Translate Spanish Menus and Maps

Flag of Spain

When I return from holiday I often have the advertising flyer, the business card or the menu of the day from a restaurant. I now have so much paper that I have to select some to discard. But before I do so, I try to translate the Spanish or French or Italian or Portuguese. Some words I recognize because they are similar to English, others I know, and a few have to be translated and added to an alphabetical list like the one below which I am sharing with you. 

Spanish Hotel Menus

adobado - pickled

ajo - garlic

anguila - eel

agua - water

arroz - rice

calamares - squid

caldo - broth / soup

cálida/o - warm

caliente - hot

cerdo - pig

charasko - steak

chuleta - chop

churrasco - steak (churrasco de ternera - beef steak)

combinados - combinations

con - with

croquetas - croquettes

del - of the

empanada - pie

ensalada - salad

entremeses - appetisers

espanola (note sign over the n) - Spanish (style of cooking)

especial - special

filete - fillet / steak

frita - fried

galeras - 

gallego - Galician (in Spanish and Italian you do not have capital letters at the start of a country or country style

hamburguesas - burgers

huevos - eggs

lomo - back

lubina - sea bass

marisco - seafood

menu - menu

merluza - hake

Meso 

meson (accent on the on for emphasis) - house (like the French word maison)

mixta - mixed

o - or

pan - bread

parillada - barbecue

pasteles - pastries / cakes

patatas - potatoes

pechuga - poultry breast

plancha - griddle, iron, plate

plato - plate or dish

platos - plates / dishes

pollo - chicken

postre - dessert

Primer - first / starter

pudin - pudding

quesadilla - tortilla (omelette or wrap) covered in cheese

queso - cheese

rusa - Russian

Segundo - second

spaguetis - spagetthi

tartas - tarts

ternera - veal / beef 

tomate - tomatoes

tortilla - thin omelette containing slided potatoes and onions cooked in olive oil

ternera - veal

variados - varied

vino - wine

y - and

Addresses, Directions, Maps 

avda - short for avenida or avenue

avenida - avenue

C abbreviation for carreta

carretas

catedral - cathedral

de la - of the

hospedaje - accommodation

peregrino - pilgrim

pza - short form

Santiago - Saint James

telf - tel / telephone

tenemos - we have

Useful Websites

Translate google

Many more similar websites.

Learning Spanish from Household Products - 20 words for you to recognize

 I looked at a tube of metal polish and learned some new words in Spanish.

Spanish - English

aplicar - apply

bronce - bronze

como - such as

crema - cream

cristal - crystal

de - of

del - of the

esta - this

excelente - excellent

excepto - except

fibrar de cristal

frotar - rub

instructionnes - instructions

las (feminine)/los - the (plural as in the US place name Los Angeles which means the angels)

metal - metal

Miracle - miracle

no - do not/don't

para - for

protege - protects

seco - dry

todo - all

un - a/an

y - and

English - Spanish

all - todo (plural todos)

a/an - un

and - y

apply - aplicar

cream - crema

crystal - cristal

dry - seco

excellent - excelente

except - excepto

for - para

instructions - instructionnes

of - de

of the - del 

metal - metal

Miracle - miracle

protects - protege

rub - frotar

such as - como

the - el, los, las (feminine plural)

this - esta

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

facebook polyglots group to ask questions and discuss

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

memrise.com

translate google

WORDS WRITTEN THE SAME IN BOTH LANGUAGES (Pronunciation and meaning could be different)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English%E2%80%93Spanish_interlingual_homographs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ing#-ing_words_in_other_languages

Angela Lansbury is VP PR of Braddell Heights Advanced club and Tampines Changkat Advanced club.

https://www.toastmasters.org/Find-a-Club/00009689-braddell-heights-advanced-club

https://www.facebook.com/tampineschangkatadvTMC/

German words in an English language message, plus learning English, and translating

Problem Learning German

I did a Duolingo course in German but sitting around a table with a group of Germans on holiday I would not follow their conversation. I did try, but it didn't come easily. It was such as effort. I shall be seeing them again next year.

Answer To How To Learn German

I must try to learn a little German every day. Never miss an opportunity. Today I received an email from a German organiser of our hiking group. He speaks with a slightly clipped German accent but his written English is embarrassingly word perfect.

On second reading I find that a German sentence has been added at the end by the system. It reads:

Diese Nachricht wurde von meinem Android Mobiltelefon mit GMX Mail gesendet.

I can work out the gist of because I get the same message in English. The gist of the message is This (email?) was sent from my mobile phone. In detail and more exact word for word translation:

German- English
diese - this (dis and this - languages often change a d into a t or a th and a t into a D)
Nachricht?
wurde - was
von - with
menem - my
Android - Android
Mobiltelefon - mobile telephone
mit - with (the German and English words both contain the letters it, and the looks like an upside down w)
GMX Mail - GMX Mail
gesendet - sent

This message reminds us of three things to notice about German grammar. 
1 The verb comes at the end of the sentence.
2 Nouns are treated like proper names and start with capital letters. So Nachricht is a noun.
3 ge prefixes something done in the past, often passive ge-... means something was done. ge-send-et, was sent. Remove the ge and you recognize both the past and the verb to send.

I looked up Nachricht
nachtricht - message
nacht - night
richt - right

but I have mistakenly added the t to nach
nach richt - to judge
nach - after

Now let's see the English first for the words we have learned

after - nach
mail - Mail (capital for a noun or a proper name)
message - Nachricht (capital initial for a noun)
mobile - mobil
mobile phone - Mobiltelefon (capital initial for a noun)
my - menem
night - nacht
right - richt
sent - gesendet
telephone - telefon
to judge - nachtricht
this - diese
was - wurde 
with - von

Here are some more

English- German

email - die Email (the email, capital letter for a noun)
junk mail - Junk-Mail / die wufsendungen (looks like a combination of woof and dung; think those wolves or dogs sent me dung again un in junk and un in dungen)

German - English

Post - mail
die Post - mail, post, post office
die Reklame - advertising (like the word reclaim - they want to reclaim a customer)
versenden - forward, send, mail, despatch

Useful Websites For Learning German and Translating

duolingo.com 
learn German for English speakers.

If you have friends who speak other languages, tell them about Duolingo has or shortly will have:
 Learn English for speakers of German and other languages, currently for Spanish speakers, Portuguese speakers, Russian speakers, Arabic speakers, French speakers, Hindi speakers, Turkish speakers, Chinese speakers, Vietnamese speakers, Polish speakers, Indonesian speakers, Romanian speakers,Dutch speakers, Hungarian speakers, Czech speakers, Korean speakers, Ukrainian speakers, Thai speakers, Tagalog speakers (from the Philippines), Bengali speakers.

English for Tamil speakers (is Hatching - in progress 38% done in July 2018, estimated launch 11/6/18. That can't be June which has gone, so it is not the UK way of dating with the day first but American style. That means November 6th 2018).

Google translate, translates most languages including German, which is similar to languages spoken and understood by people speaking Austrian, Swiss-German and Yiddish

See
https://www.duolingo.com/courses/all

Translation
translategoogle.com

If you think you can do better, or you can help translate or correct mis-translations and wrong spellings, you can help various sites including Duolingo (if you are bilingual) or if you can check spelling, offer to help Wikihow.

Author

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

Please share links to your favourite, useful posts.

How to remember 23 Portuguese words - or any foreign language

Flag of Portugal. From Wikimedia Commons.

Problem
I am learning Portuguese. I need a working vocabulary of about 300 words, which I can do in a month if I learn ten a day. I need to practise every day or I will forget the words.

Answer
The simple solution is to keep the word list on a page in my diary. I write the foreign word first, then the English translation.

Alphabet Letters
I list the letters of the alphabet down the left hand side. How many lines do I have? I have 26, enough for one line per letter of the alphabet. (In theory if I know there are few words, an few I need to know, starting with x, y, z, or any letter that language does not use, I could drop that letter or put two on one line, leaving space for a each use letter, such as c in French or S in English.

I started with the letters of the alphabet at the beginning of the line, but I was short of space. So I wrote over the letters, making the initial letter in the margin. When I started the next page, for German, I had the system more condensed.

Margin
Now the initial letters are in the margin. I write as close as I can get to the edge of the page.

Saving Space
I started by repeating the letters, leaving the initial letter separate. However, now I use it to start the first word.  So instead of
A agua - water
b boa / bom - good
c carta - letter

I write
agua - water
boa / bom - good
carta - letter

Save Space With Dots
The hyphens between the Portuguese and the English were taking up too much space. I changed the line for a dot.

agua.water
boa.good
carta.letter

In this blog post I am not so short of space. I also want to make the words easier to read. Therefore here I am sticking to the hyphens.

If the word is the same in English I write the letter s in brackets.
pizza (s) 

Why Not Capitalise Initial Letters?
I could write
Agua
Boa
Carta

However, I have been trained as a sub-editor to use small letters to start words in dictionaries. That way the reader knows when a word always starts with a capital letter.

Folding
The page is narrow and I need all the space I can get. I fold the page in half vertically and then in half again. So I now have four columns.

Four across by 25 down makes space for 100 words on a page.

Here are my first 23 Portuguese words with my memory aids:
(Only 20 are listed in this blog post under labels because the limit is 20 labels)

agua - water (like aquaduct)
abacaxi - pineapple (P and B sound and look almost the same. AP - pineAPple - apple pine, pine apple, cut it down with an axe - ee! I might not remember translating from English to Portuguese, but I am well on the way to remembering it when I see it written on a menu in Portugal or Madeira)
boa / bom - good (As in Bombay. Good bay. How do I remember it's good and not beautiful. If it's beautiful it's good.)
carta - letter, a carta or uma carta is a letter. (How do I remember 'a carta', feminine? I visualise a lady writing a letter.)
com - with / to / by
de - of
é - is
ele - he / him / it
eles - they
eu - I
falamos - we speak
gosto - (I) like
jornal - newspaper (o / um jornal) (like the French journal but drop the u, just as the Americans drop the u from British English c o l o u r and make it c o l o r.)
lê - you read
leio - I read (I remember: Add i for I, + O for I as in Latin Amo amas amat meaning I read, you etc)
livro - book
menino - boy (I remember men, but little ones, o as in boy for masculine)
mulheres - women
nós - us / we
um - a / one / some
você - you (I remember vous with v in French. V looks like Y.) 

Other useful posts:
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/port-and-portuguese-wine-labels-and.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-to-ask-for-food-and-drink-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/learn-your-first-ten-words-in.
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/how-do-you-say-please-in-portuguese-is.

visitportugal.com

visitbrasil.com

http://www.visitmadeira.pt/en-gb/homepage

duolingo.com

earwormslearning.com

http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/polyglot-poem-by-angela-lansbury.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, learner and speaker of many languages (a polyglot). Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts. I have several more on Portuguese, Spanish, German, Chinese, Hebrew and other languages and countries.

Fruit is Fruit - and Five More Easy Romanian Words For Food

Problem
How do you remember them?

Answer
Look for similar letters.

English - Romanian
and - si (note cedilla or comma shape which should be under the s converts the sound to sh)
banana - banana
coffee - c a f e a
fruit - f r u c t (plural is f r u c t e )
knife - c u t i t (looks like cut it!)
with - cu (short version of the Latin word for with, cum as in magna cum l a u d a an academic term meaning with great honour)

Romanian - English
banana - banana
c a f e a - coffee
cu - with
c u t i t - knife (spell checker preferred cutie)
f r u c t - fruit

For more see www.D u o l i n g o .com (no spaces)
www.romaniatourism.com
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and speaker and teacher of English and learner of languages such as Romanian.
I have several more posts on Romanian, French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Greek and other languages. Please share posts.