Speaking Chinese To Childen and Grandchilden

 

I have been reading a book called Raising a bilingual child. You can tell it is American because it says raising. In Britain I would have said Brigning up a bilingual Child, which is alliterative.

Interestingly it give you a chart you can fill in. This seems to be the modern way. You can make a chart of anything, from your waking times and bedtimes, to the number of times you greet strangers, or watch TV.

You list the languages of the parents, the grandparents, schools, surroundings, books, TV and films (movies).

Children aged 0 to 5 and 10-15 have different interests. Starting with Lullabies, and children's TV programmes such as Sesame Street which you can watch in Spanish and other languages. Then you can have books or movies in other languages. Or use other languages at mealtimes.

You can set up a system, such as speak the local language touside the home. Speak another language to parents, a third language to grandparents. 

If parents are from different backgrounds, you could speak English to father, and French to mother. Or English at breakfast but French at dinner.

Useful Resources

Raising a Bilingual Child by Barbara Zurer Pearlson Ph D. Living Language, a Random House Company, New York.

Language & Literacy in Bilingual Children

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a British author who has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. Her 20 books include Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations.

She has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. She is a travel writer and photographer.

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

Angela Lansbury is also a speaker. Member of many toastmasters -  speaker training clubs - and a speaking contest judge.

She is VP PR for Braddell Heights Advanced toastmasters club which meets online the first Wednesday evening of the month at 7 pm Singapore time; then the third Saturday afternoon at 2 pm Singapore time. Please come along. Open to Toastmasters and guests. In April and possibly longer BHA will be on bha/learncool.sg

Next meetings are Saturday April 17th, Wed May 5th, Sat May 15th, Wed June 2nd and Sat June 19th.

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.

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How do you ask for breakfast, and eggs, boiled, fried or scrambled, in English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Malay and more?

 

Flag of Spain.

In Spain we checked into our hotel, a parador, late at night. Next morning we came down for breakfast. Where was breakfast? What was the Spanish word for breakfast? The receptionist did not understand English, breakfast, nor French, petit Dejeuner, german, frushstuck. Niet (Rusian for no). She did not understand. We had to wait another fifteen minutes whilst I caught the lift back to the bedroom floor, walked the corridor, hunted for my key, found the key to my suitcase, located the Spanish English dictionary, and retraced my steps to my husband ('What kept you so long?')

Desayuno!

The Spanish for breakfast is desayuno. We could not have worked it out in a million years. Now we know. Never forgotten. Desperate for breakfast. Ay-yi-yi. You know. (Now you know.) Desayuno.

So far, so good. Now we wanted to order eggs. The waitress and chefs offered many choices. What were they?

Left: Fried egg (UK) or sunny side up (USA). Right : Over easy (USA), fried egg (turned over and) cooked both sides (UK)

English - American

Fried egg - sunny side up

American - English

sunny side up - (normal) fried egg

over easy - fried egg (turned over and) cooked both sides (to seal the white)

English - Spanish

Boiled Egg

hard boiled egg

soft boiled egg

fried egg 

scrambled egg

peached egg

omelette

From translate google I received these translations

Spanish

Huevo duro Huevo cocido huevo pasado por agua huevo frito huevos revueltos huevo escalfado tortilla

Malay

Telur rebus telur rebus telur rebus lembut telur goreng telur hancur telur rebus telur dadar

French

Oeuf dur œuf dur oeuf à la coque oeuf frit oeuf brouillé oeuf poché omelette

German

Gekochtes Ei
hartgekochtes Ei (hard cooked)
weich gekochtes Ei
Spiegelei (mirror egg)
Rührei
pochiertes Ei (like a pocket egg)
Omelette

Chinese (Simplified)

水煮蛋

水煮蛋

水煮蛋

煎鸡蛋

炒鸡蛋

荷包蛋

煎蛋卷

Shuǐ zhǔ dàn

shuǐ zhǔ dàn

shuǐ zhǔ dàn

jiān jīdàn

chǎo jīdàn

hébāodàn

jiān dàn juǎn

If you want any more languages, just copy my English words above, paste them into Translate Google under English on the left, select your chosen language on the right. 

Either reverse the words from the chosen language back to English to see if you get the same thing. Or check with a native speaker. Or a physical dictionary - now at least you know what to look for in the other language. Or al of the above. If you read aloud each time, you should have memorized it. You can also get the pronunciation from translate google, just look for the lousepeaker symbol, or from dictionary.com or wikipedia and wikirecipe

On the Facebook Polyglot page this was suggested succinctly.

fried eggs: huevos fritos

scrambled eggs: huevos revueltos

sunny side up: huevos estrellados

The Spanish word for fried egg, estrellados, comes from the word star, describing the yellow in the middle of the white like a star. (The English name Stella comes from the word star.) 

(I keep writing f r i e d and a spellchecker waits until I look away and then keeps turning the word back to f r i e n d.)

Spanish omelette, according to Wikipedia:

ortilla de patatas, tortilla de papas or tortilla española

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette#:~:text=Spanish%20omelette

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cuisine

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Spanish_cuisine#Q622512

Facebook Polyglots

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

translate google

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Please share links to your favourite posts.

Angela Lansbury B A Hons ACG ALB PM5 VC5
The Author - Quick Quotations

Blogs 

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers VP PR, IPP

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club

Member of TCA Toastmasters Club, Singapore Online Dynamic, Harrovians UK

Why start Spanish? 100 common words and a couple of proverbs

 

Flag of Spain.

Why learn Spanish? Because it is simple, and widely spoken. With Spanish, you can easily read Italian and Portuguese.

Widely Spoken

Europe

Spain

Spanish Islands

Canaries (Tenerife and others)

Balearic Islands (in the Mediterranean sea, east of Spain in the western Med)

The four largest islands are Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera.

Majorca (j pronounced like y as in yellow) (the major or largest island)

Minorca (the mini or smaller island)

Tenerife

The eight main islands are (from largest to smallest in area) Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Graciosa.

Other countries speaking Spanish are Cuba, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.

Let's look at what wiki says in summary:

It is estimated that there are more than 437 million people who speak Spanish as a native language, which qualifies it as second on the lists of languages by number of native speakers.

 Instituto Cervantes claims that there are an estimated 477 million Spanish speakers with native competence and 572 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language—including speakers with limited competence—and more than 21 million students of Spanish as a foreign language.

Spanish is the official, or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, and 18 countries and one territory in the Americas. Speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. 

It is also an optional language in the Philippines as it was a Spanish colony from 1569 to 1899. In the European Union, Spanish is the mother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language.

The country with the largest number of native speakers is Mexico.

Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States. In 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over, 38 million speak Spanish at home.

American, Central America and South America

USA - lots of Spanish signs for Spanish speakers from Latin America

Mexico. 

Venezuela and most of South America, except Brazil which speaks Portuguese which is similar.

Using Spanish On Holiday

My husband and I and a group of people from Europe and Asia had a group holiday in Madeira and could read most of the road signs and tourist attraction signs. For example, garden was Jardim in Portuguese, easily recognized if you knew the Spanish and French are jardin. The Spanish is almost the same word as the English,  except for j instead of g, and i instead of e.

Familiar Spanish Words

Spanish - English

amigo - friend

cañón - canyon 

colorado - coloured or red

sierra - mountain range

sombrero - large hat creating shade (as in the word sombre)

turista - tourist

English - Spanish

canyon from cañón 

Colorado - coloured or red

English-to-Spanish loanwords[edit]

Wiktionary has a category on Spanish terms derived from English

All of the following loanwords are either nouns or gerunds. Words ending in -ing are gerunds in English and nouns in Spanish.

1. airbag(s)
2. antivirus
3. audiovisual
4. backup
5. banjo(s)
6. bit(s)
7. byte
8. camping
9. chat(s)
10. chip(s)
11. clip(s)
12. club(s)
13. collie
14. convoy
15. doping
16. email(s)
17. gag(s)
18. gene(s)
19. hangar
20. iceberg
21. input(s)
22. jersey^[9][10]
23. jumbo
24. magnate(s)
25. modem
26. motocross
27. multimedia
28. parking
29. picnic(s)
30. polo(s)
31. pop^[2]
32. pub(s)
33. punk(s)
34. radar
35. rail
36. rally
37. rifle(s)
38. ring
39. robot(s)
40. rock^[a]
41. rugby
42. shock(s)
43. shorts
44. show(s)
45. software
46. sprint(s)
47. surf
48. test(s)
49. unisex
50. whisky
51. windsurfing
52. yuppie
53. zoo(s)

54. Spanish-to-English loanwords[edit]

    

    Wiktionary has a category on English terms derived from Spanish
    Further information: List of English words of Spanish origin

    Although the meanings of the following loanwords overlap, most of them have different senses and/or shades of meaning in Spanish and English. Generally, loanwords have more diverse and nuanced meanings in the originating language than they do in the adopting language.

    1. armada(s)
    2. armadillo(s)
    3. arroyo(s)
    4. ayuntamiento(s)
    5. azulejo(s)
    6. bajada(s)
    7. balsa(s)
    8. banda
    9. banderilla(s)
    10. burro(s)
    11. caballero(s)
    12. cacao
    13. coca
    14. cria(s)
    15. esparto(s)
    16. guerrilla(s)
    17. hacienda(s)
    18. hidalgo(s)
    19. hombre(s)
    20. jalapeño(s)
    21. machete(s)
    22. macho
    23. mantilla(s)
    24. manzanilla
    25. maraca(s)
    26. margarita(s)
    27. marina(s)
    28. masa
    29. matador
    30. menudo(s)
    31. mestizo(s)
    32. mosquito(s)^[a]
    33. mulato(s)
    34. nacho(s)
    35. nada
    36. negro
    37. padre(s)
    38. paella(s)
    39. patio(s)
    40. peluca
    41. peseta(s)
    42. peso(s)
    43. picador
    44. pimiento(s)
    45. pinto
    46. piñata(s)
    47. plaza(s)
    48. pronto
    49. pueblo(s)
    50. rodeo(s)
    51. rumba
    52. salsa(s)
    53. suave
    54. taco(s)
    55. tango(s)
    56. tapa(s)
    57. tequila(s)
    1. ^ In Spanish, mosca means "fly"; mosquito literally means "little fly".

Most frequent word forms out of ~160 million words

Rank	Word form	Occurrences	Part of speech	Translation
1	de	9,999,518	preposition	of; from
2	la	6,277,560	article, pronoun	the; third person feminine singular pronoun
3	que	4,681,839	conjunction	that, which
4	el	4,569,652	article	the
5	en	4,234,281	preposition	in, on
6	y	4,180,279	conjunction	and
7	a	3,260,939	preposition	to, at
8	los	2,618,657	article, pronoun	the; third person masculine direct object
9	se	2,022,514	pronoun	-self, oneself (reflexive)
10	del	1,857,225	preposition	from the
11	las	1,686,741	article, pronoun	the; third person feminine direct object
12	un	1,659,827	article	a, an
13	por	1,561,904	preposition	by, for, through
14	con	1,481,607	preposition	with
15	no	1,465,503	adverb	no; not
16	una	1,347,603	article	a, an, one
17	su	1,103,617	possessive	his/her/its/your
18	para	1,062,152	preposition	for, to, in order to
19	es	1,019,669	verb	is
20	al	951,054	preposition	to the
21	lo	866,955	article, pronoun	the; third person masculine direct object
22	como	773,465	conjunction	like, as
23	más	661,696	adjective	more
24	o	542,284	conjunction	or
25	pero	450,512	conjunction	but
26	sus	449,870	possessive	your
27	le	413,241	pronoun	third person indirect object
28	ha	380,339	verb	he/she/it has [done something]; you (formal) have [done something]
29	me	374,368	pronoun	me
30	si	327,480	conjunction	if, whether
31	sin	298,383	preposition	without
32	sobre	289,704	preposition	on top of, over, about
33	este	285,461	adjective	this
34	ya	274,177	adverb	already; still
35	entre	267,493	preposition	between
36	cuando	257,272	conjunction	when
37	todo	247,340	adjective	all, every
38	esta	238,841	adjective	this
39	ser	232,924	verb	to be
40	son	232,415	verb	they are, you (pl.) are
41	dos	228,439	number	two
42	también	227,411	adverb	too, also, as well
43	fue	223,791	verb	was
44	había	223,430	verb	I/he/she/it/there was (or used to be)
45	era	219,933	verb	was
46	muy	208,540	adverb	very
47	años	203,027	noun (masculine)	years
48	hasta	202,935	preposition	until
49	desde	198,647	preposition	from; since
50	está	194,168	verb	is
51	mi	186,360	possessive	my
52	porque	185,700	conjunction	because
53	qué	184,956	pronoun	what?; which?; how adjective
54	sólo	170,552	adverb	only, solely
55	han	169,718	verb	they/you (pl.) have [done something]
56	yo	167,684	pronoun	I
57	hay	164,940	verb	there is/are
58	vez	163,538	noun (feminine)	time, instance
59	puede	161,219	verb	can
60	todos	158,168	adjective	all; every
61	así	155,645	adverb	like that
62	nos	154,412	pronoun	us
63	ni	153,451	conjunction, adverb	neither; nor; no even
64	parte	148,750	noun (masculine / feminine)	part; message
65	tiene	147,274	verb	has
66	él	139,080	pronoun (masculine)	he, it
67	uno	136,020	number	one
68	donde	132,077	preposition	where
69	bien	130,957	adjective	fine, well
70	tiempo	130,896	noun (masculine)	time; weather
71	mismo	130,746	adjective	same
72	ese	127,976	pronoun	that
73	ahora	125,661	adverb	now
74	cada	124,558	determiner	each; every
75	e	123,729	conjunction	and
76	vida	123,491	noun (feminine)	life
77	otro	121,983	adjective	other, another
78	después	121,746	preposition	after
79	te	120,052	pronoun	to you, for you; yourself
80	otros	119,500	pronoun	others
81	aunque	115,556	conjunction	though, although, even though
82	esa	115,377	adjective	that
83	eso	114,523	pronoun	that
84	hace	114,507	verb	he/she/it does/makes
85	otra	113,982	adjective, pronoun	other; another
86	gobierno	113,011	noun (masculine)	government
87	tan	112,471	adverb	so
88	durante	112,020	preposition	during
89	siempre	111,557	adverb	always
90	día	110,921	noun (masculine)	day
91	tanto	110,679	adjective, adverb	so much
92	ella	110,620	pronoun	she, her; it
93	tres	109,542	number	three
94	sí	108,631	noun, pronoun	yes; reflexive pronoun
95	dijo	108,471	verb	said; told
96	sido	107,352	past participle	been
97	gran	106,991	adjective	large, great, big
98	país	104,568	noun (masculine)	country
99	según	104,204	preposition	as; according to
100	menos	103,498	adjective	less; fewer

A highlighted row indicates that the word was found to occur especially frequently in samples of spoken Spanish.

• 
  Near literal translation and English equivalent:    
• La vida no es un camino de rosas.

Life is not a path of roses.

Meaning/use:

It's normal to encounter all kinds of difficulties along the road of life.

• Todos los caminos llevan a Roma.

Literal translation and English equivalent:

All roads lead to Rome.

Meaning/use:

Goals can be achieved by different means.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_proverbs

duolingo.com

memrise.com

earworms.com

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages and gives talks and workshops on language and learning languages. For workshops contact annalondon8@gmail.com

Please share links to your favourite posts.