Word for the Travel Wise (08/26/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

After analyzing our Gambia country category up to this point and realizing there isn’t much here aside from Neil’s entry on sex tourism for women I thought now would be a nice time to maybe share some activities all tourists might be interested in checking out. The Gambia is the smallest country in Africa if I’m not mistaken and the most popular attraction amongst tourists is the “Roots” excursion. Based off the historic epic of slave trade and freedom by Alex Haley visitors take a 15 minute walk to the village of Juffureh, explore the slave museum and later take a boat trip over to the former slave fortress of James Island.

Today’s word is a Mandinka word used in The Gambia:

jelum – how much

The Mandinka language is a Mandé lang spoken by approximately 1.2 million Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau, however it is the main language the Gambia. Learning this one online is going to be a toughie. Wiki has a couple of words listed otherwise you’ll want to swing this Mandinka.org site which could be helpful, but didn’t seem like the friendliest language learning tool. Good luck!

Word for the Travel Wise (08/25/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

This September 29-October 15 festival lovers can sing to a fine Norwegian tune or any tune they so desire (so long as the crowd doesn’t have to suffer) during the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Olso. This year’s festival will focus on Japanese music. It will feature more than 50 Japanese artists, dancers, musicians and composers to showcase varied presentations of the performing arts in Japan today. Sounds pretty unique and worth checking out.

Today’s word is a Norwegian word used in Norway:

hoytid / selskap – festival

I included both of these because both came up in my English to Norwegian translation request on TriTrans.

Norwegian is a Germanic language spoken by some 4.6 million people in Norway. It is closely related to Swedish and Danish. There are two form of Norwegian; book language or Bokmål and new-Norwegian or Nynorsk. To learn Norwegian online go to Wiki for background details; then head off to Omniglot for a brief look at the alphabet and pronunciation guide. The link here provides you with a number of web resources for learning the language of Norway. Their list includes, Web TV, audio, colleges, etc. BBC Quick Fix has some of the basics with audio. Pimsleur Language CD’s are great if you have the extra cash to spend, otherwise pick up the Lonely Planet phrasebook before you take off.

Word for the Travel Wise (08/24/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Since I’ve gone through the first half of the year pointing out Mandarin words I’m switching it up to go through the rest of the year with Cantonese. I started with Mandarin as I was told it is the more widely spoken of the two, but there are still hundreds of thousands of Cantonese speakers out there. I feel I need to recognize some of their words to the best of my ability. Today we start with an easy one.

Today’s word is a Cantonese word used in China:

léui yàu – travel

Cantonese is mainly spoken in southern Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and by Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia. Check out Wiki for a pretty extensive historical look at the lingo. Cantonese Online – A Tribute is a colorful site packed with info which offers a variety of free resources to learning to this spectacular language. If you’d like to learn some street slang as seen in popular Hong Kong movies there is a book for purchase on this site here. Last but not least scope out or pick up the LP pocket-sized guide to keep you talking on the go!

Past Mandarin words: zhu ni hao yun, guo nian ha, mu di di, hao, xiang zi, zai jian

Word for the Travel Wise (08/23/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Papua New Guinea is a mysterious place to me. The name alone chimes of mysterious unspoken things man probably shouldn’t witness, but due to the nature of man, will do anything to do so. I imagine indigenous brown-skin tribes in loin cloth with darts filled with snake venom lurking in the wild. I see pale-skin explorers intruding and crossing boundaries to discover their secrets. Secrets that should be left alone and buried in the minds of the eldest and wisest member of the tribe. What do I really know? Considering that I’ve never thought to travel to Papua New Guinea I don’t know much at all, but if someone were to ask me what visions come to mind then those would be only a few. If I’m horribly wrong about the things in my head please feel free to put me in my place. I can handle it.

Today’s word is a Pidgin (Tok Pisin) word used in Papua New Guinea:

natnat – mosquito

As noted in Wikipedia the word ‘tok’ means word or speech and the word ‘pisin’ means pidgin and is a Creole language spoken by about 4 million people as a second language and over a hundred thousand as a first. It is spoken in the northern mainland of Papua New Guinea. If you scroll down further you’ll find a nice list of words and some pronunciation examples. As an added bonus you can learn even more words by venturing into the online Tok Pisin phrasebook, also provided by Wiki. They’ve actually got a great handful of links which I suggest going through them all if you’re really into learning this lang. One last site I’ll note here though is Robert Eklund’s Tok Pisin page. It had pictures of signs, people and some audio clips. Looks a winner to learning the very basics.

Word for the Travel Wise (08/22/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Last month while I was dining with a few friends in Miami I inquired about this particular Russian word after finding out our waitress wasn’t from America. It started when one of the guys tried ordering a fish sandwich (thinking he had seen a fish sandwich on the menu), but there wasn’t any fish sandwich. When asked the waitress about this imaginary fish sandwich it confused the Dickens out of her. She did not understand. “Fish sandwich?” She quickly went to grab another waitress to help her compute, but after the fellahs realized there was no fish sandwich on the menu anywhere or on their daily specials they apologized and resorted to another dish. I asked her to tell me the word for ‘thank you’ in Russian and she kindly provided me with this:

Today’s word is a Russian word used in Russia:

spasiba – thank you

Ready to learn Russian? Check out Master Russian first. They have numerous excellent sound files and the text is clear and easy to read. Learning also goes beyond your Russian A, B, C’s at their site as they have crosswords, literature, proverbs, folk music, and homework help. Other good sites include Learning Russian and this Ectaco Translation Dictionary. Click here for two language book rec’s on Amazon. BBC has the basics to download and hear audio, while Wiki provies the in depth Russian lang back history.

Past Russian words: , shakzochniy, paka