Learn Languages Free with Duolingo, Duolingo's Tinycards, Memrise or Earworms - what you get

Problem
Where can I learn Portuguese for Portugal and Madeira? Or for Brazil? And Spanish for Spain. Or Mexico?

Answer
Portuguese Accent For Portugal or Brazil?
I was struggling with the pronunciation of Portuguese in Duolingo, which sounded all wrong. Then I dsocvered I was learnign Brazilian Portuguese. After many holidays in Portugal, although I hadn't realised it, I had absorbed the way the language should sound, and recognize that Brazilian Portuguese is different.

What Do You Need
An interesting test would be to try both courses, the Poruguese for Portugal as well as the Portuguese for Brazil. I imagine that most people would need only one of the other for holidays or work. If you are living in England or Europe you are likely to holiday in Portugal or Madeira. If you are in the USA, you are more likely to holiday in Brazil, or do business with and receive correspondpence from Brazil.

If you are just learning to add another language, you might find it easy to learn both.

The Learning Systems
The sytems of learning are different. Tiny cards starts with sets of reversing cards.

Duolingo
I found Duolingo very easy. It taught whole, simple sentence straight away.  The sentences are not much use. How often do you want to say, I am a woman? You follow the whole system through. You can go back and redo, but you cannot jump forward.

Tiny Cards
Pop over to the tinycards, and you could learn a group of words connected with food, or colours or numbers. You can make your own cards, using Duolingo lessons, your own knowledge of a langauge if you are bilingual, or as revision if you want to remember something, such as the months in another language.

Earworms
The Earworms system starts with sentences you would use sitting on a plane talking to a stranger, or speaking to the steward. I would like a coffee. Another one, please. My name is.

Memrise
Memrise  has little videos of a person saying one word. You match the word to a choice of four. This is surprisingly difficult. Imagine somebody saying 'Yeah' in English and you have to match it up to yes or year or ear? It exlains why you have such trouble understanding epople in any language - including your own. So many people don't speak distinctly, drop the ends of words, run two words together.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker, learner and teacher of English, French and other languages.

Useful websites

https://www.memrise.com/

duolingo.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Tiny cards - got a minute? Spanish verbs

Problem
I've got a minute, waiting for somebody else. too short a time to do anything major. I recall the saying, If you can fill the unforgiving minute - that's from the poem If by Rudyard Kipling.

Two things I can do in my unforgiving minute:
1 Write a motivational poem.
2 Learn a few words of Spanish or Portuguese.

The Spanish tiny cards pops up first. I could go searching for Portuguese, which I am learning, having dropped Spanish in favour of Portuguese because I am planning a trip to Madeira.

Why not search for the Portuguese? Because that wastes time. I may be called away. I've only got a minute.

But won't the Portuguese and Spanish get muddled up?

I would only muddle up going from English. When recognizing the other language it doesn't matter.
So never mind. Better to know and read and recognize word which is one or the other - and recognize it on a sign or poster in Spain or Portugal. I am one step ahead of anybody else and myself last week knowing neither language.

Spanish Verb Tiny Cards
https://tiny.cards/decks/38e806eb-2538-42cc-a850-beece5653acc

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/polyglot-poem-by-angela-lansbury.html
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-to-remember-23-portuguese-words-or.html

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

Make Your Own Tiny Cards - and try out my Tiny Cards on Proverbs (for Travellers)

Problem
Do you want to remember capitals of the world? Somebody has already made a set of tiny cards which you can use to test yourself. Do you want to remember or learn a few words in Chinese or Spanish? Somebody else has already created a tiny cards set. What else do you need to remember/ The best way is to create a set of tiny cards to remind yourself. No point - you are already bilingual. Want to set yourself up as an authority or teacher?

Answer
Create a set of tiny cards. I just made a set of proverbs. To me they all sounded obvious. However, when I tried them out on a member of my family, I was gratified to find that at least one of my cards was entirely new to them. That means that several will be new to other people.

I wanted to find out how it is done. It's ever so easy. Type in the title and you are offered a dozen or more possible covers for your set, different typefaces and styles.

Then you have the front and back cover and type in what you like. I chose English language proverbs.

Subjects covered are what travellers should remember, and include tidiness and being late. Can you guess what the proverbs are?

https://tiny.cards/decks/318d7066-525c-4100-940d-6183771b8169

(In case you are wondering why the tiny cards are in a different name, Lansbury is my maiden name which I use for most of my writing.)

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

Learning Chinese, Japanese and Malay From Railway Station Signs: 6th Avenue!

Picture from Wikipedia showing numbers in various languages. (English, Urdu, Roman, ending with Chinese / Japanese.)

Look at the numbers in the bottom line of the picture. They are Chinese signs for zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Six looks like a standing or seated man: head, two arms, two legs, invisible pavement or invisible seat.

Problem
How do you learn and practise a language every day, effortlessly?

Answer
Learn to recognize station signs. You see them every day as you pass.  Learn Chinese signs and you have also learned Japanese. The reverse benefit applies. Learn Japanese signs and you have also learned Chinese!

Railway Station - Botanical Gardens
For example. I was sitting at the Singapore station Botanical Gardens which is a point of interchange from the blue Downtown line. I looked at the three Chinese signs for Botanical Gardens and said to my companion: "I wonder which of those signs means garden?"

Translating Photos And Text
We took a photo of the sign with our phones. However, you cannot put a sign into Google translate. So we tried the other way round. We could not type in the word garden in Chinese. So we typed in Garden, in English, and looked to see if we had a match with the word which came up and our photo.

Sixth Avenue
Another stop on the Downtown line is Sixth Avenue. I was looking at the English words Sixth Avenue when the Chinese signs alongside jumped out at me.

Hey - the middle of the three signs is a number I recognize! I learned the numbers one to ten last week. That's the number six!

It's not where I would expect it. The number six is the middle of three signs. It so happens that six is one of the Chinese numbers I found hardest to remember. One, two, and three, are easy to remember because they are simply horizontal lines, one line for one, two lines for two, three lines for three. Four is a square with two curves inside like a curtained window. But six bears no relations to anything.

However, now I shall be able to remember six easily. From just once glance at it on the railway station the number six is instantly ingrained in my memory. It will be reinforced every time I pass through that station. The sign shows a man on Sixth Avenue station standing or sitting waiting for the train.

You are likely to see Chinese signs if you live in or holiday in Singapore, Hong Kong, or China. You will also see signs on Chinese restaurants in Chinatown in large cities. More are in any country with borders with China or large numbers of Chinese investors or visitors. I saw signs in Cambodia, which has a lot of investment from China in Siem Reap, the city around the temples of which the famous one is Ankor Wat, Wat meaning temple.

Happy hunting with Chinese and Malay and French and other signs.

In Singapore I was a volunteer at an English enrichment programme at Crescent Girls' School. We helped girls who had failed mock O level to pass the exam. They all passed (except one who was in hospital).

Every day I receive reminders from Duolingo and Duolingo Tiny Cards to keep up my Chinese. Even if I did not use their system (and I do use it every day) the daily reminders would be invaluable.

Happy learning. Thank you (for reading). 'Shay shay', which means thank you in Chinese, is what I hear on every train journey at the end of Chinese announcement. I also hear the Malay ones ending Terimah Kasih (thank you in Malay) and 'Mandri' (thank you in Tamil).

But my top triumph is spotting the number six in the sign for Sixth Avenue.

 Multilingual signs everywhere.

Multi-lingual signs on trains - and local people will help you to translate.

Stations and bus stops - whilst waiting around, time to learn languages.

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

Using Duolingo's Tiny Cards To Learn The Chinese Numbers One to Ten

Problem
When I first started using Duolingo tiny cards, the numbers one to ten appeared in random order.

Answer
That was because I missed the first lesson. At first, all the numbers one to ten appear on tiny cards not moved left to right across your screen but downwards. On my small phone, I saw only one card. I then moved the cards off to the left and started on the multiple choice quiz.

I also did not know how to start the next set of cards. In the larger and more clear lessons for a laptop, you will get instructions such as 'continue'. Tap on that to continue.

However, on the phone there's no room. So you get a small circular blue symbol. Click on that and up comes a lesson.

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

Learning 100 words in Spanish

Problem
I've been trying to learn Spanish for years, but not consistently. Which books have I used?

Answer
I went to my shelves and was surprised. Years ago I bought Usborne First Hundred Words in Spanish sticker book, large format, ideal for children and beginners. I can see from the stickers how far I got with each lesson. You can use the book to teach yourself, your children, or somebody else who needs help or babysitting.

This is how children learn to speak. Researchers have analysed language learning and found that it is consistent across several languages which are like English, learning nouns first. (However, I seem to remember that some languages learn verbs, doing words first.)

Babsitting
Why did I never finish? I did not have a clear goal with a date (such as an exam to pass at the end of the year).  I did not have a babysitter. A babysitter? For whom? For myself, as a pupil, a learner.

I shall make up a new word. A babysiteacher. When I taught as a home tutor, I was often not so much a teacher as a babsiteacher.

If the mother did not speak English and wanted to escort a young child, she sat behind. For example, a Japanese mother learned alongside the pupil, but the pupil got the undivided attention.

Parents would bring me older pupils who would not get homework done at home. Mother wanted to go shopping or collect another child. My job was supposedly to teach. But it was to ensure that the pupil completed the homework assignment.

StoryAbout Teaching Languages
I realized this for the first time when teaching a teenager whose mother worked at Heathrow airport. I was her English teacher. My job was to see that she wrote an English sonnet for homework. She just had to sit at a desk and do it, not make coffee, not phone a friend, neither she nor I did any of this during the hour. (I'll tell this story in my next post.) That's what you need to learn a language, whether it's English or Spanish, it's five minutes a day or an hour a week, nonstop until you finish the course and the year. Whether you get an O level or A level or any other qualification, the test is that you can speak or at least understand the language when you read it or hear it, preferably both.

Back to the Spanish. The other Usborne book, Usborne Spanish for beginners, is smaller, so I could carry it around more easily in a copious handbag, any day, or on a holiday to Spain or anywhere else. It has whole sentences.

What is missing? If you are in the country, or with Spanish people, you can pick up the accent from them.

Speaking Spanish
I go to a Toastmasters speakers group in London which has a Spanish speaking member. Even listening to her speaking English helps me to attune to the intonation. I am considering starting a polyglot Spanish
 Usborne books which have several words on a page with a theme.

Now I am learning the first 100 words on Duolingo's Tinycards. It is better to use the regular Duolingo system, which gives you sentences. Then you can hold a conversation. But if I am short of time, I feel like using the Tinycards.

Emails arrive every day to remind you to do the assignment. I must not interrupt my other work. But I can take a coffee break and learn my Spanish at the same time.

Doing Tinycards I can see where I am making mistakes. I also find ways to remember.I was learning the word este for this. I kept forgetting it. The reversing card would come up again, then the line to fill in. Finally, when I had a multiple choice of three words I looked at the word construction. Obviously the word for this was not el or por. Por is for (and two other meanings). I only have to remember por and for to fix this word in my brain with the matching English word. The  O and R are common to both words, in the right order. But what about este? E S T E.  THIS. T H I S.

Let's look at that again. E S T E.  T H I S. Not tes, not these, but this. Este - this. I got it.

Spanish - English
por - for
este - this

English - Spanish
for - por
this - este

It is particularly important to get the word exactly right if you are also learning Italian or Portuguese.

The sticker book says, not suitable for children under 36 months. Contains small parts.

You could buy the book and keep it out of reach for later, learn from it and photocopy the pages to read to a toddler, without having to worry that they might grab it when you were distracted.
The big book cost me £3.99. I must have paid £8.25 for the other. (Those were the days!) It seems a lot for a book to me today. But less than paying a private teacher for a one hour lesson.

Useful websites:
Amazon books
www.amazon.co.uk
www.amazon.com
Usborne books:
https://www.usborne.com/quicklinks/eng/catalogue/catalogue.aspx?area=L (Languages)
www.duolingo.com/courses
www.duolingo.com/courses
www.tinycards.duoingo.com

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

CHINESE: Learning to speak Chinese - at last - I've got t!

Problem
I've tried to learn Chinese about four times. From books. From recorded discs. All too tiring and difficult.

Answer
At last I've found an easy start. Tiny cards from Duolingo. The lessons are short. Four cards in five minutes. You get to see the words but don't need to recognize them. The only one I know is the one I remember which was a horizontal oblong with a vertical bar down the middle, like a double flag on a flagpole.

Symbols
I saw that sign in Hong Kong. My friend who spoke Chinese (that means Mandarin) said it was the sign for central, meaning China.  The Chinese in the old days considered themselves the centre of the world, their world, the universe. Doesn't everybody!

I don't need to recognize the words in picture writing. I only need to learn the pinyin, the phonetics and 'English' writing.

Similar Sounds
You are given a flash cards which reverses and try to remember it. Then you see three sets of phrases in Chinese which you must match to the English.

Some of it seems obvious. The phrase for 'tiger mother; includes the word ma, like mama.
The word for boss looks like ban. Both words start with the letter b. The bad boss bans everything.

Some you half know from memory and process of elimination. The one phrase I know is happy new year (Chinese New Year). It sounds like Gong Chi Fa Choy. I can eliminate that from a which of three is this phrase guessing game.  I know lots of girls have names which sound like way or May, meaning beautiful.

If I get it wrong, only two more chances, then I know the right answer. I can only get it wrong two times out of three, then I win again.

The Tiny Cards are currently (Oct 2017) on laptops, not on the small screen of your phone. But they will be soon I'm sure.

If you want to learn Chinese and could never get started, try it.

Best of all, it's free. Nothing to lose. At the end of the day I can read through my emails and see the reminder to use the Tiny Cards. If I am too tired to do anything else, I can learn a few words of my chosen language. It's good to end the day with an achievement.

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

Freebie Websites, Airmiles, Discounts, Points and Savings

Everybody likes to get something free. If you don't need a free gift, you can give it to somebody else, friends, family, somebody who would love it, somebody who needs it, a charity, a raffle.

Freebie sites are also useful for services, such as courses, to tempt you to try something new, even if you don't have the time or the money right now.

Some discounts are available only to local residents, others, such as duty free shops in Singapore, only for foreign visitors who can show passports and/or return air ticket.

If you go to work temporarily overseas, then get offered a permanent job, and become resident overseas, you may then be able to buy new goods in the UK and take them duty free back to your foreign home eg furniture or a musical instrument. You need to keep your receipt of purchase if you are traveling back and forth with something large and expensive such as a camera or video recorder.

My favourite free sites include:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/membership.aspx

City Cards and passes - some just museums, others just transport, others both:
New York pass card
https://www.newyorkpass.com/

Reykjavik Museums, shops, swimming pools and buses:
http://www.icelandair.co.uk/holidays/package/reykjavik-city-card/

Discount DIY
B & Q discount card; money off voucher on sign up when you spend your first £30; also Diamond club giving 10% discount on Wednesdays to those aged over 60.
http://www.diy.com/bandqclub

Free Languages
www.duolingo.com
www.duolingotinycards

Free Healthcare
UK NHS.
www.nhs

For details on obtaining the form to get you free health care in Europe go to:
http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/healthcareabroad/ehic/pages/about-the-ehic.aspx

USA - look for the local free hospital or clinic online, for example this one in New York:
http://nycfreeclinic.med.nyu.edu

Free Coupons and vouchers
www.vouchercodes.com

Late Booking Hotel and Holiday Discounts
www.lastminute.com

Free magazines and newspapers
Waitrose weekend magazine free to regular shoppers with the loyalty card (which is free)

Supermarket and Store Loyalty Points
Boots Advantage card
http://www.boots.com/?cm_mmc=bmm-_-Google+Boots+Main+Account-_-Boots+-+Brand-_-Boots+Advantages

Morrisons More Card
https://my.morrisons.com/more/

Tesco Club Card
https://secure.tesco.com/clubcard

My Waitrose Card
http://www.waitrose.com/home/mywaitrose/mywaitrose_ts_cs.html

Wholesale Bulk Buy Food Groceries Household Supplies
If you have a shop or business or organise club events or hold parties and meetings, have a huge family or like to bulk buy
Costco
http://www.warehouses.costco.co.uk/membership/

Airlines' Loyalty Schemes
Star Alliance

Hotel Loyalty Schemes

Memberships
Art Card
Friend of the museum

Restaurant Offers
Sign up for the newsletters of restaurants and pubs to be sent seasonal offers and birthday offers.
For example, Cafe Rouge sends me mailing of offers and birthday offers.
https://www.caferouge.com/offers

I shall be updating this page as I find new offers.

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

Murals In Spain: Estepona and the routes of murals and international poetry, some Spanish

Problem
Where are the murals in Spain?

Answers
Estepona on the south coast towards Gibraltar has some great murals. Brightens up dull walls. Lots of human interest. A large face of a boy. A girl on a swing.
Ruta de los murales - route of the murals

Route of Poetry
Estepona also has a route of poetry. You can read English authors such as Shakespeare, who was a poet, writing sonnets as well as plays, and German Rilke, Arabic and more. As a plus, the poems are in the original languages as well as the translated into Spanish. Keep you mobile phone geared up to translate with Google translate or another ap. A little tour around the world and the world's poets and the world's languages.

La Peseta sculpture in Estepona, Spain.

Also see the street art sculpture La Peseta, showing an old coin, the asymmetrical bullring with a bullfighting museum, and the Botanical garden with fountains, a clock tower and more museums. Nearest big city Malaga, Nearest airport, Gibraltar. More details in Wikitravel.

Spanish - English
calle - street
de - of
las - the, singular
los - the, plural, as in Los Angeles meaning the angels
flores - flowers
murales - murals
plaza - square or place
poesia - poetry
ruta - route

English - Spanish
of - de
flowers - fores
murals - murales
poetry - poesia
route - ruta
square or place - plaza
street - calle
the - los

Websites
https://www.spain-holiday.com/Estepona/articles/the-estepona-murals-ruta-de-murales-artisticos
https://www.spain-holiday.com/Estepona/articles/poetry-along-esteponas-ruta-de-la-poesia

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Teacher of English and foreign languages. See my previous posts on murals and learning Spanish. You can learn Spanish for free online using duolingo. They also have tiny cards on which you can record words or fact you wish to remember and flip them by clicking on them to see the translation or question and answer. Please share links to your favourite posts.