Word for the Travel Wise (06/02/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

As some of you may recall, Neil is on his way to distant lands and I can’t say how green with envy I am. Sure, I’m bopping around the U.S. on a walking tour, but nothing thrills me more than coming in contact with a completely different culture and people. Although, I must admit the folks in the Mid-West are certainly groups of their own. Anyhow, one of his destinations appears to be Albania and while I’m not sure how long he’ll be trekking around the country it is my hopes this word comes in handy.

Today’s word is an Albanian word used in Albania:

muaj – month

Albanian is spoken in Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Republic of Macedonia. It is in its own independent branch of the Indo-European language family with no living close relatives as stated by Wikipedia. Argjiro is a pretty new site with a long way to go, but there are a few things there to help a beginner in the Albanian lang get a foothold. Start with the English-Albanian dictionary. Single-Serving online has an awesome Albanian phrase guide for the tourist with audio files. For history, lessons, and other useful knowledge on the tongue of Albania visit, Albania World.

P.S. Have fun Neil!

Word for the Travel Wise (06/01/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

America is one of the biggest melting pots around – hands down. With each turn in most major cities the traveler is bound to find different tastes, smells, and even sounds. While some words in various languages slowly sneak their way into to the average American’s vernacular many won’t. There are several words that wiggled their way in long ago and the average person has little knowledge of the word’s origin with the exception of child geniuses in spelling bees. Tonight I want to toss to you a word from a smaller melting pot in the world where certain words have close ties to those such as: Malay, Tamil, English, Spanish, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian.

Today’s word is a Tagalog word used in the Philippines:

alak – liquor

Alak is a loanword from the Persian language used in the Philippines according to this table found here.

Tagalog is one of the major languages in Central Philippines and part of the Austronesian language family. For some reason I was surprised by the number of free GOOD resources available to prospective Tagalog student. Wikipedia has great background info on the lingo as well as related languages, Bikol, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, and Cebuano. Mongabay pretty much covers all the really good, up and running links to sites that help teach Tagalog, after checking out a few I’ll do the favor of pointing the best out. The first is an interactive language and Filipino culture resource site tools are provided for both teachers and students. A pretty intense breakdown on local slang and how it is derived can be found here. Travel Lang has word and phrase generator that spits out all the basic words you’d use while visiting.

Past Tagalog words: taon, kalye

Word for the Travel Wise (05/31/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Sarajevo is heating up as a tourist destination and for several reasons. For the moment I’ll focus on culture and events. After glancing over the tourism website for the city and country it is quite obvious the visitor will not bore easily considering the amount of activity to soak up and in. May marked a month of theater and those with departures set for June can count on a month full of Rock sounds. If you can afford to stay a while longer or hold off until July there is what looks to be an incredible music plus culture find in Sarajevo’s old Turkish quarter. Held during summer months the festival is titled Bascarsija Nights and offers folk dancing, opera, ballet, rock, poetry and love songs. Best thing about this particular festival is it is free of charge. So what’s the hold up? Doesn’t a summer in Sarajevo sound nice?

Today’s word is a Bosnian word used in Bosnia-Herzegovina:

putovanje – travel

For Bosnia-Herzegovina there are three official languages which include: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. All three are a lot alike where the language is referred to as Bosnian by Bosniaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina and referred to as Serbian and Croatian by Bosnian Serbs and Croats. (See Wikipedia.) There are a few cool places online to help get you started on the road to speaking like a Bosniak. If you’re unfamiliar with spoken Bosnian and pronunciation start with the BBC Languages Quick Fix guide where audio downloads are available for the very basics. Languages of the World has great background information and history on the lang with a few words peppered in on their webpage. Lastly, check out this Bosnian for travelers page where you can score an large amount of words, phrases and the answers to questions you’re bound to have for free and in one quick swoosh.

Word for the Travel Wise (05/30/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

A Central American vacation wasn’t a trip I had planned out, but apparently it had been planned for me long ago without my knowing. I’ve told this story numerous times in the past, so I won’t bother to bore, but it’s just funny how things work. I can’t even count the hours spent planning to see hill tribes in Chiang Mai, Thailand before my partner and I had re-routed our trip into San Jose, Costa Rica. It was a complete 180 in terms of what we had set our hearts on experiencing. I recently shared the condensed version with a nice chap who had the time to listen or waste and saw a woman a few days later bumping around the town in a shirt that had today’s nugget of travel wisdom. Shall we?

Today’s word is a Spanish word from Costa Rica:

pura vida – pure life, good life, good living

Amerispan, Cactus Language and IMAC are all good starting points to learning abroad. A free membership at Spanish Unlimited gives you the opportunity to learn a new word everyday by email, gain pen pals and hear audio of the words. Their website is actually a good resource tool for many different Spanish related topics. I won’t even begin to list some of the texts out there that could further your studies because there are entirely too many. If you know of some language books that would be useful please feel free to list them.

Past Spanish words: escalar, cercano, realidad, enfermo

Word for the Travel Wise (05/27/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Yesterday, a friend of mine was schooling me to a small chain of luxury inns located in Brooklyn, Cape May, and Washington D.C. The lucky gal went ahead and booked a much needed night’s stay at the Brooklyn mansion which looks quite lovely and like a real treat from their website. The Akwaaba Mansion in NY has been around since 1995 where owners — Monique and Glen — restored the 1860’s mansion to its original granduer so that it could operate as an upscale bed-and-breakfast. How sweet of them! Be it one night or two or whether you’re coming from afar or nearby like my friend, Akwaaba seems like the perfect home away from home with added luxury.

Today’s word is a Twi word used in Ghana:

akwaaba – welcome

I’m really uncertain about akwaaba being of Twi origin, but Twi is one of the more common of tongue from Ghana, so I went ahead and said it. (Gulp!) Please feel free to correct me on this one if needed. Their website said the name was West African from Ghana meaning welcome which made me think to make it the word of the day considering I haven’t touched this country in over two months.

Pronounced ‘chwee,’ the language is spoken by some 7 million people concentrated in southern Ghana and is a dialect of the Akan language which belongs to the Kwa language family. Wikipedia is a good place to start for the background info. Unfortunately there aren’t many Twi resources on the web so I encourage you all to make some friends from Ghana, take a trip or exercise some of these useful books and CD’s found on Amazon. You could also try My Language Exchange, but the chances of there being a fully Twi speaking person wanting to swap your language knowledge for yours doesn’t seem too bright. Sorry, but worry not. I still have my list and more words to follow.

Past Twi words: akwantuo