How to Learn Languages Quickly And Easily - lessons from bilingual Americans and multilingual schools

 There are four ways we learn languages.

Hearing Wrods, Rhymes & Songs 

We hear them and recognize sounds and groups with order (grammar). Children hear nursery rhymes and speech.  Adults hear songs and films and conversation. 

Motivation

The motivation could be to speak a language on holiday, to impress people socially, communicate with or understand your family, your boss, your customer. 

Multi-lingual learners of languages are motivated. They go to live in a country and listen to the radio, read newspapers to practise, engage in conversation. They devote a certain number of hours each day. 

Chinese Speech Contest Winners Secrets\

The Chinese winner of the International Speech Contest had been detemined to win. The contest was held in English. She spoke Chinese. She first had to learn English. 

What was her secret? She told us at a club meeting.

TV Programmes Help

She learned English by watching the Americn TV series, Friends for three hous every morning. It took her two years. 

Toastmasters International Clubs Help

In addition, she went to English speaking clubs. She went to Toastmasters International speakers' club meetings to listen to English and practise speaking. Toastmasters International meetings have a language evaluator who teaches the word of the day and gives a report on the good usese of language and suggests improvements. 

The groups welcome guests. Many meetings are online. New clubs are keen to have listeners and potential members. Some people join for networking, so the more the merrier.

Toastmasters has clubs which speak Chinese (Mandarin), Spanish, French and other languages and has manuals in several languages.

Searching For Patterns

Your brain recognizes patterns. If you hear something twice, that could be coincidence. Hear someting three times and the brain starts to record a pattern.

Learning Names By Repeating

Americans learn names by asking your name and repeating it three times. So when I meet an American who knows this system the conversation could go like this. 

His, my name is Kaylie. What is your name? Angela Lansbury - like the actress Angela Lansbury in Murder she wrote. Are you related to the other Angela Lansbury? Do other people ask you if you are related to the actress Angela Lansbury? Are their other people called Angela Lansbury on LinkedIn and Facebook? Will I find you on social media under the name Angela Lansbury?

Useful Websites

https://www.toastmasters.org/magazine/magazine-issues/2023/may/bilingual-clubs-cross-borders#:~:text=In%20other%20cases%2C%20bilingual%20clubs,%2C%20Tamil%2C%20and%20Traditional%20Chinese.

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How to learn languages visually - demo of greeting in Chinese

Problem
I just spent half an hour writing about the greeting in chinese, yet when I come to say it, I cannot remember the first word. I thought I was an aural learner and responded best to sounds and words, text. However, I have decided that pictures work best for me.Let me given you the example.

I want to remember the Chinese (Mandarin) greeting which translates as have you eaten already:
Ser pau la ma.

I shall now remember if visually with three pictures:

SIR! (The bowing man is saying, 'Sir!')

Remember any picture which reminds you of the word sir.

POW!

Remember any picture which reminds you of an explosion.

LA-MA

Choose a picture of a lama.

When you want to say the greeting, think of the first picture and the next ones should pop up.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, after dinner speaker and teacher of  English and other languages to individuals and businesses.

5 techniques to speak any language | Sid Efromovich | TEDxUpperEastSide

Practical advice. I just love his enthusiasm. If you gain nothing else from listening to him, you gain the optimism that it's possible to learn another language.

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I teach English and other languages.

Learning languages - for the student, widowed, divorced, unemployed, bored, introvert or extravert

Problem
How much time can one spend learning languages? How much progress can one make? Can you do it free or cheaply?

Living In Europe Makes Learning Easy
I remember hearing that my sister-in-law's father spoke eight languages. He died and now he's the legend and the first thing I think of him is that he spoke eight languages. He was born in a country surrounded by others who did not speak his language. Every year, even every weekend, he could take a trip to another country and practice a language.

French For All
The French word for thank you is merci, and that also works in Romania and Bulgaria.


Living In England - it's easy
Wait a minute - did he have an advantage which you and I don't have? If you live in England, you can drive or hitchhike up to Scotland and learn Gaelic and Scottish or west to Wales. Or cross the channel to Belgium where they speak French and Dutch. If you did that every year, you and your children or widowed grandparent could pick up a few words of another language easily.

But you don't have to travel. London is full of foreigners. You could teach English to somebody else in exchange for them learning your language.

Look on any bus, not just in summer. You are surrounded by people who speak other languages. Lots of them would love a free English lesson from you, in exchange for teaching you a few words. In London, you have cultural centres for the French, German and Polish speaking groups. Toastmasters International has clubs which are bilingual in French and English, or are for those who speak or want to learn Polish.

USA
If you live in the USA you could cross to Canada and pick up or brush up your French, or go to Mexico and learn Spanish, or just spend a weekend reading Spanish signs from bilingual notices and learning Spanish. The USA has an online Spanish-English club. Look at their website for bilingual announcements.

Religions - Spanish, Hebrew or Arabic
If you are a church-goer, you could attend services aimed at or attended by speakers of Spanish or Portuguese.

Are you Jewish or would you like to learn Hebrew? Pop along to a synagogue or if you think there might be a security problem, phone them up and ask if they run Hebrew classes. Look in a Jewish museum or Holocaust museum or online for books on learning Hebrew. Go to an Israeli restaurant. Look for a bagel shop. A kosher shop. Read the labels on the kosher goods in your local supermarket.  You'll soon pick up the reversed c, the SH, and the reversed r for kosher. That's three letters of the Hebrew alphabet already, without any time or much effort.

Is Arabic something you would like to master? Try a local mosque, or the attached cultural centre or bookshop. Go to a halal restaurant.

Asia
It all looks a mystery doesn't it, Tamil, Korean, Vietnamese, hopeless! If you have nothing else to do, take a language class. Instead of doing flower arranging, or calligraphy, take a language class. Or if you would really prefer to do flower arranging and calligraphy, in the break ask the teacher or a fellow pupil to teach you a few words and write them down in a dedicated notebook so you can read them on the way home.  Tell the family, or your colleagues, ostensibly only to enlighten them, but actually in addition to reinforce your own memory.

Singapore
In Singapore, at first, it seems hard. You have Chinese which is impossible to understand or read, the same goes for Tamil. If you learn Chinese, then you find yourself have lunch in little India where Chinese is of no use. Tamil is not used in most of Singapore amongst the Chinese speaking people.

But if you lived in civilised Singapore, you hear the Chinese, Malay and Tamil announcements on the train system (MRT) every day. Malay (which is the same as Indonesian) is the easiest.

Join Meetups (free for you, the organizers of meetings pay to be listed). In Singapore in July 2018 I was notified of Meetups for English, French, German and polyglot (multilingual) social gatherings in coffee shops, bars and hawker centres (food courts).

Toastmasters International has meetings in all-French or all-Mandarin or all-Tamil and a small number of bilingual clubs. An Italian-Chinese club has been proposed by an Italian-Chinese couple.

Chinese and Community Clubs
You could join a Chinese class at a Community Club to meet local people. Alternatively, go to the YMCA, to meet more expats and those friendly to expats.

Mosques and Arabic
Again, there are the mosques for Arabic.  Many halal restaurants and food packing.

Synagogues and Hebrew
Singapore has synagogues and the synagogue shop for Hebrew or kosher food. Security is tight in the beautiful Orthodox religious buildings, so check in advance, be prepared to send details of your identity, and be prepared to show your identity documents to security on arrival. All over Asia, you will find outreach orthodox groups who have Sabbath meals.

All over Asia and the world, you will find little groups of Liberal Jews, mainly Americans, sometimes with a visiting rabbi for festivals, meeting in homes.

Polyglots
If I were to spend just five minutes a day, I could pick one the three other working languages of Singapore, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil. Fifteen minutes a day, and I could pick up all three. Three hundred words a year would be a great start. After two, three, or four years, I could have a go at all the languages. by the end of ten years I would be fluent in all three. When I die, my family and friends will be in awe of me as a person who spoke four languages. (As I speak French already, that would be five.)

How To Make Time
So what can you do? Are you really so short of time? Do you have any other plans? Do you know anybody who is bored or depressed or could start on this programme, with you, or on their own?

Busy, working people, may have time at airports or on public transport. Students, the widowed, the divorced, the bored, the lonely, could find a new interest and join a club and feel proud and confident at learning a new skill.

Saving Money and Earning Money
In Europe you can take a one-week or one-month intensive course in learning a language or training to be a teacher of ESL (English as a second language).

If you don't want to spend the time and money, with a little determination, you could do the same at home. If you have a week to spare, or a year to spare, and you are a student, unemployed, or retired, you could spend a six-hour day starting a language.

You could spend 12 hours over a two-day weekend. You could spend 18 hours over a three day weekend of Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

You could spend 24 hours over a four-day long weekend. You could spend 30 hours allowing three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, to teach yourself with a free online course.

Job-hunting
Maybe you need to get a job. You have studied long enough. If you are between jobs, job-hunting, allow one-hour first thing in the morning to send out applications. Or spend the morning on your job applications. Postpone until the afternoon or evening time for the languages. Then start learning.

Or run off a CV (resumé) to drop into local businesses. Use the fact that you are learning a language to get into conversation with the receptionist or shop or business owner. Then spend the rest of the day learning your language. If you get an interview you have a topic of conversation which makes you different from the rest and shows you are keen to learn new skills.

It takes your mind off worrying. You make use of your time. You have something to say at a job interview.

If you don't get a job that week, at least you have done something with your time. By the end of the year you will be able to look for jobs using somebody who speaks the language.

Parents and Grandparents
What if you are not working, stuck at home with children? As parents or grandparents, you could teach your children or grandchildren, or help them with their homework, listen to them reciting numbers, singing nursery rhymes, or watching language programmes.

House-sitters, Babysitters and Dog-walkers
As a babysitter, you can sing a lullaby to a baby in their own or a foreign language, entertain a toddler, keep them in one place out of trouble learning languages.

If you are walking a dog, the dog won't mind if you practise your languages. Or you can listen to a language tape, whilst still watching the dog whilst it runs around with other dogs in the devoted doggie corner of a park.

Esperanto and Hungary
If you are stuck at home, ill in bed, no good at languages, you could take up Esperanto and find a penpal. Esperanto is simple compared to other languages, only 16 rules. It's a language taught in schools in Hungary.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. If you want an entertaining and inspiring talk about learning languages, for a club or college, please contact me. If you want to learn a new language, I can give private lessons in person or on Skype. Make a note of my name in case you ever need it for yourself or a friend. 

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FIRST WORD IN TAMIL Just one word a day - Tamil Amma is mother

Problem
Some days I am just too busy or tired. But I need a break every hour. A glass of water. A new word. Just one word a day. An easy word. Easy to remember.

Today I want to learn one word of Tamil.

I shall learn the word mother.

Amma.

How do I remember it? My first thought was it looks like mama. But it starts am not ma. I AM a mother. Iam mamma. I am nearly there.

But in Singapore a maid is called an amah. Ah! I already recognize the word Amah.

English - Tamil
mother - amma (I am a mother)

Tamil - English
Amma - mother

English - Tamil
mother - amma

What is the Tamil for mother? Amma

Say it three times.
The Tamil for mother is Amma.
The Tamil for mother is Amma.
The Tamil for mother is amma.

Amma is what? Mother.
Amma means what? mother.
Amm is mother in what language? Tamil.
Do you speak Tamil? I know one word. Amma for mother. I can remember that because I was born with a mother. (I am a mother.)

What if I am teaching a man?
He can learn I am a man. She is a mother - amma.
I am a man, not an amma (which means mother).

Duolingo is my favourite system for learning languages. It is the one, the website, where I started learning Spanish. In those days it was free with no ads. Too good to last. Now they have sold out and you get ads or pay to have no ads and do the advanced courses.

Memrise teaches you by giving you a box in which you can write your own memory aid which you can choose to keep private or share.

Why keep it private? If it's your family's personl details, or a rude word, or not politically correct.

Why share it? For paying it back to the system and other users who have shared with you.

Useful websites:
Duolingo - Hindi is coming soon.
Indonesian is already up.

Memrise. Has Tamil.

duolingo.com
memrise.com

last word - Tamil for mother is AMMA!

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages. Grammarian / language evaluator regularly at two toastmasters international clubs in London, England (Harrovians and HOD) and one in Singapore, Braddell Heights advanced. Also regular speech evaluator and grammarian visiting more than 50 clubs a year in Singapore. Please read my other posts on learning languages, and visiting destinations. Share your favourite posts. I am give private lessons and workshops to businesses. If you want a personal lesson, an online lesson, or an entertaining after dinner talk or one day course at a business, please contact me. annalondon8@gmail.com I am also on Facebook.

Language Learning Groups

Conversation

A lagnuage or conversation group in Singapore has tables and they put flags for native speakers of that language. The rule is you must speak in that language. Only useful if you are already fluent. No use if you are trying to learn or want advice and help.

This is useful if you want to keep up a language you already know. But I would like:

A 'learn a language table. where I can get started on a new language which I am afraid to tackle, such as Tamil, Chinese (Mandarin) or Bahasa Malay. 

We could also have go-between translators. I can translate French and would like to practise translating.

B We could also have word of the night or subject of the night, for example drinks, or fruits, perhaps with photos. Add one sentence. I like oranges. I like apples. 

We could run a programme through the year, 52 themes.

Useful Websites

https://www.facebook.com/Speak-Easy-Singapore-353908498132718/

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Welsh Signs You'll See In Wales: how to translate and learn languages whilst travelling - Toilet and Whitland

Whitland - Hendy-gwyn, Station Sign In Wales. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

This station name on the line to Fishguard is Hendy-gwyn. The station name in English is Whitland. The literal translation is Hendy - old house and gwyn - white. I looked at the name and immediately thought that the word gwyn was white. the giveaways were the little w in both words, and the vowels looked similar. I guessed that Welsh had the adjective after the noun. In English over time the e has been dropped. Although the d is in both handy and land, the old house on the land is handy.

Learning Languages
When learning a new language, to remember translations of words, apart from finding links between ideas, you have to keep repeating them. You can look at the words from the window and take a photograph with your phone so you can come back to the words and look at them again later.

Welsh Pronunciation
How do you pronounce the words? Listen to the way the Welsh speak English for a clue as to the intonation. The emphasis is on the first syllable, with the the first tone low and the second syllable or a single syllable in high tone, as if you are asking a question.

Welsh - English
gwyn - white
hendy - old house
Hendy-gwyn - Whitland

English - Welsh
Old house - hendy
white - gwyn
Whitland - Hendygwyn

Here's a useful sign:

Welsh - English
Toiledau - Toilets

English - Welsh
Toilets - toiledau

The first time I looked at the sign I thought 'toilet'. When I typed the word I noticed it was plural. I thought, is au the plural?

If so, that's easy to remember. Every time I look at the word toilets, I can recall that the Welsh plural is au, just like the English plural is made by adding s.

Plurals To Plot and Plan
When I googled Welsh plurals, up popped a forum on a Duolingo website.  I love Duolingo. I use it daily for the language I am currently learning for my next or most recent trip to another language zone. The other Welsh plurals mentioned in the forum were:
iau

One person said, never mind the rules. Don't make life complicated. Just learn the words as you come across them.

However, the other person replied, I like things complicated!

The Advantages Of Learning Languages
I noticed a girl looking at her mobile phone on the train and another on the station. I thought, maybe she is engrossed in an important conversation, texting with a family member or friend, like several others I overheard passengers telling family what time their train would be arriving and that they would be home late. When I sat beside her on the seat on the platform I could see she was playing a video game.

I thought, she could be using that time spent on video games on learning a foreign language instead. That would enhance her travels and ingratiate her with local people.

The Welsh flag, a red dragon, lower half on a green background, upper half against white. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

It could help her status and skills when looking for work. One study found that learning a new language increased your income level by an average of five percent.

Learning Tools - Handy Websites
duolingo.com - Many languages including Welsh
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/25110878/Plurals-in-Welsh

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several other posts on Learning Welsh. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Welsh Words: - how to work on learning them

Problem
I was not getting on with Welsh. I could cope with the sound and sight of German and Dutch, Italian and Spanish and Portuguese and Romanian which is like Italian. But Welsh. A foreign language.

Answer
I knew it was just a case of persisting. I wrote the words down in two columns, English first and then the Welsh.

I did the Duolingo test methodically using my notes as prompts. I did the review, using my notes as prompts. I complained to members of the family.

As I did so I started to see patterns. Here they are to help you as well as me to remember.

English - Welsh
beer - c w r w (pronounced like 'cor oo') look at it and you will see that both words start with adjacent letters b and c. Both have double letters, two times e e, two times w w which is pronounced like a vowel, so two double letters, two vowels. Last hint, both words, English and Welsh, contain the letter r.

beer - c w r w
beer - c w r w
beer - c w r w
c w r w - beer
c w r w = beer
c w r w = beer
If you see the sign in the window of a shop, cafe, supermarket, you will know the c w r w is beer.

Coffee is an easy word to learn.
Coffee - c o f f i.

The word bread in Welsh has the letters b r and a.
bread - b a r a

Cheese in Welsh contains the letters c and s.
cheese - caws

Tea is easy, Just drop the last letter, rather like the French. T e is Welsh.

I is dw (think of will you take this glass of water this woman to be your wife - I do
I is dw

Like is h o f f i
Do you like to drink coffee?
h o f f i  c o f f i (like coffee, happy to drink coffee)

y f e d is to drink (fed up with drinking what - now we are fed, let's drink
y f e d - (to) drink

water is d w r - containing the letter w followed by r. t and d are close sounds. Leave out the vowels a and e and you have
d w r - water
water - d w r

Now let's look at the lists and the words will start to seem familiar.

English - Welsh
also, as well, too - h e f y d (pronounced h e f f - id) (M memory aid is He Eats Four Young Ducks AS WELL
beer - c w r w
bread - b a r a
cheese - c a w s
coffee - c o f f i
(to) drink - y f e d
h o f f i - like to / happy to
I - d w
tea - t e
water - d w r

Welsh - English
b a r a - bread
c a w s - cheese
c o f f i - coffee
c w r w - beer
d w - I
d w r - water
h e f y d - also, as well, too
h o f f i - like to (or happy to)
t e - tea
y f e d - (to) drink

Tips
To practise your welsh go to Wales or look at a map of Wales. If you are going to Wales, learn a few words.

TOURISM & Holidays
Holidays
Upcoming holidays
Writers holiday in Fishguard, Wales (July and autumn in 2017, spring, summer and autumn in 2018)
www.writersholiday.net

Tourism
www.visitwales.com
Tickets by rail from Paddington in central London to Cardiff, the capital, just across the border in South East Wales, and if you change trains (routes depending on time of day, day of week and time of year and starting point, as far as as Fishguard in the far north west):

Travel
www.GWR.com  (Great Western railway)

Tips
Look for special deals such as a Senior Railcard

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, speaker and teacher of English and other languages. See my other posts on learning Welsh, learning other languages, holidays in Wales, writers holidays and Fishguard. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Flashcard Language Games

Problems
How do you entertain yourself, your children or others whilst waiting at airports and travelling?
How do you learn new languages?
Which languages?

Apparently the most useful languages for careers in the future will be French, German and Chinese (Mandarin).

For me, the most useful language is the one of the country I am about to visit.

French speaking countries include;
France, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland. Some French spoken in countries and islands such as Vietnam. Full lists in Wikipedia and other places.

German speaking countries:
Germany, Switzerland, Austria.

Mandarin speaking countries:
China. Also many Mandarin speakers in Hong Kong - where the language is Cantonese, Taiwan, Singapore.

Answers
According to a newspaper article Heathrow airport is providing language flashcards online and to families passing through the airport, on request.

I went on line looking for flashcards. You can create your own in several languages.

However, it seemed quicker to select an exciting set. For example:

http://www.cram.com/flashcards/italian-979044

For young children you can create a guessing game, or play snap (matching pictures). When travelling you could create a foreign language version of the old I-spy game, using cards such as objects: planes, water, suitcase; colours:.

Another way to do it is to buy books or card games in a foreign language at the destination and add your own translation in stickers on the back.

You could design cards with the words alongside printed on one side of the paper and cut down the mildly of the page with scissors or a guillotine. Or print in thin card, on both sides, if your printer and your ability to operate your nearest printer allows.

The advantage of the cards is that they can be used as a game for either one or two or more players. For example, a family of children, siblings, a class of school children on a trip, a language class as a game at the end of a lesson or reward for homework finished early.

I prefer Duolingo which takes you through a course of vocabulary and grammar. This is mainly useful for when you are alone. You could have two children or more competing to see who finishes first. Or use Duolingo as inspiration for a set of cards.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Encouragement When Discouraged Learning Languages And Music

Story
I was starting to get sad and depressed and frustrated and felt i was confused at wrong answers in the later Duolingo exercises.
I wonder whether they found feedback about this in the learners' forums and decided to encorage people to stick with the courses and enjoy the system.

Now I am seeing little cheery faces with messages such as:
Well done (after a few correct answers).

When I get two or three wrong answers I  get the encouraging message:
Even when you make mistakes you are learning.

I am thinking about making a reversible or rotating sign sayng this.

I could keep it on my desk top for any activity all day every day.

I could use the sign when teaching others.

I could place it on my electric keyboard when learning to play music.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel tier and teacher of languages.

Learning Indonesian With Babbel - compared to Duolingo

Problems
TIME TO LEARN A LANGUAGE? - HOW QUICKLY CAN I DO IT?
Today I received an email from Babbel asking me if it's possible to learn a language in three weeks - with the results of their survey if I clicked on the link giving the answer. I hesitated. I was supposed to be clearing my inbox of unwanted circular letters and starting my appointments for the day and emails to people I needed to see or contact. What did I do?

Answer
I clicked on the answer. What was it?

Story
As far as I can see you can learn Spanish with their system on fifteen hours, studying one hour a week - or fifteen hours over two days if you devoted your whole weekend. I am learning through Duolingo, five minutes a day.

WHAT'S THE COST?
I clicked on Babbel, assuming that I would have to pay to start the course, or would get only a five minutes lesson before being asked to pay. Never mind. Try the first short lesson.

At the bottom of the page I saw the words: Supported by the European Development Council. That bodes well. I now suspect that at least some of the course will be free if it has a subsidy. Is the subsidy to develop the program, or to offer it free? I shall find out.

I was not asked for an email, only to download a flash drive and say if I wanted it once or every time. I clicked on every time because constantly having to decide is a nuisance.

First, which language? They offered:
French - I already speak French fluently as my second language.
German and Italian - I am already learning those on Duolingo.
Spanish - yes, I want to learn that - but it's too similar to Spanish and will confuse me.
Indonesian - I am less likely to visit - but when in Singapore lots of signs are in Malay, which is the same, so easy to reinforce the language and a constant question in my mind as to what does that Malay word mean.

Whilst I am trying to decide I find I have automatically clicked on Indonesian!

Up comes the Babbel first lesson. The interesting thing was the comparison between Babbel and Duo lingo (no space but I had to insert the space to prevent out correct spelling from changing what I typed without asking). Babbel asked me for the translation of English greeting such as Hello and good morning. I was offered two choices of sets of words. Only two choices to look at. Mostly you can tell by the length of the phrases translated.

Duo lingo offers you three choices, with pictures, so the first pictures are items such as boy and girl.

UPDATE
After the first six words I am asked for my name and email and a password to continue. They say it's free. I find I have already registered.
Then I am told I get (only) one week free.
Does this mean that I have to race through to finish the course in one week?
Does it mean that if I spend more hours I can complete more in the week, or is there a limit so that even if I worked all day on day one (7 hours) I would achieve no more that if I spread my time, over the week, one hour a day for seven days?

Author, Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages. Author and speaker.

German Language Learning Memory Aids

Problem
How do I remember a new German word?

Answer
I look for a memory aid. My system is to look for reminders within the word I am learning, letters which match the English.

Story
Today I am doing my daily German exercise on Duolingo. I have the German words
passende Lösung.
The English is fitting solution.
I have already remembered it to copy it onto here.
This is my memory aid

passende - has a double letter. The matching letters are SS and TT, S and T follow each other in the alphabet. I had not even noticed that when I learned it. I simply looked for a double letter. passende and fitting.

L ö s u n g - solution. I see several matching letters. L O S U N g . The first three letters of the German word L ö s u n g reversed are the first three letters of the English word s o l u t i o n. The U in the middle is the same in both words. Then the sound N.

Now that you've seen how I do it, you can do the same with words you want to remember. I don't guarantee it works every time. Nor do I guarantee that you will remember the memory aid in six months time.

However, it helps to get you to answer the first time which give you a feeling of success.
You remember it long enough to repeat it three times. By typing out your memory aid, as I have done, you fix the word in your memory. I and you have now looked at L O S U N G and SOLUTION several times.

Maybe you won't remember this word. Maybe you will remember only 90 per cent of the words. Maybe you will remember only ten per cent of the words. However, that's ten per cent more than you otherwise knew.

I hope you have found this a fitting solution to the problem of learning foreign words in German and other languages.

passende Lösung.

Tips
duolingo.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author, English teacher and speaker.
Please read my other posts on language and travel on this blog, look at my other blogs, then check me out on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. Please like, follow and share my posts.
My books are on Amazon.com and Lulu.com
You can read excerpts and buy them new or second hand or make a note to ask me to bring one to show you or sell to you or others at a meeting.
Enjoy!

Learning language methods - sight, sound and doing

Problem
How do you learn best? Why do you start some language systems and soon get bored? How can you teach others?

Answers
Teachers are taught that there are three learning methods. Some people learn best by seeing. Others prefer hearing. Others like to take an action.

To teach others, and yourself, you have to use all three methods.

If you like traditional learning you will read a text book or blog on the train or plane or while waiting. 

If you like listening you will click on the sound symbol to hear a word and buy discs or systems which combine books and discs. I like Duolingo app because it is free, divided into short chunks so I can do a small amount every day, and uses both sight and sound.

When flying on Singapore Airlines and New Zealand Airlines, I watched films (movies) in English with Italian subtitles, then in Italian with English subtitles.

Angela Lansbury
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33 Indian words used in English - and memory aid sentences

Flag of India

Problem
How do you remember the Indian words in the English language. (In my case this is for a speech in English, to an international audience, or to an Indian audience. The Indians in Singapore mostly speak Tamil. But they often also speak Hindi. In an international audience Europeans often speak English, plus either French, Spanish or German, or two or or three or more European languages. Many ethnic Chinese people from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore speak Chinese (Mandarin) and dialects such as Cantonese (from Honk Kong) or Hokkien (from southern China). So I expect an international audience to be multi-lingual and open to the idea of learning about other languages and picking up vocabulary the easy way.

Answer
Having discovered a list of words I already know, my next aim is to combine them into a story so that both I and the listener can remember them.

Story
I first heard of this idea of using all the words from a language in Greece. Our Greek guide read out a speech delivered in English to the united nations, a speech which included numerous long words of Greek origin.

Here's my first story for use in a speech on the Indian languages:

A Pukka Day of Yoga In India
I started my day in India doing yoga on the verandah of my bungalow. I wore pyjamas and a cummerbund and a bandanna. My guru wore a pashmina and shook her bangles as she recited a mantra. Afterwards I served her a breakfast of kedgeree with chutney. She declined my offer of punch and a hot toddy.

We sat looking across the peaceful lake at the dinghies rowing towards the jungle but the calm was shattered by the sound of a juggernaut. We planned to go the afternoon gymkhana so I shampooed my hair.

My husband came in from work wearing khaki dungarees. He changed into jodhpurs. He brought in a newspaper which reported that thugs who had escaped with loot had been caught by a typhoon. We agreed it was karma.

In the evening we went to a Mogul restaurant near the place of the Maharajah. My husband told us he has a new job designing avatars. I signed the chit as a thank you to the pundit, my yoga teacher. We all have cushy lives and pukka jobs. We were in Nirvana.

I have tweaked this story twice to make it more logical and connected and therefore easy to remember. I changed the story so that my husband drives the juggernaut.

Tips
See lists of Indian words in Wikipedia.
If you don't need these words for teaching or learning languages or for speeches, they will make the start of a lively discussion over an Indian meal.

Author

Angela Lansbury, author, teacher of English and other languages, speaker and speech trainer.
See my books on Amazon and Lulu.com My profiles and other posts on language and travel are elsewhere on blogger
and on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and several other internet sites. Please like my posts, follow and share.

Learning Romanian, Reading, Writing and Speaking, with a little help from Duolingo

Problem
I have a trip to Romania planned. I cannot even say, yes, no, toilet, how much, or I have lost my group. Not yet. However, I have started learning. Just one lesson a day.

Answer
The wonderful Duolingo website which enables you to learn language basics for free now has 27 languages ready or soon to be ready for English speakers:

Czech
Danish
Dutch
Esperanto

French
German
Greek
Hebrew

Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Irish

Italian
Klingon
Korean
Norwegian

Polish
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian

Spanish
Swahili
Swedish
Turkish

Ukrainian
Vietnamese
Welsh

I have started Romanian. It is a Romance language and said to be one of the easier languages to learn. It certainly starts looking easy.

English - Romanian
a - o
am - sunt
boy - baiat
girl - fata
I - eu
man - barbat
not - nu
woman - femeie

Romanian - English
barbat
eu - i
femeie
nu
o - a
un
sunt - am

I am having trouble inserting the accents. The second a in fata has a concave or cave or spoon shape above it. The nearest kind of accent I can insert is a line.

Now, how do I remember the words. My associations with the words may not be politically correct, but they achieve their purpose.
The Romanian for girl is fata. (I think of a fat girl. Fatter - a fatter girl. Fatā.)
The Romanian for woman is femeie. I think of the word female. The l is squashed to make an i. Three times letter e.
The Romanian for man is b a r b a t. Similar spelling to a Barbarian. I think of a barbarian man in a hat. Or a Viking in a barbed hat. B a r b a t .
Not and nu both begin with the letter n .


Author
Angela Lansbury, English teacher and tutor and languages teacher.

Learn Languages From Songs With Subtitles: Hebrew to English, Arabic and Aramaic

Problem
What do songs in foreign languages mean?
Can I learn words the easy, fun way from songs?

Answer
Yes, just go onto YouTube and type in the title of a song and the words 'translate into EnglishP or "subtitles in English' or 'lyrics in English', or just the language you are learning.

Story
I've been trying to learn languages from songs for years. Nursery rhymes and songs. At kindergarten (that's a German word from the German word kindergarten) and in primary school (for Americans, this means elementary school) I was taught Frere Jacques which I have remembered life long.

Now, today, I've discovered something else. I was sent a link to an Israeli song. I'm started learning Hebrew on Duolingo (I wanted to learn the alphabet, and I also started Russian and Greek). I have been to Russia, Greece and Israel a couple of times or more. However, from the Israeli song I recognised only two words, erev for evening - looks almost the same, and beseder, which I thought was enough (or in context OK?).

Urgh! I then went searching for the lyrics, and instead of finding the English in a column alongside the Hebrew, which is what you tend to get if you type in the words of a classical song such as something from an Italian opera, I found a link to another version of the song by some other singers with subtitles along the front.

Songs are excellent for learning languages. They are memorable, so you want to sing along with the chorus, then you keep repeating the tune and the words in your head. So now I am on a quest to find a song in each language I am learning, preferably one with helpful vocabulary.

The Hebrew song, when you stop to think about it, is quite humorous. I like the line about everybody giving you advice!

Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic
Incidentally, Hebrew and Arabic are similar with a base in Aramaic, which is the language which would have been spoken in the streets of Jerusalem two thousand years ago in the era of Jesus and the Romans (along with lots of other notable figures from world history). I think Aramaic is still used for weddings and funerals worldwide at Jewish events, as well as being spoken in villages by several groups today, alongside Hebrew and Arabic, by Moslems, Jews and Christians in Aramaic speaking areas. (See my previous posts on Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic words and names of people. Ben is son in Hebrew, as in Benjamin and Ben Hur, whilst Bar, another word beginning with B, is Aramaic for son, as in Barmitzvah (son of the law or good deed) and Bar Kochba.

Google translate would not translate Rak b/Yisrael but I then found the translation is on the Youtube website at the start of the song and throughout.

Words from the song
adam - man/person
b' in
Bar - son in Aramaic
ben - son in Hebrew (Benjamin - biblical name meaning son of my right hand)
chinam - advice
ha - the
kol - whole, all
Rak - only
shalom - peace in Hebrew, salaam, peace in Arabic, Jerusalem - city of peace
shel - of (as in the song Jerusalem shel b a h a v - 0ops trouble with autocorrect - Jerusalem of Gold
simcha - celebration
yam - sea
yishun - sleep
yom - day (as in Yom Kippur, the Jewish religion fasting holy day)
If you can recognise the words Adam (man), ben (son) shalom (peace), you already know three words of Hebrew and if you know salaam you know one word of Arabic. Build, build, build on your languages. Habonim - (ha-bonim) the builders - a name for a youth group.

Im is the Hebrew plural for a noun, such as cherubim - lots of cherubs, bonim - lots builders.

Uni (pronounced Uh - knee (+I in Hebrew)
rot-ze (want)
bonim (builders).

Tips
I'll repeat:
Go onto YouTube and type in the title of a song and the words 'translate into EnglishP or "subtitles in English' or 'lyrics in English', or just the language you are learning.

Here's the song which started my quest today for translations of songs with subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvabkdetO1s

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.
Also correction and translation of websites and other material such as CVs, instruction books and sales materials.
Pleas look at my other posts on this blog and my other blogs on language and spelling in blogger.com . You can see more Angela Lansbury author, poet, speaker, Toastmaster, profiles and posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, on my web pages and my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com Please like my pages, follow and share.

Wine label, Workplace and Language Flashcards - Read or Make Your Own

I am studying for level one of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) exam and I've been creating a set of slides in Keynote (apple equivalent of Powerpoint or Mosaic) about wine and wine label/menu languages in French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. I find learning from pages of vocabulary is tedious, whilst reading a wine bottle or chocolate label or clothes label is more interesting because you have a purpose and the word has an importance, telling you about quality, or safety.

The terms on wine labels make it easy to remember, but they are not quite same as the word in everyday language. It's easy to remember that vinho verde means literally green wine, but in context of wine this could mean white wine or young wine. Casa means house, but in the context of wine it could mean wine from a single vineyard, not blended wine.

I'd filled in a few Portuguese terms but needed more so I googled Portuguese wine terms. Up pops a site which has flashcards of Portuguese wine terms. The same page has links to other languages, (everything except French), Spanish, and Italian.

http://www.cram.com/flashcards/wine-portugal-glossary-of-label-terms-1889822

I then went back to the home page looking for French and German, the home page labelled Flashcards. Up pop pages of languages, everything you could think of, right the way from Afrikaans and Arabic down to Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish and Yoruba.

If you don't see what you want, you can create your own in any language, from a book, the internet, from signs you pass when travelling, or for example sitting on a bus or plane, talking to somebody from a foreign country or reading a menu in a restaurant.
cram.com is create and share online flashcards
http://www.cram.com/language

You can make flashcards for your phone to revise on the bus, and make flashcards for any subject, not just languages, but any subject you are studying, for exams, for holidays and travel, or a glossary of terms used at work, for example, computers, law enforcement, medicine, the military.

You could also print them off and use them for a Xmas quiz on Xmas and New Year greetings in foreign languages for a Xmas dinner or Xmas party.

http://www.cram.com/flashcards/create