Learn Greek, for travel to Greece or Cyprus, on a Greek airline, when visiting a Greek restaurant, or for fun

Greek Language

  For travellers, you can use the phrasebook in Wikivoyage. Pick your country, in this case Greek, or several countries if you have a multi-destination holiday. You get a long list of handy phrases. Print off the entire list of phrases, or those you are most likely to need. Print in a convenient size, large enough to read, small enough to be lightweight, to go in your pocket. If it gets lost in a wad of papers, print a Greek flag and attach it to the front as a cover, or just to the top left or right corner of the first page.

Wikipedia makes everything comoplicated and I have to look up technical terms. Simple Wiki is useful. 

So is Wikimedia Commons, for pictures.

Double-sided Greek card

OOOZU - Compact, Pocket Size

You can get a small card from Ooozu.com to carry around and consult. It is laminated. Language only, not the alphabet.

Duolingo 

I am using Duolingo to learn twelve languages including Spanish, Japanese, Greek, Swedish, Esperanto and other lanaguages. Duolingo has a lot of repetition to help you remember.

LILT Polyglot Club

I run an online polyglot languages group with my good friend Carolyn Street, who used to teach French and German at a Polytechnic in Singapore. You can attend  this clubon Zoom every Sunday, 9.30 pm Singapore time on Carolyn's Zooom. Send her your name, your full name, so she recognizes you and can admit you to the meeting. 

You can contact her or me by direct message on Facebook and on the Lilt page. (Earlier version were WILL but that got confused with [ages on writing a will so we changed it to LILT.

We are probably doing a reprise of Japanese at the future meeting on Sunday 25th February 2024 if requested. This week is Greek. To attend 1-to 3 meetings is free. We hope that if you become a rgular supporter you will want to join Toastmasters and pay the 60 dollars fee for 6 months access to the TI website, pathrway programme innluding videos on public speaking and managing meetings, the online magazine, and opportunities to take attend and take part in speaking contests. These two online clubs can be contacted via Advancity in Singapore which is in Toastmasters International Find a club. Advancity also meets in person in Singapore.

SGI Dynamic Toastmasters International Club

I often do a rehearsal on Friday at SGI Dynamic. The club started in the evening in Singapore but moved to later in the evening so that members and visitors from the USA could join. The timing is early morning in the USA and Central and South America. Lunchtime in London, after lunch in France and Europe, evening in Singapore, which is the same time as Japan and China.  

Resources

Duolingo

diolingo.com

ooozu.com

busuu

toastmasters international 

Greekpod101.com

You tube (greek pod)

24 letters. 

A New Way To Learn Malay With Pictures And Speech

In Singapore the undersground railway (MRT) station, Botanic Gardens, is Kebun Bunga in Malay. Kebun is garden; flower (the adjective) comes second. My memory aid, bunga like bulb. The initial letter b of botanic and the initial letter b of bunga are similar. The G of garden and the k or kebun sound similar. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Emergency exit advice in Singapore on train. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Put the words  individually into Translate and this is what they mean.

Pintu - door

keluar - exit

kecemasan - worry

di - in

sebelah - next

hadapan - presence

dan - and

belakang - back

kereta - train

api - fire

However, run the words consecutively and you get the result:

The exit of anxiety before the front and rear of the train

Building works warning sign in English and Malay. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Translation of sign on building works in Singapore  Malay - English
bahaya - danger
jangan - do not
dekat - close (adjective not verb)
Jangan dekat - Do not get close (in other words keep away)

Problem
I am learning to recognize Malay words from signs in Singapore, but not how to hear them.

Answer
I signed up for the free introductory lessons in Malay. The first lesson shows you pictures of man, woman, boy girl, bicycle and ship.

I noticed something I had read earlier on Duolingo, that nouns start with a pre-fix SE. Malay is logical, easy, although sometimes longer.

For example, plurals: two or more boys, instead of remembering the plural, which in English often adds an 's', but could be 'es' as in wishes, or a total change as in wolf and wolves, child, children, in Malay you simply double the word, so anak for child, for children becomes anak-anak.

The modifiers (words which modify or change or add to the information in the noun) go first in English, but second in Malay. (French also has adjectives after nouns. Moulin rouge is red windmill.)

If you translate word by word as you think into another language, the structure come out wrongly. This applies with a translation from a translation device and when you are thinking.

That is why it is good to learn phrases instead of individual words. You get the phrase right. Your brain gets a feeling of where the adjectives and nouns and verbs should be positioned in a sentence in another language.

Malay
Malay can be simple, at other times it looks long and complicated. For boy, you have three words" person (orang), male, small/young. The same for girl, person (orang). Orang as in orang utan. Before you even start learning Malay, you know one word.

Cross the bridge to the border from Singapore to Johor Bahru and you will see more Malay language signs. Or go up to the towers featured in the film.

Malay is one of the four languages in Singapore.

Useful Website
https://l-lingo.com/webapp/#/onboarding?product=mly&referer=https:%2F%2Fl-lingo.com%2Fen%2Flearn-malay

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtogapher, author and speaker. If you want a an entertaining and infomative and encouraging talk or workshop on learning Malay and other languages, please contact me. Share links to this post with your friends and colleagues.