The DIY Dolls' House Or Theatre For Holidays

Kleenex Tissue Box House or theatre. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Kleenex Box Theatre

Here's a game for a dolls' house or theatre made on holiday. I have used an almost empty Kleenex tissue box. The had a dozen white tissues at the back form a backdrop. No need to remove them.

Ring Box Display

Inside is the lower half of a heart shaped plastic ring box. The lid broke. I was wondering what use I could make of a ring box with no lid. To display a ring handily on holiday, by a bathroom wash basin? On the bedside table? 

I found some tiny Guatemalean dolls, fingernail size. They stick upright in the slit intended for a jewellery ring. 

You can use an open ring box during the day for play whilst the ring is on your finger. Retrieve the box at night for the ring when the children have gone to bed.

Shoe Box House

You could also make a theatre or dolls' house from one or two shoe boxes, with an upright cereal box for the side staircase. Cut square or round windows using a cup or glass or coins as a template. Behind the window place a holiday brochure showing the sea or mountains or city skyline.

For afternoon entertainment, or bedtime, you could read my poem.

Alternatively, simpler, make a theatre with a stage. Make two dolls or puppets from silhouettes cut from a magazine.

Dolls' House comical poem by Angela Lansbury

 Ava had a little dolly

And the dolly's name was Molly

Molly had a taller sister

And her sister's name was Elsa

The sisters lived in a big house

Which had a dog, a cat, and mouse

A front garden, pots with flowers

A sundial clock counted hours

 

Outside was small blue car

If dolly wanted to go far

And a train in the train station

And police in the police station 

In the hallway was a rug

Where Molly met you with a hug

In the hallway by the window

Was a long inviting settee

When you had nowhere to go

Shut your eyes, dream of the sea - or tea

In the kitchen the best honey

Which had cost a lot of money

In the kitchen was a cook

With an apron, bowl, and book

Upstairs was an attic bed

A pillow where you put your head

And a box with lots of toys

But the toys made no noise

And a wardrobe with a mirror

Where dollies could dress for dinner

And some pictures on the wall

With blue gum to fix them all

On the roof a helipad

Where you could land a little plane

Some of the roof was sloping

Made a runaway for the rain

The roof had statues of a dog

A Noah's ark, tortoise and frog

A cow, a horse, even a bear

A monster with a lot of hair

On the roof the cat with claws

Sat beside the Santa Claus

He hid on the roof all year

Waiting to deliver Christmas cheer

Yes, dolly did have a brother

And a father, and a mother

Dolly-sitter Ava came to stay

When dollies' Dad went on holiday.

But the dolly girls went to school

And the school had lots of rules

About the times when you could play

The long weekends, and holidays.

At bedtime with a sigh

Dolly had to say goodbye

But Dolly was here to stay

Ready to play another day

So Ava shut the door, the house

Put in the cat, put out the mouse

She said, 'dear dollies, please sleep tight

I wish you, both, a very good night'.

-ends-

This poem should have been on my blog on comical poetry but I saved it quickly onto this blog by mistake. Tomorrow I shall add pictures to the version which I have now saved to my poetry blog. 

Toys and DIY

It would be easy to print a tiny list of rules for a school wall, or dolls. house kitchen. Six point type. Or a psotage stamp size piece of white paper with your best calligraphy. Or a piece cut from one of those irritating instruction books in tiny print in multiple languages. Or a postage stamp with the head of the president or king or hero or your country or the country you visit on holiday.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

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

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Why Learn Another Language? (Plus 7 easy Swedish words)

Flag of Esperanto. From Wikipedia.

1 Be Bilingual

 Being bilingual could stave off Alzheimers for five years. Giving you quality of life. Saving you from sad visits to grannies. Saving the government money.

2 Why Start Language Learning With Esperanto?

If you only speak one language, (English and louder English) and are scared of languages, the easiest is to learn Esperanto. It is a made up language designed as an intermediary language for Europeans. 

What use is it?

a) People who learn it go on to learn another language and pick it up faster. 

3 Where can I speak Esperanto?

b) You can find or start Esperanto clubs on Meetup. In the UK there is one in Reading. 

c) Although no country speaks it, you can join the homestay system and stay with another Esperanto speaker for free for three days to practise the language. 

d) Countries like Hungary, whose language has little in common with neighbouring languages, favour Esperanto. Hungary has had Esperanto as an A level.) I bought the Esperato-English dictionary and did a correspondence course in Esperanto. You can see a map of where to find Esperanto speakers.

e) Esperanto speakers hold an annual conference.

3 A sense of achievement

Which languages are easiest? First Esperanto if you are European or speak English. Then Spanish, from that Portuguese or Italian. If you are learning Chinese or Japanese, they are a pair. The written language uses the same symbols, like the no smoking sign and washing symbols, the signs are the same, although the spoken words are different. Bulgarian uses Cyrillic like Russian. Cyrillic combines Greek and Hebrew with new letters. Spoken Arabic and Hebrew are similar. Salaam and Shalom mean peace or hello.  

German and Dutch and the Scandinavian languages are a group. Finland has Swedish as one of two official languages. Chinese (Mandarin) is also used in Taiwan, and Singapore. (Hong Kong uses Cantonese.)

Humour In Language

Lots of mistakes in language are funny in retrospect. I wanted trousers in a US department store. They say pants for trousers and underpants for pants.

I asked for rubbers.  

'Not stocked here. Try a drug store.' 

I found them. I confronted the assistant. 'What's this!'

An eraser.

The American for rubbers is erasers. Rubbers are contraceptives.

Spanish, Italian and Portuguese are a group.

Some simple Swedish words

Swedish - English

1 arkitekt - architect

2 modell  - model

3 polis - police

4 pappa - papa/Dad (notice the a, unlike American Pop)

5 professionell - professional

6 syster - sister

7 tomat - tomato

English - Swedish

1 architect - arkitekt

2 Dad/pop/papa - pappa

3 model - modell

4 police - polis

5 professional - professionell

6 Sister - syster

7 tomato - tomat

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

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An easy language for travellers - ten words which are almost the same

 

Swedish - I wish I had started it earlier. It is like a cross between English and German. 

Look at these words

Swedish - English

är - are

bruna - brown

cat - katt

dotter - daughter

kaffe - coffee

katt - cat

sommar - summer

son - son

syster - sister

tomat - tomato

vinter - winter

English - Swedish

are - är

brown - bruna

daughter - dotter

coffee - kaffe

sister - syster

son - son

summer - sommar

tomato - tomat

winter - vinter

I could not find how to change to Swedish in blogger so I copied the letter a with the two dots above it from translategoogle.

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

https://translate.google.com/

Handy tips which make travelling easy and fun from Angela.

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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.

Daily dose of Spanish words

Hola, todos! (Hi, everyone!)

Problem
How do you tell Spanish from Italian when they sound similar?

Answer
Don't worry about it. Just listen to the sounds on Duolingo and repeat them and recognize them.

When you get to the country, listening is easy. You will hear the words and repeat them correctly in the right language.

Both countries roll the letter r. But Italians more so.

Spanish words are sometimes shorter and simpler.

Both languages, like English, emphasize the first syllable of the word. But Italian more so.

Compare the words in both languages to see the differences, which is longer. Spanish has fewer double letter than English or Italian. For example, the Spanish for ball is bola. Spanish my is mi, whilst the Italian is mio.

(However, the Italian for 'is' is e, whilst the Spanish is es.)

Story
My mother and father learned Italian. Later they bought a small flat in Spain in a block in Marbella. My mother used to laugh that she sometimes said an Italian word when she was trying to think of the Spanish word. However, she understood Spaniards speaking Spanish and made herself understood much better than if she had spoken only English.

Spanish - English
(la) bola - the ball
hermana - sister
hola - hi
la maleta - (the) suitcase
(una) moneda - (a) coin (Moneda sounds and looks like the word money)
(la) moto - the motorcycle (In Spanish the motorcycle is feminine, like when sailors call ships she)
(los) niños - (the) children
teléfono celular - mobile phone
todos - everyone
(el) tren - (the) train


English - Spanish
(the) ball - (la) bolla
(the) children - (los) niños
(a) coin - (una) moneda
everyone - todos (like the word total)
hi - hola
mobile phone - teléfono celular
the motorcycle - the motorcycle
(my) sister - (mi) hermana
the suitcase - (la) maleta
(the) train - (el) train

Tips
www.duolingo.com

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

Russian words for knife and fork - memory aids

I am learning four languages this year through duo lingo free website, Spanish and Italian and German and Russian, trying to do one lesson a day of each.  I tend to do German first and Russian last as it's hardest because the alphabet is different. I am now up to what they call 30% fluent in German which I suppose means I have reached nearly one third (33 and a third per cent) of the way through their first, basic course.  I am only slightly behind in Russian, but now that I am reaching a slightly harder stage, or maybe losing my initial enthusiasm, I am having to re-do the lessons.

Some of the earlier words in Russian were easy and similar to English. Maybe they put the easy words first. Sestr is sister. Brat is brother - and I remembered 'My brother is a brat'.

Knife is nozh. (That's using the phonetic Russian, the way it sounds, not the Russian alphabet - which is another story.) At the moment I am thinking and speaking to you about the way of remembering the word, regardless of how you write it in the Russian alphabet. Once you know what it sounds like, it's easier to translate into the other alphabet. The Duolingo site is starting to put the words in Russian at the opening page which is off-putting as annoyingly they don't put the phonetic translation underneath.

Knife - Nozh
I use my knife to cut my food to nosh. N - 0 - Z - H. The only change is that the s becomes a Z. They almost sound the same.

Fork - vilka
The i l k have three uprights like the tines of a three prong fork. K at the end of the word fork, fork, villa, f and V are similar sounds.  f-v. or remember as if you are German, I vill have a fork-a. Vilka.

When you do the exercise on Duolingo, the words for knife and fork keep coming up again and again. You just need some way of remembering which of the two is which.

Angela Lansbury, author, photojournalist, travel writer and photographer, English teacher (O level, A level, English as a second language, English as a foreign Language) CVs, websites and package translation into English and soon to be languages teacher.

Russian words: my memory aids for Duolingo words

I'm struggling to remember the Russian words. Here are my hints to myself which I hope will help you. I learn the word on Duolingo then go back to test myself.

When you repeat the words several times you remember them. When you are just learning you need to be able to recognise the word - and to remember it when translating the other way, back from English into Russian.

Teaching somebody else reinforces your own memory.

I try to look for similar letters and associations.

Moi - my (m-i) M I
sestri - sisters S ST R revers the vowels in Russia e then i but in English i then e

Girls - devochki - DEV CH_K devoted to chicks - slang for girls in English.The chicks are devoted to chicks. Picture girls cuddling tiny newborn chickens.The chicks are small but the girls are big. The word devochki means girls.

U tebya est' koshki - do you have cats - (think do you take in kittens  T...A  K....I
est mens is in French - not the same but at least you know the middle of the sentence is a verb - I think you take in is it kittens = do you have cats

Plates - in Russian this word has the l and e reversed if you read the word backwards.

e d y a t  (no spaces - but spellcheck keeps changing the word) - eat
E d y A T - EAT

PLAN - PLAN same word in Russian and English

BRaT - BRoTher - (my brother is brat)

Angela Lansbury