Spanish Words You Will Recognize

 Of course you should be learning grammar and whole sentences, not just vocabulary. But anything is better than nothing, and a few rods might get you in the mood for doing more. So, let's go.

Duolingo teaches you Brazilian Spanish.

Translate google gives you the option of Spanish used in Spain and Europe, and Brazilian South American Spanish.

Easy Spanish Words - Months

The names of the months in Spanish are similar to the English words. Translating from Spanish to English is easy. English into Spanish is more difficult, because mostly just one letter is changed. 

The Spanish and Italian languages don't use capitals for the months, which makes typing quicker. 

Spanish - English

abril - April

amigo - friend

bancos - banks

cartas - letters

el - the

el (with an accent on the e) - he

frio - cold

io - I (drop the letter o and you get the English word I)

julio - July

libros - books

Los Angeles - the angels (los is the plural)

mayo - May

mi madre - my mother

mis amigos - my friends (the word my in Spanish is plural here, agreeing with the noun)

Muchas - many

musico - music

necesito - I need

Nueva York - New York

quiero - I want

Quiero aprender español - I want to learn Spanish

si -yes

sopas - soups (add s for the plural in both English and Spanish) 

supermercado - supermarket

y - and

English - Spanish

and - y

april - abril (turn the p upside down mentally to think of the Spanish)

banks - bancos

books - libros

cold - frio

friend - amigo

I - io

July - julio (for the Spanish, drop the y and change it to i, as well as adding o)

(to) learn Spanish aprender espanol

many - muchas

May - mayo (Just add o for the Spanish)

music - musico

my friends - mis amigos

my mother - mi madre

(I) need - necesito

soups - sopas

supermarket - supermercado

the angels - los angeles

they - ellos (looks like el which is he and los which is the pural)

(I) want - quiero

yes - si

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

translate google

https://translate.google.co.uk/

wikivoyage phrasebook Spanish 

Please share links to your favourite posts. I have several most posts on learning Spanish on this blog.

Learn Norwegian with Duolingo

 

Norwegian is an easy language.

I have started learning on Duolingo.

These are the words I have learned, and most of them are short version of the English word. Effortless. Instant success. I noted them all down on today's diary page. I have a page a day diary big enough for making notes like this as well as my appointments. (In case the notes obscure my appointments, the appointments are already in my phone alarm).

English - Norwegian

a - en

bread - brod

brother - bror

father - far

hi - hei (pronounced high, the same as in English)

mother - mor 

no - nei  (pronounced nigh)

sister - soster (with a line across the letter o)

tea - te

thanks - tagg

water - vann

wine - veen

Norwegian-English

en - a

brod - bread

bror - brother

far - father

mor - mother

nei (pronounced  nigh or ni as in night) - no

soster (line across the o) - sister

takk - thanks

te - tea

A little more and harder?

Norwegian-English

du- you (similar to French tu)

er- is/are

Ja - yes (similar to German and Malaysian and South African)

kaffe - coffee

melk - milk

min - my (like mine, but the Norwegian adjective comes after the noun)

og - and

vin - wine

Useful Websites

duolingo

wikivoyage norvegian phrasebook

Please share links to your favourite posts from this blog.

I started learning Navaho - I can now say mother

Why did I start learning Navaho? I didn't intend to do so. But it is a quick course. I thought I would just look at the opening page. It looked hard. But you don't have to guess the pronunciation. You hear it in .Duolingo. I quickly learned shima was mother. It ends with ma like mama. Also the Chinese for mother is ma. 

She is a mother. Shima. Keep repeating it. Say it at least three times. Shima. Shima. Shima.

Navaho - English

shima - mother

English - Navaho

mother - shima

By writing this post, I have reinforced it in my mind. If you sign up for Navaho now, it will be easier for you. 

Useful Website

duolingo.com

Please share links to your favourite posts

Watch your background on Zoom! Unintentional Humour. Intentional Humor.

On Zoom you can create virtual backgrounds showing yourself in front of famous landmarks, or on the beach with the waves rolling in behind you. A moving background can be distracting.

Even worse is a real life moving background. It is not new for passers-by to accidentally walking across behind a live reporter, or to stand behind making silly faces. The technical term is photobombing. Wikipedia found me these.

 Many people turn off their cameras at home for good reason. They are eating. They are half naked.

Others do not check their backgrounds. You can see all sort of personal stuff. 

 What is on the wall behind, you, on the desk, or cabinet. An interview candidate for a job had to quickly remove empty bottles of alcohol, kept as souvenirs and decoration. He was applying for a job in Pakistan.

Children and Pets

Hilarious moments from the early days of working from home and meetings on zoom included backgrounds of dogs or cats which wanted to read the news or express their reaction. Others included children bursting into the room, dragged out by a crawling mother.

Bedrooms

At my Toastmasters meetings, I was once mesmerized by the speaker's girlfriend, lying in the bed behind him, every now and then turning over. My mind was inventing what she could do, alone, or if he would later join her, unaware that the back of the room was on camera.

Toilet, Bathroom and Shower

One Toastmasters International member frequently tells the story of how she went to the toilet wearing a pin-on microphone.

Recently I watched a visitor yawn, move the camera, get up and disappear into the shower at the back of the bedroom. The shower water started to run down the glass.

I was waiting to see a silhouette. It reminded me of Psycho. Would an evil stranger creep in? If so, we could not contact him.

I was unable to concentrate on my speeches and roles. Why? Because I was watching to see whether he would emerge wearing pyjama bottoms, a towel, or neither.

Some of the professional Zoom applications allow you to set up your group shots of audience faces in settings such as a classroom of tiered seating, or even mirror photos with frames. For single individuals, yourself, add humorous hats, moustaches and glasses. Key words to search for are: facial effects, studio effects, and make up filters.

Useful Websites

Zoom on facial effects to enhance

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115002595343-Enhancing-your-video-in-Zoom

https://shotkit.com/funny-zoom-backgrounds/

https://www.ricotta.team/blog/zoom-memes

Humorous zoom effect tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v0Y9b--zBM

Please share links to your favourite posts

How to learn to say mother in many langagues

Some words are the same in several languages. If you can identify a few simple words in another language it gets you started and you are encouraged to continue, even in a language which seems difficult.

On the Facebook Polyglots page you often gets asked, what is such and such a word in your language.

Lets look at Mother or Mum.

You have to be careful with translate google because sometimes it translates the word mum as in the verb to keep mum. So you see the translation include silent.

To prevent this mis-translation, I tried translating Mom or mummy.  These are the results for mother, starting with those I remembered, amplified by adding others from frequently used languages.

1 Ma (Chinese) 

Mum

mom

or

mom

It is the same sound in Urdu. Although I cannot read the writing, I played the sound in Google translate.

ماں

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.)

mother

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

Spanish

Mother
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 mother in German 

8 Mamma in Dutch
mamma in Norwegian
mamma in Swedish

9 Mom in Filipino

10 Scottish Gaelic Mam

11 Tamil

Mother

Am'mā

12

In Thai

mother

Mae

it sounds like mare elongated or meh-er

13 Welsh for Mum or Mummy is Mam.

14 yiddish
Mummy

Mummy

mami

Reading from the right to the left, even with only an elementary knowledge of Russian/Bulgarian/Cyrrillic derived from Greek derived from Hebrew, you see the letter M a bit like a McDonalds arch, the vowel Uh is a line under the placeholder, and the ee is just an apostrophe in the air on its own like the dot over an i,
 .


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 click on which turn the page's text 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.

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.

Why Your Family Should All Know How To Swim

Facts tell but stories sell, so instead of giving the numbers who die by drowning every year I am going to tell you a story about a little boy who was saved and the moral of that story.

The toastmasters International Harrovian Toastmasters Speakers Club Meeting In London. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The Challenge - A Lesson Learned In childhood
In London, England, at a Toastmasters meeting, Harrovian Speakers, one of the table topics for impromptu speeches was, tell a story from your childhood which changed your view of the world.

Indian Flag

Drowning Danger Story
The speaker described how as a small child in India he chased a duck into a pond, further and further out until he was up to his neck and it was still out of reach.

One more step and he might have it in his clutches. But one more step and he might drown. He did not know how to swim!

At this moment a hand grabbed him by the shoulders. The helping hand pulled him back to safety. It was his older sister.

The Moral - Needing Teamwork, Support, Protection
At that point a realization came over him, that having an older person to always be there to rescue him was vital to his survival.

UK flag.

When he reached London, England, he knew nobody. He had nobody to help him, look after him rescue him. He realised he had to create a family, to make friends at work, marry and have a family and an extended family of in-laws, join a club such as Toastmasters and have friends who could listen, watch, advise and literally lend a hand.

He realised that for both the individual, the family, any group, and the country, you need a team so that the older ones with more experience can help the younger ones out of trouble.

Tales From Toastmasters
I thought he was going to win the ribbon for best table topics. But he didn't. He was not the only person to tell a great story. Toastmasters meetings have so many interesting stories from interesting people. You find out things about others, and about yourself.

Practical Lessons - Learn Swimming
And the moral of the story - there's a second practical moral. Learn to swim and insist that everybody in your family knows how to swim. As soon as I found out that I was pregant with our son I insisted that my husband should learn to swim. I should have sent him to learn life-saving as well. Swimming can save you and you can save somebody smaller. But if you go to help somebody the same size and they grap you by the neck, then you both sink and drown.

My Story Of Drowning My Mother
I know because when I was a teenager I nearly drowned my mother and she nearly downed me. I and my mother were in a pool in Spain at a hotel; and I was teaching her to swim.

Spanish flag.

She swam over the line dividing the shallow end from the deep end. I waited for her to come up, but she didn't. I shrieked and swam towards her. She grabbed me and we both sank. My father and another man heard me shriek and saw us both disappear. they dived in from opposite ends of the pool, disentangled my mother and towed her to the side.

Neither of them thought to help me. I was now coughing water and shaky from shock and desperately doggy paddled to the side.I learned that a swimmer cannot rescue a drowning person face to face. You have to get behind them out of reach of their arms and tow them backwards with their head up and out of the water so they can breathe.If you are taller and stronger, and have another person to help, even better.

Swimming Safer - Never Alone
A friend of mine in London, Sandra, used to live in a house which had a small garden swimming pool. Her husband, who was a doctor, forbade her to swim alone. She used to to invite her neighbours, or if they were out, me - I lived some distance away, to be there so she could swim if he was out.

Flag of Asutralia.

Australia's Rules On Fencing Pools
The Australians investigated swimming accidents and safety and were surprised to find that the greatest number of deaths from drawning came not from the seaside but home swimming pools. Australia cut the death rate by drowning by making it mandatory for back yard pools to be fenced off and gated and locked when not in use.

I remember in a New Zealand post office reading the story of the stamp issued to commenorate this legislation.

My American Experience

When I lived in the USA in Rockville, Maryland, our condo's pool had a huge wire fence like a tennis court. Two high chairs for liefguards were by the pool. You needed two lifeguards so that when one went to the toilet or to speak to somebody, the other was still watching the pool. I was told the insurance company demanded this.

Everyone Should Learn To Swim - Even Babies
Later I learned that in the USA black people suffered more chid fatalies from drowning becuse they did not know how to swim.

Later I larned that babies were being taught to swim in the USA.
You can even teach babies to float and swim before they can walk. See that on YouTube.

People spend money on lots of things, such as music lessons and sports, when their priority should be ensuring that all the family can swim.

Some people are afraid of the water. Swimming lessons cure that.

Call to Action
As soon as a child can walk, it can walk to the edge of a swimming pool, canal, lake, river, or the sea. Teach everybody to swim, your family, your school, your college, your club, your community.

Useful Websites
Book On Teaching Your Baby To Swim
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teaching-Your-Francoise-Barbira-Freedman

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

What makes people travel?

Travelling Towards
Some people travel towards something, to see the world, looking for something different, a contrast. Other travel to the land of their ancestors, hoping to find a connection.

Travelling Away
Others travel to get away. There are places in many countries known as havens for those escaping their past. (I always wanted to be diplomatic. I think that sentence was my best effort.)

After WWII may people looked for a new country and a news start. Some are getting away from memories. Others are getting away from bad vibes.

I heard about the suicide of somebody I didn't know but who lives in my area. My neighbour, who I shall call Alicia, knows everything. I asked her, "What caused that? Was it depression?"

Alicia said, "It was her mother."

Really!

"Yes," said Alicia. "Same in my family. My mother hated me, tried to break up the marriage. Did the same with my brother-in-law, then my sister-in-law.
 My sister-in-law said to me, 'What shall I do?'
I replied, 'Go as far away as possible.' So she went to Australia!" 

Alicia is nearly ninety. She said with admiration that 'Lionel'*, her husband is ninety-two!

'Goodness,' I gasp. 'Is that a lot different to ninety?'

I suppose it is. Each year after ninety or eighty or seventy, more frail, more of an achievement.

Alicia is in bed after breaking something three times in a fall. So she is not travelling, except in her mind, her imagination, and her memories.

So now I and you have a new view on what makes people travel. Getting away from a feud with a mother or a mother-in-law.

To some extent that is what all holidays are for. A change is as good as a rest, the saying goes.

Useful Websites
Samaritans

Need help? United Kingdom:

116 123

Samaritans

Need help?

Hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week

Languages: English

Website: www.samaritans.org

Visit Australia
https://www.australia.com/en-us

(Names of people changed for privacy.)

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

Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre, Acrobatics and a song about mother's love

Vietnam Flag.

In Hanoi we booked seats for the Vietnamese show My Village (Lang Toi in Vietnamese), which is at 6 pm and lasts an hour.

Opera House & Vietnam Tuong Theatre
The show is confusingly at two venues, one of which is the Hanoi Opera House. We were looking forward to seeing the opera house. We were surprised when out taxi driver took us in another direction. Our taxi driver fortunately knew that the show as on at the Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre.

So we missed out on seeing the grand Hanoi opera house, built by the French in 1911. However, instead we got to see a smaller Vietnamese-style theatre with masks on the walls.

Free Tea
The event starts with a pre-show free drink of lemon grass tea. You walk through an alcove into a side room and pour yourself your tea from an urn made of porcelain.

The theatre lobby has red pillars and masks on the walls.


Colourful pillars at 'Hanoi Vietnam Tuong Theatre'. Photo by Angela Lansbury.




Masks in the lobby of the theatre. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Birdsong
We can hear birdsong recordings. The show was delightful, although it had no programme, no translation, no discernable plot.

Acrobatics And Poles
The main props are giant bamboo poles used to create x shapes which agile girls and boys climb. Feats of acrobatics. One girl must be double-jointed. She bends backwards and forwards. The most amusing moment was when she scratched her forehead with her toes, from a leg up her back!ll u

The later part of the show included some amusing juggling with three jugglers. Plus some singing.

Song of Mother's and Father's Love
Luckily we were with a friend who speaks Vietnamese. She was able to tell us later over dinner that one well-known traditional song was about a father's love being as high as Vietnam's tallest mountain. The mother's love is deep as the sea. Apparently this refrain is repeated many times.

You were not allowed to take photos during the show. but afterwards the performers came into the foyer.

Cambodia Show Plot
In Cambodia we saw a show with dancers and singers, much more colourful, with a plot, boy chases girl, girl rejects boy, rival boy courts her. he abandons her. Girl is consoled by attention of first true love. He marries her. Happy end with much joyful singing and dancing.

I can't help thinking that this whole show could be so much better.

We walked back to our hotel in the old quarter via the night market.

If you go to Hanoi, do see it. The other big show in Hanoi is the water puppets. The Lune Production group also has performances in Saigon (also now known as Ho Chi Minh city).

www.luneproduction.com
email reservation@luneproduction.com
tel:+84 1245 18 11 88
For reviews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City#Museums_and_art_galleries
https://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/ShowUserReviews-g293925-d4542125-r195747380-A_O_Show_Lune_Production-Ho_Chi_Minh_City.html

For hotels
booking.com
Comparison site:
https://www.clicktripz.com/rates/search/index
For airlines
travelok.com
vietJetair.com (Comprehensive list of budget airlines in Wikivoyage.)
For transport
https://www.grab.com/vn/en/

Language
Duolingo.com 
(Remember to click on the sound symbol to hear how words are pronounced.) 

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
Please share links to your favourite posts. I have several more on Hanoi, Halong Bay and Vietnam.

Learning Languages - a peek at Polish - some easy first words

Problem
How to get over fear of starting Polish?

Answer
I would start with some easy vocabulary. I was sent a message in Polish about a meetup. I translated it in Google translate to see if I could recognize some easy words. Then I went back to Duolingo, lesson one to look for some simple words and hints on structure.

English - Polish
colleague - kolega
mum - mama
father - tata
wine  - wino

Polish - English
kolega - colleague
mama - mum
tata - father
wino - wine

Polish and Slavic languages do not have 'a' and 'the'. You would say I am man for I am a man.

Duolingo
Go to the forum in the first lesson for lots of useful tips from other learners.

Useful websites
duolingo.com

I shall add more to this post later.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.

Different Ways of Packing - the student way

Problem
How do you avoid packing on the last night if you have a late night farewell?

Packing
By Angela Lansbury

"How should I pack? Tell me, how do you pack?"
Chris says, "I pack light - don't care what I lack.
Who cares what you wear! I don't care what I wear
I pack like a student, rolled, creased or flat

"Every day I take out what I'll wear for that day
At night I put dirty clothes away
In a plastic bag carried home to mother
That's a handy trick I learned from my brother

"What's left in the case is labelled, it's mine
So I'm always half-packed for the next time
Oh, Angela, you make far too much fuss
Just throw it all in and do it like us!"
-ends-
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

TRANSLATING Dutch - how to start even if you don't know one word!

Problem
A Dutch sentence is on the screen in front of me. I do not know Dutch but I know about 100-200 common words of German. What does the sentence mean in English? Let's have a go, a try.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

At first glance it means nothing. Then I took it word by word looking for one word to see if I could identify the subject.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

The first two words are 'Een kind' . Ah! Kindergarten. Kind is German for child. German and Dutch are very similar. What is een? Either one child or a child. Now I know the general subject matter. It's about a child or children, or mankind.

As I read on the next word which makes any sense is kinderen. 

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

That must be plural for kind, children. Twee kinderen. Twee sounds like twins and three. Either two children or three children. If the sense had been one, two, three, that would have been logical. My guess is that the logical jump is from one child to two children.

At this point, even that doesn't matter. I am gaining confidence. I have the subject of the first sentence and the subject of the second sentence.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

What is niet? It appears twice!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Niet is Russian for no. Long ago I saw a film featuring Goldie Hawn with the song containing the phrase: "NIET. NIET. NIET - not any more!" Niet means no. "No, no, no - not any more." The German is nicht. The common element is the letter N starting: Negative, Null, Never, No, Niet, Nicht, Neither, Nor, Nil, None, Naught.

So sentence one is a child ... not

Sentence two is about two children ... not

Look again. The word kinderen is repeated at the end!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

A child is also repeated.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

I can't work out the start, a child vraagt, but een kind kan - sounds like a child can!

That's very common in many laguages from Europe, K for c. C is S.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

After the first comma, I see 'en'.  And or but? My guess is and.

We still don't have any idea what it's all about, but we are building up the sentence word by word, learning Dutch, growing in confidence.

If kan is can, and en is and, I guess that dat, which appears twice means that.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

What else sound familiar, related to family life and the world of a child and its father and mother?

vader of moeder ? Either murder or mother? My guess is mother.

Vader of moeder? Further of murder or father of/off/or mother?

Vader of moeder - obviously father or mother!

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Still no nearer the sense, but we are gathering a word with every re-reading.

Back to the start:

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven,

A child doesn't eat its leavened bread or a child doesn't live its life?

Leven - a noun, must be life.

Het must be his or its. Het leven, his life.

Om must be on or of.

two children 'geadopteerd' looks like adopted. 

Ge in German is the prefix, fixed ahead of the word, for the past tense. Ge-adopteerd means adopted.

Een kind vraagt niet om het leven, en een kind kan zijn vader of moeder ook niet uitkiezen.
dat is ook de reden dat ik twee kinderen geadopteerd heb als mijn eigen kinderen.

Mijn eigen kindered - my / mine own children, my / mine eye children?

I don't know eigen but I'm pretty sure mijn is mine.

Now I know that in Dutch ij is simply an i sound, so that confusing j can be ignored. IJ is simply their way of spelling i pronounced eye.

I have had enough. I am now willing to go to Google translate. Next time I see Dutch I will be able to recognize that it is Dutch, and will make an attempt at trying to get the gist of it before translating.

I'm taking a short break. Later I shall add the whole translation.

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.Take a look at my other travel blog:
http://luxurytravelforless.co.uk