat.

I know that men is the other sign. To me it looks like a man running, maybe running to the toilet.

 At the end of the meeting I had trouble explaining that I needed a taxi or railway station to get home. If you are a complete beginner, your best bet is a bilingual club. I looked at some Spanish speaking club websites and found I could get the gist of one in three paragraphs and by turning on translate I could check my understand end identify individual words without having to copy them and paste them into Translate Google

Today I discovered what I have been looking for. A glossary in various languages. Below are the links. I shall add some individual words later.

French Challenges

I went to a French speaking club in Singapore. For years I had considered myself almost bilingual. However, I was missing out on slang words.

Tipsy in French

 In my table topic (impromptu speech subject) the topic including a word not known by me nor my friend who was a member (she teaches French). Neither of us knew the French word for tipsy. Saoul mens drunk. I had learned only the word ivre. 

Reunion in English

Another challenge was the words which sound the same but are slightly different. For example, a meeting in French was called reunion. In English a reunion would be an infrequent, once off or annual event such as a meeting of people who met on holiday, or went to school together. But in toastmasters the reunion was the regular monthly meeting, in English called a meeting.

I had for a long time toyed with the idea of using the foreign language manual alongside the English one to pick up the terms. I went to a physical meeting in a Community Centre and saved the programme sheet (agenda) and wrote in some of the terms.

Glossary

In case you don't know the word glossary, it is like a mini-dictionary of abbreviations and technical or foreign words used in a document.

Whether you intend to attend a bilingual meeting in person, or view in online, or read the website, or look at a manual or leaflet, or contact them on Facebook or LinkedIn, this glossary could be helpful.

You don't get a one word translation, which is what a speaker needs, but a whole paragraph to explain the English language concept in the other language.

Here is my translation of individual words you might hear or read at a meeting of Toastmasters or any other organization.

The same as in English, you add an s for plurals. Think of Los Angeles, the American city, whose name means the angels.

English - Spanish

and - y

archives - archivos

documents - documentos

glossary - glossario

level - nivel

obligatory - obligatorio

of - de (the same as the French word)

official - oficial

officials - oficiales

on line - en linea

permission - permiso 

President - Presidente

project - proyecto

secretary - secretario

speech - discurso

(the) website - (el) sitio web

Spanish English

archivos - archives

de - of

discurso - speech (the Spanish word is like the English word discourse)

documentos - documents

en linea - on line

glossario - glossary

nivel - level

obligatorio - obligatory

oficial - official

oficiales - officials

permission - permiso

Presidente - president

Proyecto (plural proyectos) - project

secretario - secretary

(el) sitio web - (the) website

y - and

Useful Websites

https://toastmasters.csod.com/clientimg/toastmasters/MaterialSource/3204cbad-db62-4647-b1fe-cfd0a8612acc_SP_Base_Camp_Glossary.pdf

Toastmasters International Find a Club

Note that is it not toastmasters dot com but org for organization.

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, fashionista. Please share links to your favourite posts or one or more of the blogs

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Wine Words - a handy glossary

When visiting wine shops, attending wine tastings, or taking vineyard tours in the summer, it helps to have a sneak peek at a glossary of wine terms. I like to write down the terms I hear at the back of my diary. I have tried writing technical terms on the back of vineyard brochures as I take tours, and writing down words and translations or explanations and definitions in a dedicated notebook, but by the next day at the next vinyard (when in a vinyard region) I have lost my notebook or filed it away.

Here are the words I hear often. I suggest you make your own translations into English and/or the language of your home country or the country you are visiting - or several if you want to identify terms on wine labels. I shall keep coming back to this list and adding to it throughout the day and week.

You might like to print it off and add your own terms. You could attach it to the back of your diary or guide book with sticky tape.

English
artisan - craft or hand made, small company, one off, unusual, small scale, unique
broker - bulk seller, intermediary between the wine grower and the bulk buyer - a combination of marketing man and price negotiator
boutique - small and specialised, usually a shop
eclectic - lots of different things, wide ranging, gathered from all over the place or world
esoteric - unusual
microclimate - weather in a small (micro) area
varietal wine - made from a single variety of grape, as opposed to a blend
vineyard - place where grapes on vines are grown in soil
winery - place where grapes are turned into wine in vast vats
bottling plant - place where vats of wine are delivered and poured into bottles which are labelled
importer - warehouse or wholesaler bringing in large amounts of wine from another country
distributor - the company which sells smaller amounts to restaurants and shops and organises delivery to them
vintage - year (some wines are drunk young, as soon as they are off the vine and into the bottle such as Beaujolais nouveau, others are so good and flavoursome they are left to mature in barrels and bottles
viticulture - growing of vines, like the word agriculture means growing plants from Latin ager for fields, cropping, and horticulture is the growing of flowers in gardens from h o r t u s which is Latin for garden

French (For France, Belgium, Switzerland)
château - castle - the little A shape hat over the letter a tells you the letter S has been dropped
chateaux - plus is plural instead of s - castles, usually not looking like a moated castle with heavy defensive stone walls but a more elegant grand mansion with a pitched roof and turrets and many windows
rosé (pronounced rose ay / eh) rose coloured or pink
terroir - territory or land, the landscape and soil which affects the produce from the vines, so the sunny side of the hill or west bank of a river produces different wines from the other side. Is it stony, sandy, rocky, chalky, wet or dry, clay, cold or cool, warm or wet, high or low, steep or sloping or stepped or flat, seaside, riverside, waterside, hillside or mountainside.
vendage
Sommelier - wine expert who buys the wines and advises you which wine to drink in a restaurant
(One way of remembering is the classic - I didn't make it up - mnemonic  kebab shops are bad to enter, but the last two letters don't quite fit. Never mind, it gets you most of the way through the list.)
k kabinet - the driest
s spatlese - late picked
a auslese - extra late picked
b bierenauslese berries really late picked - almost look like ice which comes next
e Eiswein - ice wine - often sold in a long thin icicle shape bottle
t Trockenbeerenauslese Too good to be true - grapes or berries almost rotten on the vine, the absolute sweetest, just add an extra syllable for each level
Eu regulation have basic wine and quality wine.

Italian
consorzio - consortium or group
controllata - controlled
denominazione - denomination (from name)
di - of
della - of the
origine - origin
Prosecco - a place and a grape originally. See Wikipedia.
riserva - reserved or saved, so a better wine
tutela - tutelage
via - way or street
DOC - denominazione di origine controllata - guaranteed to come from the place of orin stated on the label and if anybody else in another area or country claims to be from our region we will try to sue them or shut them down to protect our reputation and monopoly and protect the customer from inferior and / or cut price products and fraud

Portugal
Casa - house

Spanish (For vineyards and bottles from Spain, Mexico and  South America)
Alta - high (casa alta high house - English popular pub name Case is Altered is believed to be a corruption of the term casa alta, meaning a multi-storied house which in those days was three storeys which would be high; alta as in altitude and altimeter)
bodegas
cooperativa - co-operative
crianza - basic wine
del - of / of the
reserva - reserved or worthy to be saved and mature
Rioja - region of northern Spain which gives its name to wine from that region
Rioja Alta
La Rioja administrative region of north Spain on the river Ebro of which one tributary is the Oja  - as in Rio Oja hence Rioja (pronounced o ch a, heavy ch as if clearing your throat). But the vineyards are not on the Oja! They are on the Ebro, the one which wraps around the hillside where you find - where you find Viña Tondonia. the n with the wavy line above is pronounced n y as in vineyard
La Rioja Alta - compay brand name combining both
viña - vineyard

USA
American English is much the same as the British English.

NZ

Australia

German (for wines and vineyards in Germany, Austria and Switzerland)



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

Beaujolais Nouveau in Waitrose South Harrow

I'd been disappointed not to find the Nouveau Beaujolais in Morrisons, Hatch End, and Tesco's smaller branches in Hatch End and Watford. But here is the Nouveau Beaujolais from Waitrose

Just arrived in London in November 2015. How far does the Beaujolais Nouveau travel? Not just to London, England.

How long does it remain 'nouveau' new? Until the next one is 2016? 

I was told that Beaujolais Nouveau of the most recent year was seen as late as June the following year in Jasons in Singapore a few years ago. ((NB In Tanglin Mall and Hillview II are the Market Place shops, linked other brands of the Jasons group.)

What is made from? Gamay grapes.

Glossary 

French- English

à - at

Appel - name (Je m'appel - I call myself or my name is)

Appellation - name / brand name

arrivée - arrived

Beau - beautiful

Beaujolais - a district in France

bouteille - bottle

controllée - controlled

de - of

en - in

est - is

Jean - John

le - the

mis - put / placed

pour - for

produit - product

village(s) - village(s)

Photo by Angela Lansbury

French words of the day: entente cordiale - and some French and English grammar

Every day I note the French words which are used in English. Today's first phrase is entente cordiale. In English you might translate that as cordial understanding. Notice that the adjective comes before the noun in English but after the noun in French.

For the benefit of English language purists and those learning English as a foreign language, a reminder about English grammar (although I have a separate blog dealing with grammar to which I add posts sporadically).

Glossary (list of technical or foreign words used in a text or book with explanations of meanings, like a mini dictionary)

Noun - naming word, general term for objects, people, animals - for example table, chair, house, man, woman, dog, cat, boy, girl, town, city
Proper noun - individual name of things you can see and point to and visit such as John, Jean, Joan, Julius Caesar, Elizabeth, a real person such as John Smith, Angela Lansbury, London, New York
Adjective - additional word describing a noun such as small animal, tall man

If you find the terms adverb and adjective confusing, the easy way to remember which is which is to remember that an adverb is added to a verb and adjective is the other word, describing a noun
Verb - doing word such as to walk, walking, we walked
Adverb - addition to a verb describing it such as (walked) slowly, fast, quickly, rapidly - often ending in -ly

Angela Lansbury teaches English O level, A level, English as a second or foreign language and creative writing and conversation, and French conversation, O level and A level, website translation.

Managing your own travel blog

View

Useful - because often if you make your photo large it slips outside the borders of the column or covers text.

Preview - lets you see post before you put it up without correction typos and adding essential phone numbers

Privacy settings

Handy before you've got permission from somebody to display a post about them.
This site  tells you what to do.
https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/42673?hl=en
Look for BLOG READERS section
Go to Settings tab -
click on edit -readers: click on e.g.
any (i.e. all),  or
blog authors or
Blog readers
click on +
add specific people to include (e.g. members of your family, those you wrote about when you are asking their permission or for them to proofread spellings of the family name, their business name)

Glossary
http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/web/jargon/