Valentine's Day Feb 14, or July 6 or July 30th

Hand heart. Carmen Fiano - https://www.flickr.com/photos/53812099@N04/14763863277/

The hand heart was made popular by Korean pop groups, and was a sign of friendship made when the north and south Korean leaders met and were photographed together on a mountaintop. It costs nothing, creates no litter, and is a good international sign because it is universal so you don't need to speak another language.

Singapore Valentines - Be Prepared

SPRINGTIME

Februa is Latin for to cleanse, or to clean. Spring cleaning.

In the old calendar mid February was when some birds started courting matching, nesting and mating and work started in the vineyards.

In ancient times in Israel girls would wear white dresses and dance in the vineyard where boys would be waiting to propose marriage.

But marketing has amazing success. If you can create greetings cards, fill restaurants, sell jewellery and gifts and cookie cutters and cups with messages about Valentine's Day or hearts, you will sell them to children and adults, the young and the old, the single and married, anybody who wants to part with money for a message or a product with red and hearts.

ITALY, ROME & VALENTINE - La Festa di San Valentino

In Italy you wish Somebody Buon San Valentino.

More than one Christian called Valentine, a popular name was martyred, and various churches claim to have bits of the saints bodies. 

February14 is the day associated with Valentine's Day by Roman Catholics. the Eastern Orthodox celebrate In July 6th or 30th.

At the Central London Wine Society on Feb 11th Three Valentine's Day wines come to the UK from Europe, notably from France, Italy and Spain. Let's start with Italy.

ITALY

In Italy keys are given, representing the key to my heart, unlocking.

February is is named after the Roman God Februas and was the spring cleaning month.

ITALIAN FOOD

The Italian for biscuit is biscotti.

FRANCE

In France you might celebrate Valentine's Day with dinner, or a dinner on a boat on the Seine in Paris, or a helicopter ride. Your celebratory wine would be Champagne, from the Champagne region.  

Macaroons.

SPAIN, Tapas and Turron

Feliz San Valentín - Happy Valentine's Day. Feliz dia de San Valentin.

In Mexico they say, Happy Valentine's and friendship day.

Delicious Drink

The Spanish white wine equivalent of sparkling Champagne but cheaper is Cava, originally from cellars or stores in caves.

Favourite Food

Turron - Sweet

A Spanish gift might be turron, which is nougat, made from almonds, honey and egg white. A modern version is chocolate covered.

Tapas - Savoury

The Spanish food served in bars with wine is tapas. Originally supposedly tiny pieces of bread or sliced meat put on the top of glasses to keep off the flies. Or to keep off sand blown from the beach, says another story. The translation offered is lid or cover. To make an alliterative reminder, I think of the word top.

We ordered tapas in a bar in summer 2025 in Bilbao, the ferry port on the northern coast on the east (Santander is on the west). We thought it was expensive and would be the bite or two size of cocktail party canapes, but it was a large portion, as filling as a hamburger. Maybe pintchos (pintxos, which is plural, from pinchar to stab) not a pinch but sometimes skewered horizontally or toothpicked vertically to hold it all together.

You can also get dessert tapas.

UK

Chaucer, an early influencer, wrote a poem about Valentine's Day to celebrate the anniversary of the engagement of the 15 year old King of England.

In the UK Cadbury's introduced heart shapes boxes of chocolates. 

Nowadays the innovation is that the chocolates themselves are heart shaped.

|Valentine's Day is big business in the UK, the USA and Singapore which has four languages mainly English, also Chinese, meaning Mandarin. 

IRELAND

|Dublin in Ireland has a church with a relic and those without any love can pray to find love.

WALES

The Welsh celebrate on January 25th, recalling the tragic story of Welsh princess

You can make a heart sign with your thumbs and first fingers.

Happy VALENTINES DAY

Italy

Shakespeare's Ophelia mentions St Valentine's day in the play Hamlet.

AMERICA

American Valentines In Schools For Schoolchildren
When I went to live in America our son came home from school with a birthday card for Mummy, and he wanted to make a card for his teacher, which he said all the schoolchildren were doing. I was surprised, because in those days in the UK Valentine's Day cards were only for the unmarried and courting. 

Search online and you can find recordings of Valentine's day songs for the age of toddlers upwards. In America children give friendship cards to teachers. Finland also has friendship days.

ASIA

Valentine's Day month. I recall being in Singapore for the month of February and visiting several Toastmasters International Speakers' clubs. At the first Valentines theme club meeting I attended,  the table topics master asked, What would you do on Valentine's Day? What is the best restaurant for Valentine's Day? Where would you go, what was the best gift, and so on. She/he - I forget which - was looking for ideas.

In Malaysia Nowadays The Muslim movement has opposed valentines day, because it is western and encourages sex outside marriage, fornication, adultery and immorality. To counter this view, Valentines Day is  being promoted as a time for married couples to celebrate with date nights, buying expensive champagne, boxes of chocolates, and flowers. Plus of course clothes with hearts, and large cards.

In Japan women workers give chocolates to their co- workers, and a month later the men reciprocate by giving chocolates to women.

INDIA

The Hindus are against pubic displays of human affection. Instead, they tried to introduce hug a cow day. This strikes me and struck many others as an against the animal rights of the cow to refuse, besides being impractical and sometimes downright dangerous activity. Cows are too large to hug and do not necessarily reciprocate nor cooperate.

Useful Websites

February 

https://www.almanac.com/how-did-months-get-their-names

Valentine's Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day

A neat summary about Valentine's Day

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z6wjrmn#z6jqcxs

ITALY

https://mominitaly.com/happy-valentines-day-in-italian/

To make your own heart shaped biscuits, heart shaped cookie cutters (biscuit cutters we would say in the UK

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/4433235888/heart-set-cookie-cutters?

SPAIN

https://www.tasteatlas.com/tapas-vs-pintxos-vs-cicchetti#modal

Spanish turron

https://www.bascofinefoods.com/1880-chocolate-and-dulce-leche-turron/

Why And How To Learn A Romance Language

Lovely Latin

What us is Latin? I was disappointed at being in a Lati class at my girls' grammar school. I wanted to learn Spanish, a living language. However Latin has proved useful. In addiion to reading Roman inscriptions in museums ad Roman ruins around the world. Latin is the basis of te romance languages. Romance, from Rome. 

Latin is a simple language. Like Italian. Amo, amas, amat. I love, you love, he, she or it loves. You don't need to add the Italian for I, just add the letter o on the end of the verb.

I learned Latin at school. Ager means field and hortus means garden. So agriculture is to do with farmers and farming and fields, whislt hortidculture is to do with gardening. What use are the romance languages. 

Plant names are mostly Latin. When I discovered that prunus meant plum, 

How long will it take you? 

Let's suppose you are going on holiday to Italy next year, and want to devote an hour a day to learning Italian. An hour a day for 365 days brings you to the elementary level. What is you need five years to become fluent! that's discouraging. 

However, look at it another way. Fistly, it took you five years before you started school and could talke basic English or your first language.

Look at it yet another way. Do you plan to live to 70 or more years old. If you are under fifty years old, you could devote five years to each of three languages. By the time you retire, you can tell everyone you know, including your grandchildren, that you speak four languages.\\

The Italian Flag

Italian

The Italian flag is known as the tricolore, meaning three colours. In a restaurant (ristorante) your starter might consist of red tomatoes, white feta cheese and an item of grren salad (insalta) .

Useful Websites

I have several posts on learning the Italian language.

Duolingo

wikivoyage phrasebook Italian

Google translate

https://languatalk.com/blog/italian/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-italian-fluently/

Travel To Keep Up Your Languages - and teach children and grandchildren

  I have been reading a book called Raising a bilingual child. You can tell it is American because it says raising. In Britain I would have said Brigning up a bilingual Child, which is alliterative.

Interestingly it give you a chart you can fill in. This seems to be the modern way. You can make a chart of anything, from your waking times and bedtimes, to the number of times you greet strangers, or watch TV.

You list the languages of the parents, the grandparents, schools, surroundings, books, TV and films (movies). Then the holidays you can take to the desired language country. Or the holidays the grandparents can take visiting you.

Children aged 0 to 5 and 10-15 have different interests. Starting with Lullabies.

Then move on to children's TV programmes such as Sesame Street which you can watch in Spanish and other languages. 

Later you can have books or movies in other languages. Or use other languages at mealtimes.

You can set up a system, such as speak the local language touside the home. Speak another language to parents, a third language to grandparents. 

If parents are from different backgrounds , you could speak English to father, and French to mother. Or English at breakfast but French at dinner.

My mother wanted me to go to the Lycee Francaise in London but I was not eligible because children with one French parent, took priority.

I learned French at grammar school, for O level and A level. My mother sent me to a French course in France. I took a holiday with a group of French students in Greece. 

In Singapore I have attended meetings of a French speaking Toastmasters club.

At Grammar School my other language was Latin. I wanted to learn another living language, such as German or Spanish, but the school timetable did not allow for it. 

My parents went to Italian classes later in life.

Now I am in Singapore, struggling with Chinese. Spanish seems easy. On the train stations I can hear anouncements in English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay (similar to Indonesian) and Tamil (soutern India and Sri Lanka).

In China and Japan the same sign symbols are used.

Language Group countries

Arabic: Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, Saudia Arabia, Tunisia, UAE (Dubai)

Chinese Mandarin: China, Singapore, Taiwan

Chinese dialect: Cantonese in Hong Kong, restaurants in UK

English: Australia, Canada, Cyprus, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, S Africa, UK, USA

Esperanto: Hungary, UK (Reading)

French: Canada, France; Switzerland

German: Austria, Germany, Switzerland

Greece: Greece, Cyprus

Hebrew: Israel, Kosher and Israeli restaurants and delicatessens, synagogues and Jewish Museums 

Hungarian Hungary.

Indonesian: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (Malaysian) 

Italian: Italy, Switzerland

Latin: Roman remains in Rome and Italy and UK; some traditional Catholic churches; Vatican

Malay: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore

Portugal; Brazil, Macau, Madeira, Portugal

Spanish: Brazil, Chile, Mexico,  Peru, Spain, Tenerife, Venezuela, USA 

Turkey: Turkey, Cyprus

Urdu: Pakistan

Welsh: Wales, trains and stations between Paddington, London, England, and Wales

Useful Resources

Websites

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

Books

Raising a Bilingual Child by Barbara Zurer Pearlson Ph D. Living Language, a Random House Company, New York.

Language & Literacy in Bilingual Children

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a British author who has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. Her 20 books include Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations.

She has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. She is a travel writer and photographer.

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

Angela Lansbury is also a speaker. Member of many toastmasters -  speaker training clubs - and a speaking contest judge.

She is VP PR for Braddell Heights Advanced toastmasters club which meets online the first Wednesday evening of the month at 7 pm Singapore time; then the third Saturday afternoon at 2 pm Singapore time. Please come along. Open to Toastmasters and guests. In April and possibly longer BHA will be on bha/learncool.sg

Next meetings are Saturday April 17th, Wed May 5th, Sat May 15th, Wed June 2nd and Sat June 19th.

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

The challenges of Greek, Hebrew, Russian and Cyrillic

 

 As far as I'm concerned the Romans did one good thing for us. They gave us the Latin alphabet. I have been struggling today with a message in Russian on Facebook. 

I went onto Wikipedia thinking it's time I put up the Greek, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets where I can see them easily. For example, on a pin board or wall behind my computer screen.

Greek

Is Greek 'all Greek' to you? Until you have learned every letter of the alphabet you can only read a few simple words, which use about 5 common letters.   For example, I recognized Athens on a road sign and Exit in the aeroplane. 

My attempts at learning go back so far it is embarrassing to recognize and admit how long it has taken me - without finishing!  I started seeing the Greek alphabet in school, in mathematics. In my late teens as a student I first went to Greece. I took more holidays in Greece as an adult.

Much later, I was in Singapore and as Area Director of toastmasters International speakers' training clubs, I had to visit at least twice in six months a Toastmasters group called Toastmasters in Christ. I was astonished to find the well educated leader giving an analysis of bible texts, explaining the meaning of Hebrew words. at a Christian Toastmasters speakers training clubs. Oddly, Christians who train to be priests learn Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old Testament. 

From Greek To Hebrew

Why do I need Hebrew nowadays when I am not in nor visiting Israel? Looking at packaging of chocolates and wines in supermarkets. For myself, or when buying gifts. Also in prayer books at funerals.

When would I need Cyrillic? On holiday in Bulgaria.

It is almost all Russian. What about Russian?

Today I had a post on my Facebook page? What did it say?

I need to translate.

Useful Websites

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

About the Author

Angela Lansbury teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Your mother tongue and the word mother in many languages

On the Facebook Polyglots page somebody asked why the mother language is called the mother language and not the father language.

In fact it is often called the native language.

We also refer to motherland in some languages and fatherland in other languages.

I started thinking about the word mother and wrote this piece of speculation.

Because a breastfeeding baby's first attempt to get food is to suck and demand food and attention by saying m m which is mother in many languages such as 

1 Ma (Chinese) 

Mum

妈妈

or

妈妈


Māmā

Māmā

2 Ima (Hebrew) 
(The middle letter in the Hebrew lettering is M. The vowels are not shown but would be written in handwriting under or over the placeholder letter.)

אמא

3 Mama (Italian) 
Also mama in Maori
Also mama in Serbian
Also mama in Solvenian
Also mam in Swahili

Spanish

Mamá
If you go to google translate and click on the sound symbol you will hear that the accent is on the second syllable.



4 Mum / Mummy (UK) 

5 Mom (USA), 

6 mater in Latin and 

7 mutter in German 

8 Mamma in Dutch
mamma in Norwegian

9 Mom in Filipino

10 Scottish Gaelic Mam

and so on.

If there is any question you want to ask about languages, you can ask on the Facebook polyglot page.

To translate individual words or sections, use Google translate.
You can also read Wikiedia in another language. 

Or try a tourist board page. Many of them have tiny flags to cick on which turn the page into another language.

To learn a language, try Duolingo.
Or Memrise.

Useful Websites

Facebook polyglots
https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/
translate google

About the Author
I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a trave writer and phtographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.

Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a langauge evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.

I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other wednesdays are workshops on app learncool.sg
Or quicker, tinyurl.com/BHACOOL
In Singapore we are on the same time zone as Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China (Beijing and Shanghai).

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Argentina and More Latin Words And Numbers And A Mistake I Made

I was telling a member of my family that the country name Argentina comes from the Latin for silver. They pointed out that the place name Costa Dorada comes from the Latin for gold, which is aurum. The Au is then written in many languages as O.

D comes from de meaning of.

Easy to see the origin of the word gold in several languages, Spanish, French, Catalan, Romanian, Albanian, Malay.

Chocolates called d'or mean of gold.

Costa Duarada
Spanish gold coast, comes from the Latin aurum.

Easier to remember than words are the numbers.

Numbers
Look at the Latin inscriptions on Roman ruins and learn the numbers so you can read the birth  and death dates, or ages, of the deceased. Check the date of the inscription.

Even a modern building often has the date written in Roman numerals. That is handy. It saves muddling dates with house numbers which are written in Arabic numerals.

Once I looked at a house in the USA. I said to the family, "That house was built in 1804."
My family replied, "And the next one was built in 1806, the one after that in 1808."

Wiki answers everything, sometimes in too much detail.

Cardinal numerals[edit]

The cardinal numerals are the ordinary numbers used for counting ordinary nouns ('one', 'two', 'three' and so on):

1	I	ūnus, ūna, ūnum	11	XI	ūndecim	21	XXI	vīgintī et ūnus	101	CI	centum et ūnus
2	II	duo, duae, duo	12	XII	duodecim	22	XXII	vīgintī et duo	200	CC	ducentī, ducentae, ducenta
3	III	trēs, tria	13	XIII	trēdecim	30	XXX	trīgintā	300	CCC	trecentī, trecentae, trecenta
4	IV	quattuor	14	XIV	quattuordecim	40	XL	quadrāgintā	400	CD	quadringentī, quadringentae, quadringenta
5	V	quīnque	15	XV	quīndecim	50	L	quīnquāgintā	500	D	quīngentī, quīngentae, quīngenta
6	VI	sex	16	XVI	sēdecim	60	LX	sexāgintā	600	DC	sescentī, sescentae, sescenta
7	VII	septem	17	XVII	septendecim	70	LXX	septuāgintā	700	DCC	septingentī, septingentae, septingenta
8	VIII	octō	18	XVIII	duodēvīgintī	80	LXXX	octōgintā	800	DCCC	octingentī, octingentae, octingenta
9	IX	novem	19	XIX	ūndēvīgintī	90	XC	nōnāgintā	900	CM	nōngentī, nōngentae, nōngenta
10	X	decem	20	XX	vīgintī	100	C	centum	1000	M	mīlle

I often refer to simple wiki.

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/latin-word-for

About The Author
Angela Lansbury B A Hons
I am a teacher of English and other languages. I teach business English, bilingual meet and greet, telephone courtesy, and more to colleges and businesses.
See my posts on other languages and share links to your favourite posts.

Handy Latin words for travellers

When I was a teenager in school I used to muddle up the words agriculture and horticulture and aquaduct and viaduct. As soon as I learned the Latin roots of the word, I knew immediately what they meant. I could then work out that a marking on a map or a signpost on a route through France and the Alps and Italy was a Roman aquaduct was not likely to be a road.

Roman Numbers



The Roman numbers are the third row down. You can imagine how for years people just wrote a slash down for one, another for three. Then somebody carelessly wrote the two slashes converging like a a V and decided to use that for five. Next was the idea to put one on the left of five for subtracting one for four. Then an x for ten. Then a one on the left to subtract one for nine.

Interestingly, the Chinese numbers one, two and three are like the Roman numerals turned sideways. The Roman ten is an X and the Chinese ten is like a plus sign.

LATIN WORDS - English (derivatives)
ager - field (as in agriculture)
aqua - water -as in aqueduct, aquarium
arbor - tree
argentum - silver (Argentina)
casa - small house, casino
centum - hundred - cent, centenary, centurion (Roman army leader in charge of 100 soldiers)
circus - circle (as in Oxford Circus in London, England)
color- colour (as in Colorado)
equus - horse (name of a play; equestrian statue - statue of man on horseback)
domus - house (domestic, domicile)
fortis - strong (fortification)
France - from the Latin francia
glacies - ice (glacier)
gradus - step (gradient, centigrade meaning a hundred steps)
homo - man (homicide - killing a man,
hortus - garden (as in horticulture)
januar - door (January, janitor)
mare -sea (submarine goes under water)
mater - mother (see signs to the maternity ward in the hospital)
miles - soldier (military or militia)
mille -a thousand (Millennium - a thousand years; millionaire has a thousand pounds, mille feuille flaky pastry with a thousand leaves)
monte - mountain
Montenegro - black mountain
mortuus - dead (immortal, mortuary)
negro - black
pater - father
porta - gate (porthole)
prunus - plum
via - way or street (as in viaduct)
villa - house (as in village)

English words - LATIN
field - ager
garden - hortus
plum - prunus
street - via
water - aqua

Notes On Grammar
us is the singular; i is the plural.
I am an alumnus. We are alumni (graduates or former pupils)

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
http://www.enhancemyvocabulary.com/word-roots_latin.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_words_with_English_derivatives

About the author
Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages and home tutor.

What use is Latin to the traveller? Languages worldwide and Roman sites in Europe and the Middle East

Duolingo has just started a Latin course. I learned Latin at school. I was always sorry I had to learn Latin instead of Spanish or German. However, Latin sometimes has its uses.


Latin Words in English
For example, for a start, English words. When I was a teenager I could not distinguish the words agriculture and horticulture. Then my Latin class teacher told us that ager was field and hortus was garden. I could instantly remember that agriculture was done by farmers as mentioned in the newspaper. The word horticulture was the interest of my local gardening club mentioned in their newsletter.



Flag of France

You can also recognise similar words in French.

You find Latin roots in Spanish.


More Latin pops up in Italian.

Latin and Italian
In school I learned amo, amas, amat, meaning I love, you love, he, she or it loves. The I comes from the ending in amo. So when I started learning Italian where the personal pronoun is often unnecessary because the ending tells you who is speaking, the idea was already familiar to me from learning Latin.

Latin and Portuguese
Latin also helps with understanding signs in Portuguese in Portugal. We read signs very easily in Madeira.

In South America the Brazilians speak Portuguese. Spanish is spoken all over South America, in the Latin American countries.

Latin is the basis of languages in Western Europe.



Pick up a newspaper or leaflet in a European country and see the word based on ager or hortus and you know what the subject is. You can read the signs to an event or a college. You can identify a place on a map.

Dictionaries
For fun, you can write a list of Latin words in the notes page or the back or front inside cover of your dictionary. Each time you look up a word, if you see the origin is Latin, write it in the Latin list.

Duolingo is the free language learning website which you can access on a computer, laptop or mobile phone.
You can also read Wikipedia in Latin. You can look up Latin words in the Latin Wiktionary.

Plants
Latin is used in plant names. Prunus for plum, from which we get prunes, our English word for dried plums.

Latin words are sometimes variants derived from Greek.

Latin terms are used in law.

Some dictionaries have a list of Latin words at the back. In a large library go to the reference section and look for the large dictionaries.

When buying a dictionary you might check that it has origins of words (etymology), and a list of Latin words at the back.

Books in Latin
Wiki has a long list of Latin children's and adults books, including Winnie the Pooh, the Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, books by Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.

Latin title	Original title	Original author	Translator	Publisher	Date
Vestes Novae Imperatoris	The Emperor's New Clothes, (Danish original: Kejserens Nye Klæder)	Andersen, Hans Christian	Landis, Ferderick	American Classical League	1969
Amor est sensus quidam peculiaris	Love is a Special Way of Feeling[2]	Anglund, Joan Walsh	Lyne, G. M.	London: Collins	1969
Superbia et Odium	Pride and Prejudice	Austen, Jane	Cotton, Thomas	Ephemeris.Alcuinus
Magus Mirabilis in Oz	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz	Baum, L. Frank	Hinke, C. J. and Van Buren, George	Berkeley, CA: Scholar Press	1987
Nuticulus Satyrique	Noddy and the Goblins	Blyton, Enid	Brice, Elizabeth	Penguin Books	1993
Ursus Nomine Paddington	A Bear Called Paddington

And several more.

Latin In Church
On Amazon you can find Latin prayers, which used to be the norm in Roman Catholic churches worldwide.

Last but not least, you can read years and names on Roman monuments on ruins and in museums. I have visited Roman ruins in:

Italy - The Colosseum

The UK - England
Hadrian's Wall, border or England and Scotland.
Take an organized holiday or DIY walk of 3 days or more, bus in summer connecting the chief museums of Vindolanda and Chesters or drive there. Stay in the nearby city of Carlisle.


Wales - museum in Caerleon, just across the border, a short drive



Israel


Jordan


Useful Websites
duolingo.com
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Latin



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


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

https://www.etymonline.com/word/-logy

UK
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrian%27s_Wall_Path

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English, French and other languages, translator of packaging in English, French, German, Spanish and Portuguese.
See next post on Latin. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Where Can You Practise Your Languages?

English
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, UK (British English), USA (American English). English pubs worldwide. A form of English spoken in Singapore is Singlish. Several English-speaking islands.

Arabic
Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia. Mosques.

Bulgarian
Bulgaria. Cyrillic alphabet, invented by Christian Bulgarian brothers, used in Russia. Read up in Wikipedia the history of Cyrillic and where you can see the statues to the brothers in different countries.


Chinese
Cantonese in Hong Kong. Mandarin in China and Singapore. Chinese restaurants in Chinatown London, England and other Chinese restaurants and Chinatowns worldwide. The classical sign language is the same as classical Japanese.

Chineasy in Wikpedia and on YouTube and look to buy on Amazon and Ebay.

Esperanto
Easy artificial language - go to conferences, take course in England (Stoke, England, UK), go to Meetups (Reading, Berks, UK) or stay with fellow speakers at homestays worldwide.


French
Belgium, Canada (different accent), France (pure French in Paris).

German
Austria, Germany, Switzerland.

Greek
Greece mainland and islands. Cyprus.


Hebrew
Israel. Jewish Museums. Holocaust memorials inscriptions. Cemetery tombstones. Synagogues.

Indonesian
Indonesia. Language almost identical to Malay. Hear announcements on Singapore train stations.


Italian
Italy. Italian restaurants.

Japanese
Japan. Japanese restaurants. The sign language is the same as Chinese.

Korean
Korea.

Latin
Archaeological sites. Roman museums, eg St Albans in England, Caerleon in Wales, Hadrian's Wall in the UK, also Italy (Rome, Pompei), Israel, Jordan and the Middle East. Latin has been dropped from some Catholic church services but you might still find it used.

Malay
Malaysia. Language almost identical to Indonesian. Hear announcements on Singapore train stations (MRT is an English acronym and means mass transit).

Polish
Poland. UK - many cafes, restaurants and mini-supermarkets in London, England, some with Polish language newspapers, free or paid for versions.

Portuguese
Brazil. Madeira. Portugal. (All have different accents.) Macau - just a little, placenames etc.

Russian
Russia. Cyrillic alphabet in Bulgaria.

Spanish
Mexico. South America. Spain. (Also see Spanish signs in the USA.)

Welsh
Wales. On trains from Paddington, London to Wales, and railway station signs and road signs in Wales, also tourist information plaques.

Toastmasters International
The USA has Toastmasters clubs which speak English, or Spanish or both. Canada has English speaking and French speaking clubs. China has English speaking clubs. Singapore has clubs speaking English, English and Mandarin, French, Tamil.
London has clubs speaking English, bilingual meetings in English and French, Polish, the Spanish and German clubs seen to come and go.
Toastmasters materials are published in English, and several other languages including French.

Meetupas
Also see Meetup groups for different languages, eg in Singapore I have seen English, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese and European languages.

Useful websites
Wikipedia has articles on all languages, where they are spoken, and their alphabets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mexico

Duolingo

Free internet lessons including English for speakers of other languages; English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish and more and others in beta (tryout form) being added.

Polyglots
If you speak or wish to speak several languages, see videos on YouTube or look at or join polyglot groups on Facebook.

Language Swaps
You can join a Facebook group called Language Exchange. Also try the forums in Duolingo for translation queries.

Travel information
Useful websites
You will see the national flag on the page of any country in Wikipedia. Also check Wikivoyage and Wikitravel.
wikitravel.org
wikivoyage.org

Travel Information
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com

Useful Information and Websites
Travel and Tourism
visitlondon.com
visitbritain.com
visitbritain.org
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.co.uk

Transport
virginatlantic.com (airline UK to USA and USA to UK and Europe and world)
skyscanner.net (flight date and price comparisons and offers)
citimapper.com
tfl.gov.uk (transport for London)
rome2rio.com (directions)

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