Simple easy to remember Spanish words

 

Spanish - English

ahora - now (nOw is the HOuR)

alto - high (like altitude)

animales - animals

ayer - yesterday (AYe - scottish for yes, YEsteRday)

carne - meat (like carnivore)

Dormitorio - bedroom

los dientes - teeth (like dentist and dental work and dentistry)

me - me

naranja - orange, add the n in front, an orange used to be a norange in English

viento - wind (like ventilation)

invierno - winter , like the French for winter,  hiver, change v to b and you hibernate, to get through the winter by sleeping in a duvet (spelled with a v)

English  Spanish

animals - animales

bedroom - dormitorio

high - alto

me -me

meat - carne

now - ahora

orange - naranja

teeth - los dientes

wind - viento

winter - invierno

yesterday - ayer

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How the haze affects swimming, travelling, temperature and breathing

Singapore flag.

Pool with blue sky. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Pool with white sky. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

My relatives in Singapore look out of the window and decide whether to go swimming in the nearby pool which is visible from the window.

The first question I ask myself is, how do you feel?

You could then go by the published and online pollution indexes, which vary according to whether you are in the west or centre or south or north. Yesterday in Singapore's West and other areas the raedings all day were in their sixties.

Under 100 is ok, say my family.

You can judge by whether you are clearing your throat and have itchy eyes.

But even if it's ok for the fit and healthy or those taking a short walk, what about sport or jogging or doing exercise outdoors or for long periods? How is it affecting you, especially if any of you and your family are in the vulnerable groups, children, pregnant, or the elderly?

Visibility
You can see the distant hill silhouetted green against the sky, which is good. But the whole sky is white, not blue with white clouds, but almost uniform white. If the place is deserted and everybody is wearing masks, a bad sign.

Swimmers Out And About?
If you see a swimmer, still doubtful. A swimming class? Small children? Obviously the teacher doesn't want to lose money. But what if mothers cancel out of concern for their children?

I went down and the swimming instructor greeted me.

"Water cold," he said.

The swimming instructor usefully informed me: "Haze - no sun. Wind cools water."

I replied, "I thought that the wind moved the clouds and blew away the smoke and the haze."

"Yes, but wind also cools water."

(I later reported this to a member of my family who is a teacher. He commented, "A good thing the swimming instructor isn't teaching them English."

I replied, " No, but he is teaching me the sentence construction in Chinese. Chinese means Mandarin - although many people in Singapore speak dialects such as Hokkien.)

After swimming, back to learning Chinese.

That was my experience of haze in Singapore in September 2019.

Swimming outdoors is one of the attractions of Singapore. Knowledge of how to judge haze and investigate haze online is handy. It could be useful to you anywhere in the world or later in the year, or just for general knowledge and conversation with people who have come back from countries affected by haze.

Useful Websites
HAZE
National Environmental Agency (Singapore)
https://www.haze.gov.sg/resources/readings-over-the-last-24-hours
https://www.haze.gov.sg/resources/portable-air-cleaners
https://www.haze.gov.sg/resources/air-cleaning-devices

LEARN CHINESE
chineasy.com
duolingo.com

TRAVEL TO & FROM ASIA
singaporeair.com

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. i have other posts on haze, Singapore, Asia, the UK, learning languages and more. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Fish pond in Community Centre in Singapore

Harrow in north west London in England put out an appeal for suggestions when redeveloping the town centre. I had some ideas, and pictures. 

In Singapore water features are included for feng shui. Feng shui which means wind water. That is a succinct way of saying being calmly and harmoniously in tune with surroundings and environment. 

Harrow, and developers and architects worldwide, please copy the idea of water features.  

See my later post on fish.

Fish pond in Community Club, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

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Cooking while camping overnight up a mountain update with websites at end

I was astonished to hear that Sherpas had cooked a birthday cake on the way up Everest for one of the climbers. How do you cook on a mountainside? How do you cook when you don't have sherpas and yaks or other animals carrying all your cooking gear?

When you are climbing a mountain and eating lunch or company overnight you may want to cook. But because you are walking uphill you want your cooking get to be as light as possible.

A second consideration is that you cannot take some kinds of larger cooking devices on airplanes when flying to foreign destination.

One solution is the compact solid fuel stove which cove with fuel. All you need is your food, your match or lighter and a small saucepan (or a cook in the pan meal if you can find one or make one with a base suitable for over a stove like this).

I have photographed it with a spoon, knife and fork to show how small it is. 

Pull it out of the pack and you find a small hanged metal container which opens from the centre like a double door. The white fuels are shown.

This is what it looks like with a normal size frying pan on top.

This model of cooker is designed in two positions, one for use when in normal weather conditions and the other when there is wind. This one was bought from Amazon for a trip up a mountain in Indonesia.

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

Cooking while camping overnight up a mountain

I was astonished to hear that Sherpas had cooked a birthday cake on the way up Everest for one of the climbers. How do you cook on a mountainside? How do you cook when you don't have sherpas and yaks or other animals carrying all your cooking gear?

When you are climbing a mountain and eating lunch or company overnight you may want to cook. But because you are walking uphill you want your cooking get to be as light as possible.

A second consideration is that you cannot take some kinds of larger cooking devices on airplanes when flying to foreign destination.

One solution is the compact solid fuel stove which cove with fuel. All you need is your food, your match or lighter and a small saucepan (or a cook in the pan meal if you can find one or make one with a base suitable for over a stove like this).

I have photographed it with a spoon, knife and fork to show how small it is. 

Pull it out of the pack and you find a small hanged metal container which opens from the centre like a double door. The white fuels are shown.

This is what it looks like with a normal size frying pan on top.

This model of cooker is designed in two positions, one for use when in normal weather conditions and the other when there is wind. This one was bought from Amazon for a trip up a mountain in Indonesia.

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

Going to a concert or opera? Some musical terms

Going to a concert or opera? Reading the reviews in advance? Here are some words you might wish to translate for your own benefit or for your adult or child companions.

bass - low, could be an instrument such as the double bass, bass tubor, in jazz means the double bass string instrument
baton - stick for conducting
brio - liveliness, con brio means playing in a lively style. Gusto is a similar word.
caveat - warning
cogent
conundrum - puzzle
duplicitous - cheating
farcical - ridiculous, nonsensical randy or on heat
finale - final or end set-piece
ingenious - clever, intricate
libretto - from the word book, the book of the music
liturgy - scriptures
lubricious - randy or on heat
lyric - words to the song, verse
masquerade - masked, pretending
mezzo soprano - mezzo is middle as in mezzanine
oratorio - style of music, usually a liturgical setting (holy or church)
poignant - from the French, makes you want to cry, touching, pointed
potent - powerful
proliferate - found everywhere, scattered, numerous
soprano
tenor
trio - three singers or players
trope - received wisdom, like a cliché, a piece of folk wisdom, like an old wive's tale, but not necessarily wrong
viola - twice the size of the violin
virtuoso - expert, highly skilled performer, near genius
visceral to do with the guts
woodwind, clarinet, oboe, bassoon flute,
brass: trumpet,trombone, French horn, tuba
strings, stringed instruments (in increasing size): violin, viola, cello (short for violoncello) double bass (bass is just an abbreviation)
percussion four instrument, drums,
bells: xylophone, Glockenspiel, tubular bells, gamelan of Asia is part of the same family - and piano
groups of four instruments in an orchestra: piccolo is a soprano flute

German
lieder - song(s)

Other instruments and words in reviews
harp
contra bass
cor Anglaise (meaning English, French word for English, in recprocation for us speaking of a French horn)
Hogmanay - Scottish winter festival
Kabbalah - Jewish, to do with mystical scriptures, made popular in modern times by singer Madonna

ghoul - ghost
misanthropic - hating mankind

(Post being researched and written and expanded - come back tomorrow)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, author and speaker