What have drivers and passengers Left In Hot Cars? Two children. What can you do to prevent problems and accidents?

First, worst story - dead children
A dad in the USA left his children behind in a car instead of taking them to a day care center and they died. What can you do to prevent that happening to your children or pets?

I wrote on Facebook:

Recorded message when you switch off engine and open car door. For example, 'please check car for valuables including children and pets'.

'Look back before you leave,' like the British, 'look right, left, right again,'reminder for road safety, taught to schoolchildren.

Two baby shoes on front passenger seat as a reminder to check for baby.

Message mum to say where babies are.

Set yourself an alarm to remind yourself to deliver the baby or pet, or check it has been done.

Daycare centers to call both Mum and Dad on an automatic dial system when babies are not delivered and checked in.

Second Worst Story - Dead pets
Worst case scenario, dead pet. 
Second worst case scenario, somebody breaks your car window to rescue your pet.

Third Preventable Problem - Exploding Fizzy drinks
All sorts of things can be left in cars which are hot or cold.

When I was living in the USA, we left coke cans in the boot of the car. (Americans call the boot the trunk.)

The cans of coke exploded and made a dreadful mess.
👀
Fourth Preventable Problem - Melting Food

In Europe, in France, I left bars of chocolate on the back window shelf.

I returned to find empty packets. 

I demanded of my family, "Who has eaten all the chocolate. Two whole bars!"

Husband, "not guilty." 

Child, "not me." 

Then I found a flattened wafer of sticky chocolate under the wrapper. Melted in the mid-day sun.

👪
Fifth Preventable Problem
Mouldy Litter
Go to a drive-in. Buy a takeaway meal. You should get rid of all the wrappers and apple cores etc in a bin as you drive away, or when you leave the car.

A day later, or a week later, you might open the door and find it is full of a dreadful smell. Leftovers in a box stuffed under the seat. Undiscovered for a week. Yuk.

Cars get hot and cold. Don't leave any of these:

1 Children
2 Pets
3 Food
4 Drinks
5 Wrappers and leftovers from take away food. 

Clear the car. Check the car.

What else?

Driver - Look on top before you drive off. Your wallet? Your shopping.

Look behind before you drive off. From a supermarket, your last bag of shopping. The shopping trolley you are about to back into. 

The bollard. Crunch! What was that?

That's happened to us a few times.

Look in the back seat before you drive off.

Check you have the address and phone number of your destination before you drive off. We drove to Hampstead in London to visit our friends from Singapore. Got there, both assuming the other had the address. Maybe we could recognize the door. A long road, with multiple occupancy. Names might be landlord and not temporary tenant. Waste of time. Missed diner.

Check the drive is clear before you turn in. If you can't see, drive slowly and hoot quietly.

Do not drive backwards nor forwards when anybody is behind or in front of the car. You could go backwards or forwards by mistake.

What will I talk about at Toastmasters tonight? My last meeting as President. Something more cheerful.

Useful Websites On Car Safety Systems
https://sea.mashable.com/tech/5580/high-tech-alarms-go-off-when-kids-are-left-in-hot-cars
https://www.fatherly.com/gear/best-car-seat-alarms/
https://www.mother.ly/news/best-car-seat-sensor-app/waze

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a travel writer and photographer 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 language evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language 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.sgOr quicker to type and easier to remember: 

 tinyurl.com/BHACOOL

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_self-study_programs

https://www.facebook.com/angela.lansbury.121

https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogs

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-say-thank-you-in-several.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-yourself-in-english-spanish.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/01/second-set-of-portuguese-words.html Please share links to your favourite posts

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

translate.google.com

duolingo.com

German words in an English language message, plus learning English, and translating

Problem
I did a Duolingo course in German but sitting around a table with a group of Germans on holiday I would not follow their conversation. I did try, but it didn't come easily. It was such as effort. I shall be seeing them again next year.

Answers
I must try to learn a little German every day. Never miss an opportunity. Today I received an email from a German organiser of our hiking group. He speaks with a slightly clipped German accent but his written English is embarrassingly word perfect.

On second reading I find that a German sentence has been added at the end by the system. It reads:

Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android Mobiltelefon mit GMX Mail gesendet.

I can work out the gist of because I get the same message in English. The gist of the message is This (email?) was sent from my mobile phone. In detail and more exact word for word translation:

German- English
diese - this (dis and this - languages often change a d into a t or a th and a t into a D)
Nachricht?
wurde - was
von - with
menem - my
Android - Android
Mobiltelefon - mobile telephone
mit - with (the German and English words both contain the letters it, and the looks like an upside down w)
GMX Mail - GMX Mail
gesendet - sent

This message reminds us of three things to notice about German grammar. 
1 The verb comes at the end of the sentence.
2 Nouns are treated like proper names and start with capital letters. So Nachricht is a noun.
3 ge prefixes something done in the past, often passive ge-... means something was done. ge-send-et, was sent. Remove the ge and you recognize both the past and the verb to send.

I looked up Nachricht
nachtricht - message
nacht - night
richt - right

but I have mistakenly added the t to nach
nach richt - to judge
nach - after

Now let's see the English first for the words we have learned

after - nach
mail - Mail (capital for a noun or a proper name)
message - Nachricht (capital initial for a noun)
mobile - mobil
mobile phone - Mobiltelefon (capital initial for a noun)
my - menem
night - nacht
right - richt
sent - gesendet
telephone - telefon
to judge - nachtricht
this - diese
was - wurde 
with - von

Here are some more
English- German
email - die Email (the email, capital letter for a noun)
junk mail - Junk-Mail / die wufsendungen (looks like a combination of woof and dung; think those wolves or dogs sent me dung again un in junk and un in dungen)

German - English
Post - mail
die Post - mail, post, post office
die Reklame - advertising (like the word reclaim - they want to reclaim a customer)
versenden - forward, send, mail, despatch

Useful Websites For Learning German and Translating
duolingo.com 
learn German for English speakers.

If you have friends who speak other languages, tell them about Duolingo has or shortly will have:
 Learn English for speakers of German and other languages, currently for Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers, Russian speakers, Arabic speakers, French speakers, Hindi speakers, Turkish speakers, Chinese speakers, Vietnamese speakers, Polish speakers, Indonesian speakers, Romanian speakers,Dutch speakers, Hungarian speakers, Czech speakers, Korean speakers, Ukrainian speakers, Thai speakers, Tagalog speakers (from the Philippines), Bengali speakers.

English for Tamil speakers (is Hatching - in progress 38% done in July 2018, estimated launch 11/6/18. That can't be June which has gone, so it is not the UK way of dating with the day first but American style. That means November 6th 2018).

Google translate, translates most languages including German, which is similar to languages spoken and understood by people speaking Austrian, Swiss-German and Yiddish

See
https://www.duolingo.com/courses/all

Translation
translategoogle.com

If you think you can do better, or you can help translate or correct mis-translations and wrong spellings, you can help various sites including Duolingo (if you are bilingual) or if you can check spelling, offer to help Wikihow.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages.

Are You Messaging people who are asleep in Asia?

Problem
Every day I open emails from the USA which warn, 'this will be gone in four hours!' By the time I open the email newsletter message, it's time to delete it.

If you are running a campaign, decide whether you want to reach a worldwide audience. You might well want to speak to night owls, insomniacs, sleepless souls.

However, if you can, separate your mailings, or offer a choice of dates. If I am in Britain, Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia, I don't want to sign up for video live calls in the middle of the night.

I am inundeated with emails from people who think I have a problem (I do - too many emails). They know how I can focus and make more money. (Yes, by getting enough sleep and not responding to messages out of sync with my clock.)

Urgent, they scream. Why did you not reply, they ask. If you don't reply in the next four hours you will miss it, they warn. Yes, I did.

If you want overseas readers and responders, allow your overseas readers a chance to reply when they are awake.

Those people who can afford to pay are probably at work.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Leftover take away - how to remember to put it in the fridge

If I ask for leftovers at a restaurant/pub/cafe to be wrapped up to go (in the UK we say take away) I usually remember to put them in the fridge when I get home if the food is carried separately. Unfortunately, if it's inside a bag such as a tote bag, often I forget for an hour or so, or even overnight?

How can I - and you - and everybody else - remember? Let's devise some systems.

1 Cross your fingers.

2 Keep a ribbon in your bag and tie it to the handle whenever you have purchases or leftovers which need to be removed.

3 Set a timer on your phone to go off when you reach home.

4 Send yourself a text message or email reminder.

5 Place a note on your fridge door before going out to dinner in case you bring anything back.

7 Have a ribbon on your door key so that whenever you reach home you think: Do I have anything to put in the fridge.

8 Wear a pendant or charm bracelet featuring a piece of fruit or tea cup or some kind of food or drink or cutlery or crockery as a reminder.

9 Stick a bookmark in your diary with the words LOOK FOR LEFTOVER FOOD.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In.