Italian words which sound or look similar to English words

 Here are some of the words I have learned recently from Duolingo. I found some of them had obvious connections with similar or longer English words. When I was stumped, I asked my husband and he added a couple more useful suggestions. Notice that the Italian words usually end with a vowel, a, o, e, i. Sometimes the last consonant is dropped, leaving the Italian word ending in a vowel.

Italian - English

farmacia - pharmacy (sounds the same, ph=f) farmaci-a

dito  - finger (like digit) dit -o

ha - has (she has, consonant dropped)

lei - she (To remember the letters, like the French elle, using the letters l and e. Il is he, so you add e to get the feminine lei, and reverse the letter il for he to get lei for her, putting her letter e in the middle of the l and i. Or using the sounds to remember, I remember, 'he was ill and she lay down with him.')

Medico - doctor, in the medical profession, prescribes medicine medic-o

(le) pareti - walls (like partition, starts par, includes the letter t, Italian ends with i , i being plural like the word spaghetti)

pericolo - danger, peril, something perilous pericol -o

preferisco - I prefer (My memory aid is ,'I prefer San Francisco - preferisco San Francisco')

sei - are you? (I rmember, 'Say, are you ...?'

sforzi - effort or force - all have the letters for, in Italian add a hiss at the start and the vowel i at the end sforz - i

vivace - lively, vivacious vivac - e

English - Italian

are you? - sei

danger - pericolo

doctor - medico

effort / force - sforzi

finger - dito

has - ha

I prefer - preferisco

Pharmacy - farmacia

she - lei

vivacious - vivace

walls - paretti

Glossary (mini dictionary of words used in a document)

vowel - voiced sound, a e i o u (and sounds with added y, eg ay)

consonant - what goes with the (vowel) sound, or stops it, usually using the tongue or lips, b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p , q, r s, t v, w, x, z

e.g. Latin for for example

Useful Websites

Duolingo - Italian and other languages

Wiki - consonants

Wiki - vowels

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Albanian learned on Memrise 30 words

 Memrise made learning Albanian easy. 

My words today are

1 I - une with two dots above the e. Like the royal we in the Queen's ENlgish, one. One does not I = une

2 ti is you, second person singular.(Like the French tu)

3 ai is he

4 ajo is she

 Annoyingly and confusingly the feminine seems to take the letter o at the end.

5 Ju is you plural.

6 ita is they masculine but ito is they feminine.

7 dite ending with double dots on the e is day. D for day. date in the day.

8 nite, again two dots on the e, is night, n for night, and t, almost the American nite.

9 Mire ending with double dots over the e is good (I think of admire)

19 keq is bad (I think he is so bad that I want to kick, but the last letter is q)

20 JO IS NO. like oh, no john in the old song. Not po but Jo.

21po is yes

22 gjuhe (accent on the final e) is language

23 shqip is Albanian language

24 mirupafshim - goodbye (gone in a puff of smoke)

25 miredita good-day

26 mire-dita good afternoon

27 mirembrema good evening

28 miremengjies - good morning (when you rise with energy)

29 si - how

30 jam to be

21 Albanian language shqip like equippeed (Not pig)

Useful Websites

https://app.memrise.com/aprender/learn?course

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

Start Albanian with ling app

Flag of Albania. Wikipedia.

The Ling app course on Albanian started with the alphabet, not too difficult. Then it progressed to pictures of a man, women, boy and girl. You matched them up with pictures and written words.

English - Albanian

you - ju

boy - djalë

he - ai

girl - vajze

man - njeri

she - ajo

Woman -- gruaja

please - ju letem (my memory aid is it is two words like por favor, in Spanish, ju is you, think if you let me,  or do you let me ju letem)

Now you can use translate google

and - dhe

thank you -faleminderit 

hello - Përshëndetje - (more challenging)

goodbye - mirupafshim

Albanian - English

you - ju ( similar to the French tu, but more like d'you, to remember the j, I think you juvenile)

Well, folks, that's all. faleminderit, dhe mirupafshim.

Useful Websites

 https://play.ling-app.com/learn/unit/1/lesson/1

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Albanian_phrasebook

First words in Tamil

 

I have visited Singapore's bilingual Tamil and English club several times and having started the challenging task of learning to read and speak and write (Mandarin) Chinese, I thought it was time to tackle another one of Singapore's four official languages, Tamil.

I have used several approaches. 

The most useful for a jolly introduction, individual words and grammar is wikihow. The sentence structure usually has the verb at the end. The verb to be is not necessary. That explains why some Indian speakers create sentences without verbs. 

English - Tamil

I - nan

you -ninkal

he - avar

she - aval

it - atu

Tamil - English

atu - it

avar - he

aval - she

nan - I

ninkal - you

The Foreign Workers & Domestic Helpers language guide has Singapore's four official languages, English, Chinese, Tamil and Bahasa Indonesia, as well as Myanmar, and Bengali - the language of Bangladesh.

I didn't get on with the flashcards from livinglanguage.com/languagedemo/tamilflash

I could not work out the words from the sounds.  Good if you want to speak. I want to understand what I hear and to read. 

This flashcards would be good for me for Spanish and Italian and German where I can work out what they are saying and learn the accent. It worked well for me in Chinese.

Useful Websites

https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Tamil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Tamils

https://digitaldefynd.com/best-tamil-language-courses/

https://www.livinglanguage.com/languagedemo/tamilflash/11930/essential-saying-hello

duolingo in January 2021, The Tamil course is 75% complete.

Duolingo 

Languages available

Chinese, German, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Welsh, Ukrainian

Memrise

Languages available

Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Turkish

Google Translate

memrise

https://www.memrise.com/

Foreign Workers & Domestic Helpers Language Guide

About the Author

Angela Lansbury teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

How to remember I, you, he, she and it in Indonesian

Problem
Indonesian is easier than other languages because he ahse and it are the same word, dia. However, how do you remember that dia is he, she or it?

Answer
I made up the memory aid: my dear friend (the man, the woman, the dog, the object - my favourite object such as a teddy bear. Dia is he, she or it.

Saya is I, so say I.

 u ending eith the letter u is you. If I see an Indonesian word ending with a u at the start of a sentence, and it isna't saya 0 I, nor dia, my dear friend, he, she or it, then ithe wor must be you.

But when translating from English how do I remember the first three letters? I have a friend called Kamlesh. Alternatively, think of the phrase: "Come here you!"

Indonesian - English
saya - I
kamu - you
dia - he, she or it

English - Indonesian
I - saya
you - kamu
he, she or it - dia

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of languages. If you want an entertaining talk or workshop on learning languages, please contact me.

Learn a few words of Indonesian-Malay

Problem
How do I remember the Indonesian words?

Answer
No problem. Just look for the connections between the words in English and Indonesian-Malay.












Indonesian / Malay - English
goreng - fried (I think of the g in greasy and that reminds me of fried in oil or butter.)
kereta api - train (Malay)
maaf! - sorry! (My awful toe AAH! What the f. happened? It got trodden on but because I'm British I'll say sorry MAAF.)
silakan - please / please come in (letters 's l a' in silakan and 'l a s' in please. Silakan ends kan - sounds like can I come in - yes you can.
tidak - no (Concentrate on the d in the centre of the word as a reminder: you don't say, no - don't even think it)

English - Indonesian / Malay
fried - goreng
no - tidak
please (come in) - silakan
train - kereta api

REVISION
Words from pervious posts and earlier lessons in Duolingo:
Malay / Indonesian - English
apel - apple
ayam - chicken
bukit - hill
dia - he/she
dua - two (as in dual)
es - ice
foto - photo
merah - red (As in the place name in Singapore, Bukit Merah, meaning red hill, literally hill red.)
pintu - door
saya - I myself (s and y in both words)
selamat pagi - good morning (start a new page)
wanita - woman (Both words have the letter w, a n. Yes, it is a woman. Wan-it-a.)
Ya - Yes

English - Malay
apple - apple
chicken - ayam
door - pintu
good morning - selamat pagi
he/she - dia
hill - bukit
I - saya
ice - es
photo - foto
two - dua
woman - wanita
Yes! - Ya!

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Standard_Malay_and_Indonesian
duolingo.com

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

Remembering he and she in Italian

I kept muddling up he and she in Italian. L u i or L e i?

Then I devised a memory aid. L u i is a boy, spelling like Louis XIV.

Lei is a girl, spelling like Sheila, which is a girl's name in English, and an Australian slang word for a girl.

English - Italian
l u i - he
l e i - she

Angela Lansbury, English and languages tutor and teacher.

German Phrase of the Day - Ich Kenne Sie - I know them

Ich is easy; first letter is I.  Ich=I. I=Ich.

Kenne is like the song I learned in school as a child: "Do you ken John Peel?" Do you know John Peel?

Sie is she or plural them.

Ich kenne sie - I know them.

I know them - I c h kenne s i e.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, language teacher, author and speaker.