Another travel tale from Indonesia - the access road - can you believe it?

Problem
Another travel story teller claims he bought a mine in Indonesia.
The locals saw a foreigner had bought a business. They wanted a slice of the profits. So they set up a toll road. So every time he or his staff or his house visitors went to his place or away from it they paid a toll.
Did he find he was no longer making a profit, so he had to give up and go out of business? I thought he said he did. I must go back and find out.

Angela Lansbury

Romanian Language: learn the words me, and mine, and my mother

Problem
I know that English natives as well or foreign speakers muddle up me and mine. How do I say them, and remember them, in Romanian?

Answers
My first step is Google translate. (See next post.)

English - Romanian
mine - a mea
my - m e l e
my mother - mama  m e a (No spaces. Spaces inserted to prevent changes made by automatic spell checker. Notice that the adjective comes after the noun.  Mother is mama and my is mea.)

Romanian - English
a m e a - mine
mama m e a - my mother
m e l e - my

Story
I am hoping to start a Toastmasters International online language club.(See post later.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, teacher of English and other languages.

Next post is on giving readers choice.

German Words Which Are Easy To Remember

German Parts of the Body

breast / chest - die Brust (Brust sounds like breast, shared letters b r s t, her breast, his chest, chicken breast)
heart - Herz (drop the t) (I had a neighbour called Mrs Hertz, but how do I remember to drop the t? - Memory aid - have you no heart? No I've no t /tea)
shoulder(s) - der Schulter(n) - (very similar, s h u l t/d e r but add the c - s c h)
(How do I remember to add the n and end? Like the ChilterN hills, which look like a body lying on the ground with one of the shoulders raised. If you are in England you will know the Chiltern hills. If in the USA make up a memory aid with children.)
stomach - das Magen (shared letters are M a c/g)

I have been learning these words on Duolingo. When I go back through the review at the end of the lesson, I find I have remembered the words but forgotten the capital letters.

Remember to add the capital letter at the start of the important words. Learning German is important. Remembering capital letters in German is important. Imagine the German teacher shouting at you: Capital Letter CAPITAL LETTER starting Nouns NAMES and NOUNS.

Whose body?
Meine - mine (initial letter n; and it sounds the same, except add er or a at the end in German GER man Meine like a minor or a miner - mine is a minor, my child is a minor, my husband is a minter, mine is a miner, mein is a meine
Seine his or hers hiS or herS or otherS or theirS

Now let me pick some more difficult words.
back - Rucken - my rucksack on my back (words from a song I heard as a child: something like 'I am a happy wanderer' or 'I like to go a wandering - my knapsack on my back'.
Rucken - back (notice the CK is shared by both words, baCK, RuCKen)

After you have closed the book or the page, how can you remember to keep repeating the words to yourself through the day?

I have picked near rhyming words which sound similar to each other and which I did not know before. Easy to remember to repeat, plus the memory aid tells you the end of the word.
breast and heart - B r u s t   u n d  H e r z
back, stomach - R u c k e n   u n d  M a g e n

(memory aid - a drunken man lying on his back in Germany - back d r u n c k e n )


If you are watching a German film with English subtitles, or turn on the German subtitles when watching a German film, you will be able to spot these words.

If you have a German pal or colleague, you can point to the middle of your back and teach them, which will help you to remember their language. If you are teaching a class, each person points to their own back, then another person's back. If there are only two of you, make sure you repeat it three times, not just twice (once by each person with the pupil repeating what the teacher says).

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, English teacher, language teacher, tutor, workshops, public speaking, public speaking training.