How To Learn Chinese On Duolingo

For several months I was making slow progress in Chinese on Duolingo. Then I found out what I was doing wrong.

I would look at four angular sets of squiggles, asked to guess which one was a particular sound, pick one at random and turn on to the next page.

Then I would be presented with a set of squiggles and the sounds to match. I would pick a sound and pick a squiggle at random.

It all seemed such nonsense. Random. Pointless. Useless. I was not learning eanyting.

Why not start with  two word sentence which means something and learn the sound and the picture?

To add to the annoyance, the international phonetic script bears no relation to English. I recently found out why. It is supposed to be understood without confusion by people who read languages other than English.

Finally, the three of four different tones are shown by teeny lettersot or numbers, not in black but a paler contrast colour, too small, hard to read on a phone in daylight, impossible in bed at night with a table lamp.

Finally I found the solution, the two things I was doing wrong.

1 On the first page, with four large random signs, guess which sound they are, whether your answer is wrong, or right by good luck, look at the sign and learn it. Keep presssing on the microphone button to repeat the sound. Look for a horizontal line and find a way of remembering the sign.

Do not go onto the next page until you have learned that sign.

On the next page, immediately look for the sign you learned on the previous page, whilst it is still in your memory.

Now, here's the vital part. Duolingo does not seem to have any instructions. I was clicking on Chinese symbols and the arabic or roman alphabet translations at random.

But when you click on the symbol first it plays the sound. You can then attempt to match the sound you hear to the written version.

Even if I have only learned one or two of the symbols in a session, that is a whole lot better than learning nothing.

Duolingo Language Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duolingo

About the Author

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

I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a travel writer and photographer 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 language evaluator or grammarian.  We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and other language 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 to type and easier to remember: 

 tinyurl.com/BHACOOL

Useful Websites

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

https://www.facebook.com/angela.lansbury.121

https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogs

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/04/how-to-say-thank-you-in-several.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/05/introducing-yourself-in-english-spanish.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/01/second-set-of-portuguese-words.html Please share links to your favourite posts

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

translate.google.com

duolingo.com

For chats to other users of Duolingo you can go to the forum on the language which you are leanring. You can opt to be sent updates by the system
.
Hello@duolingo.com

Where To See The Hong Kong Flag And Its Symbol

The Hong Kong flag.

The Hong Kong flag is red.

The Hong Kong flag's background colour is like the flag of China. No coincidence.


The Flag of China.

On the flag of Hong Kong, the white pattern is the orchid, symbol of Hong Kong.

A large model of the orchid is in the square.


The Hong Kong Orchid in Hong Kong on the Golden Bauhinia Square in Wan Chai.

Every day, if you get up early, at 8.30 am you can see the flag raising ceremony and hear the national anthem.

Wiki usefully explains:

 Enhanced Flag Raising Ceremony (on the 1st of every month, except July and October) and the Special Flag Raising Ceremony (1 July and 1 October).

The daily ceremony includes regular attire and includes the playing of the national anthem, while the enhanced ceremony includes a flag-raising party of Hong Kong police officers, accompanied by a rifle unit all in ceremonial dress, and also includes the playing of the national anthem by the Police Band followed by a 10-minute musical performance by the Police Pipe Band.^[2]

Since July 2008, on the second Sunday of each month, the flag raising ceremony is conducted by different local youth uniformed groups (UGs). The UGs conduct the daily flag raising ceremony (i.e. the flag party consists of five members: one commander, two national flag raisers and two regional flag raisers) without a band performance.

The monument is outside the Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Hong Kong language is Cantonese.

Wan Chai is on the north shore of Hong Kong Island.

At the time of writing, Feb 2020, Hong Kong has been off limits for many tourists. (See wikivoyage for update and your country's government advice to travellers.)
As it is part of China, and in the region, the corona virus is also a concern to travellers. However, even if one's next trip has to be postponed for a while, as armchair travellers, it is a delight to learn about the flags and sights of another country.

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Bauhinia_Square
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Chai
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Hong_Kong
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Singapore
Duolingo has Chinese (Mandarin) rather than Cantonese but it is still a help.


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

Learn another Chinese Sign, for East in Chinese - using the railway station map

Singapore flag.

Singapore is a great place for learning Chinese (Mandarin). As I walked from the Yio Chu Kang bus station towards the Grassroots Community Club Building, I passed a sign which said in English, For Alighting Only. So you could get off the bus, but not onto it.



The last of the four signs looks like a letter 4 with other lines around it. It means car or carriage, in this context bus.

Afterwards I went back and checked another sign which looks like the number 4.

Check Your MRT Map
On the MRT map showing the railway lines you will see the English on the map.
Legend
East West Line (green)
North South Line  (red)
North East (purple)

Then look at the Chinese on the next concertina fold.
You can check the signs for East and West against some of the station names such as Jurong East - which is in the west! (Station 24 on the East West line, marked EW24, but also NS1, North South 1 or first station.)

Then look back at the names for the lines.
The Chinese sign for the East-West line is in the same order as the English, East first on the left.

Nearby on the page on the left is the Tuas West Road MRT station, EW 32.

However, two other signs for the train lines are in a different order. East North. South North. Instead of the English which is North East and North South.

East Symbol in Mandarin
Let us go back to East West. The sign for East has only one horizontal line above the four. The downward line of the four curves like a J. Two samll lines diagonally and separate at lower sides of the J point in different directions like a boat rowing to the East thought the many islands of Indonesia and to the island of Singapore.

The one which looks like it incorporates the number 4 means East.
What's the difference between the two signs containing what looks like 4?.

The 4 above meaning car or carriage has two parallel lines the same as the bar on the four, one above and one below. Like the roof and floor of the railway carriage or car or bus.

The sign for East



Useful Websites

You can learn Chinese (Mandarin) on Duolingo.
Duolingo
duolingo.com

Travel
singaporeair.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts. The previous post tell you what the other three signs mean.

How to set an alarm with your phone

Problem
Worried about being up in time for breakfast before catching a plane or attending a conference?

Answer
Set a phone alarm. Ask a friend to show you, or check on line for your brand of phone. On one of my family's phones this is how it works:

Look for the clockface symbol. Click on it. You are offered several options in another set of symbols along the bottom of the screen. One is 'alarm'.

You may have some alerts already set. You can slide the white bubble across the green with a touch of your fingertip to set the alarm, or slide it back to cancel.

Nothing happening? Look for the small text at the top of the screen saying edit. Press that and up pops the numbers of a 24-hour clock. Seven or 07.00 with be 7 a.m., seven in the morning. 19.00 will be seven in the evening.  Slide the numbers up and down.

You may be asked whether you want the alarm repeated on that day of the week each week.

At the end of the 24 hours, check and decide how to cancel or change any alarms.

Make sure your phone is plugged in near enough to the bed for you to hear it. Make sure you remember to take the phone with you the next day.

You can do other things to help ensure you are up in time. For example, have a hotel breakfast delivered in the room. Find out how accurate their delivery timing will be. Tell reception you are catching a plane.

You can also set an alarm to remind yourself to go to bed early so you get enough sleep and wake on time.

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

Litter and Recycling Plastic - How To Learn From Other Countries And The Past

 Recycling bin with clear labels for households in Singapore showing what can be recycled using this bin and what can't. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

One problem easily solved is that you need two adjacent bins with one slot for plastic or glass bottles and another for different rubbish. It could be done like coin machines. Make bottles in four sizes and have round or square holes the size for each bottle. Adjacent and attached (although perhaps detachable?) is another bin with letter box style slits for plastic bags. You could even make the bins look like bottles and bags. I've stood in foreign airports trying to read the list of what goes in which bin and been baffled. You also need a drain in which you can empty the contents, the liquid dregs of the bottle.

COLOURS
As for colour schemes, there's no international standard and it's counter-intuitive. In Harrow in NW London, green which you would think would be the friendly recycling bin is for non-recycling. Blue is for recycling.

If you drop the item in the wrong bin, the only way to retrieve it is to reach inside a dirty bin getting your sleeves dirty. However, you can't reach the bottom because it's longer than your arm. So then you have to empty the entire mess onto the drive. Ten minutes wasted.

You can spend a minute an item looking for the recycling symbol and then you get an ambiguous message, recyclable in some areas. Most people don't know there are several symbols for types of plastic. It would be simpler if plastic packaging had numbers and colours as well.

SHAPES
You could also print wrapping paper with an amusing recycling symbol or background stripes, dots and diagonals. Alternatively, or to save confusion, a coloured frame with wavy edges, to save having to hunt for instructions on the corners or guess.

Bins could cary the message, this bin recycles red circle symbol packages. This packaging is blue triangle two. This box for green tree three. Then even a foreigner or a child or a person with Alzheimers can see to match the blue or blue dot package with the blue bin and the green tree symbol with the green tree bin.

The bin itself can be designed in the shape of a bottle or tree. That's been done with animals shapes and even sounds like barking and thanking you to encourage children to feed litter into bins.

This was done successfully in the UK in the nineteen fifties and / or sixties.

You can also give pocket money to children, make the unemployed work for their money, give money to the homeless, but giving money back on returned bottles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-

Article on success of Norwegian system of deposits on bottles.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker.

What does this Chinese symbol mean? Red packet - prosperity? When can you use it?

Problem
I had a red packet and wanted to know the meaning. My first thought was to take it to an event attended by some speakers of Chinese (nowadays meaning Mandarin) but the symbols are common to speakers of Chinese dialects as well as Japanese speakers.

I realised it was not necessary to carry the packet and risking damaging it or losing it. I could take a photo.

The packet is red. The Chinese like red, especially for red packets containing money.

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

My friend told me the first symbol on the left showed clothes. The second symbol on the right has a square divided into four which means field or land and property.  The two together indicate prosperity. 

This symbol is a common wish for new year, Chinese New Year. However, it will also be suitable for other occasions, such as a wedding.

The same sign is hung upside down in houses as a goodwill message meaning prosperity is on its way!

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

Please share your favourite posts.

Learning to Blog on Blogger

I have been on this blogging site for years but only recenty discovered how to make my website names turn into links. It's so simple. You click on the website name in your text and highlight it. Then click on the word link in the middle of the symbols across the top of your text screen.

Why did I never learn that before? I said to myself what I would say if I were teaching somebody else:

Don't be afraid. Just click on each symbol left to right and see what comes up. Yes, you may forget at first. But do it every day for a week and you'll soon get familiar with each symbol and what it can do for you.

I started following my own advice, clicking on the symbols. I thought I knew almost all of them although I regularly use only a few. I think you will be as amazed as I was at what I found. The big surprise was the little face symbol. I'll come to that later. I'll take each symbol in logical order.

Left arrow. That's undo. Really handy. Right arrow is redo (or restore).

F is font.
Click on the downwards arrow.
Default fonts are: Arial courier georgia Helvetica Times Trebuschet and Verdana.

T is text (size)
Smallest, small, normal, large and largest.

 If you have copied a piece of text from elsewhere, such as Wikipedia, and inserted it, you might find you now have two pieces of texts in different sizes. You can increase the size of the small text to make it more readable. Or reduced the size of a footnote.

B is for bold.
I is for Italic.
U underscored is underline.

ABC struck through - why would you need this? I suppose a teacher could show a pupil a delted word which was wrongl spelled, or correcting a proof but leaving the original visible but not part of your text.

The Large A underscored is text colour.

If you copy a text from elsewhere and it appears in green or blue you can change it back to black.

The paintbrush is for text background colour. Probably most useful when you make a text box like a poster with a word against a background, or to highlight parts of your text.

If you have a drama script for an amateur dramatics play or skit, you might highlight with a background yellow colour the parts which you speak. Highlight in green background the last sentence or last two words which are the cue from the other character that you should be ready to speak.

Link turns the website name into another colour when you hover over it. When you click on it you, the reader, automatically get connected to the website.

The movie clipboard symbolises video if you want to insert video.

Smiley face. What did I think it was? Maybe a smiley face?

Yes, indeed, if you want to insert smiley faces and emoticaons.

Also a host of other symbols including:
the Euro symbol of a £ or $ sign,
an umbrella, a bicycle for a map.
Mahjong and domino pieces.
See Hebrew and Arabic and Aramaic.
Chinese. Cuneform.

The Symbols On A German Beer: for example, Lowenbrau at Oktoberfest

Problem
What's the local wine or beer? How do I remember it? What does the symbol mean? What does the name mean?

Answer
Germans Oktoberfest is the biggest beer festival in the world attracting 6 million people. (Now you know why you have to go early in the day to get a seat
The local, made in Munich, beer is called Löwenbrau. (To insert the two dots above the vowel o when typing, hold down the o until a pop up appears. Then you will see that the number two appears under the dots. Pres the key for two (with the fourth finger of your left hand) and, as if by magic the vowel appears on the screen complete with the correct dots.

Löwenbräu (/ˈlɜːrvənbrɔɪ/; German pronunciation: [ˈløːvn̩bʁɔʏ]) is a brewery in Munich owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Its name means "lion's brew" in German. 

Their symbol is a golden lion with a red tongue - maybe hanging out because it is thirsty. The golden lion is contrasted with a blue background surrounded by a gold circle frame. I presume is intended to convey the maker's belief or the customer's reassurance that the beer is of the best quality.

More information from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest

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

Welsh Word For Today

Red dragon, symbol of Wales. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

Problem
The dragon is the symbol of Wales. The Welsh and English words both begin with dra, but are pronounced differently. How do I remember how to say a Welsh Word? (Draig for dragon is pronounced Dry - g.)

Answer
When you see a double vowel, make up a sentence using the pronunciation.

For example

English - Welsh - Pronunciation of Welsh - Sentence
dragon - draig - dry-g - drag a dragon but dry a Welsh dragon's eye

Where did I learn the pronunciation? From Duolingo. The voice is computer generated. I learned that from a forum.

More transalations and pronunciations from:
www.duolingo.com
googletranslate

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

How to copyright mark your photos, illustrations, maps or other images

If you send other people photos or drawings or paintings you made on holiday or business trips or presentations such as Powerpoint or Mosaic or Keynote (on Apple) you might wish to watermark them.

You might find that putting on a copyright mark prevents your pictures being uploaded to some media.

Two ways I know of for doing this.

1 Text Box
The easiest way. Add a text box over the photo. Type in the words 'Copyright' followed by your name. Save.

I'm using the word copyright spelled out because some of the people to whom I'm sending photos, and somer readers of websites, are not even very clear on copyright and symbols.

2 Photoshop Elements
Use a photo editing system such as Photoshop Elements and add the copyright symbol. The simple Photoshop Elements can probably be bought for under £100. They keep updating it. My friendly photographer says he buys every other version.

When you buy Photoshop Elements you are sent two installing discs and instruction books. One installing disc is for Apple system. Instructions are also on the web.

First you insert the disc to install. This is why I need a laptop with a slot for inserting discs. I had a MacBook Air without a disc slot. It was a real nuisance.

First you have to install the installer. I got a message saying cannot install. Probably because the disc had not ben recognised. I waited. The installing whirred. I watched the download bar. Time passed. Ten minutes to go, nine, eight, seven, back up to eight. It's not me, and it's not you. Don't panic. That's the way it is.

You are asked to insert your buyer's number, serial number. I thought that would be on the box. It is on the package inside the box. Copy that out.

I am using just the simplest version, which is cheaper. The professional version is too expensive for me and my business. In any case it is so complicated at this stage it would confuse me.

Within Photoshop Elements, you have lots of choices to make. When you click on the watermark symbol you get boxes to fill in or select. You might want to adjust the opacity (opposite of see-through or transparent). Increase the font size - according to the site of your photo. Make the font bold or a bolder font.

At the end nothing happens until you have selected your choice in all the boxes. Then you need to be sure you have remembered to click on done or accept at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes I find the done box is not visible and I have to scroll down.

Saving Watermarked Photos
My professional photographer helper saved all my watermarked photos in a separate file labelled watermarked. He names the file images. I asked, 'Why not just call it photos?' He answered: 'Because you might save items which are not photos, such as illustrations, for examples, charts or drawings.'

Images
My caricatures are currently all saved as photos of caricatures. Maybe later, I'll get proficient at drawing on a computer, and filing my computer drawings. At the moment I'm drawing on the computer and using my mobile to take a photo of the drawing, which is automatically saved in date order, in case I lose the online drawing or delete it.

Little steps, little advances, a little learning every day.

Angela Lansbury, author, photographer and illustrator (caricatures and more).
Follow me and like my pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Twitter.

Why your travel video won't upload to your blog

After uploading a video to your blog it is a good idea to go to view and see what your audience is seeing. I loaded up a video and no video displayed, just an icon for a video but when you clocked on it nothing happened.

With the help of a friend, I looked at the HTML (text coding which tells you what is happening in detail). This simply confirmed what we already knew, that no video was showing, just the logo for click here.

I then remembered what had happened once before and realised my mistake. My photos and videos are all stored in one place when downloaded to my laptop from my mobile phone. The photos and videos all go into a photo album.

However, if you look at the top of the blogger editing page, you see two symbols, one for uploading photos and one for uploading videos. I had clicked on photos, then opened my laptop photo section and clicked on choose on the video.

So I went to edit blog post and deleted the photo of the click for video symbol not linked to anything.

Then I went into the blog post and clicked on the video symbol. You have to wait a while for the video to load up. I didn't dare to interrupt it.

However, I was too impatient to wait. So I opened file open, new window, to write this post as a reminder to myself and a help to you and others.

When I went back to edit, I clicked on update. When I went back to View, I could see the progress bar under the video symbol. I moved the slider under the video. I now have the video on the blog. Hurray!

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