12/29/2007 10:48 PM

Symbolic Foods Eaten Around the World for New Years

In many parts of the world, the foods eaten on New Years Eve and New Years Day have important symbolic meanings. These symbols seem to fall into several major categories. The first class symbolizes financial prosperity. This type of food is round like coins. Often, the dish will be round beans, like lentils, [...]

01/06/2007 08:35 PM

How to Find Sheet Music, Tunes and MP3’s on Mama Lisa’s World

In addition to this blog, I also host Mama Lisa’s World. Mama Lisa’s World is a large collection of children’s songs and rhymes from countries all around the globe. Matt, a music teacher from Rhode Island, wrote a question to me, the other day, about Mama Lisa’s World: Hey Mama, I love the concept of your site. [...]

12/22/2006 10:39 AM

Free Online Language Dictionaries

While I have this link at hand, I’d like to recommend www.freedict.com. It’s a site devoted to free online language dictionaries. You can translate between English and the following languages: Afrikaans Danish Dutch Finnish French Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Latin Norwegian Portuguese Russian Spanish Swahili Swedish I find that it can usually succeed at translating the words I need. Feel free to recommend other language dictionaries that you like in the [...]

05/18/2006 10:05 PM

Is Fathers Day Celebrated in Hungary?

I recently recieved this email… Is Fathers Day celebrated in Hungary? If so, on what day? Thank you for your help. Tracy Bondi So far I’ve checked some books and I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Father’s Day is celebrated in Hungary. If anyone can answer this question, please comment below. Thanks! Lisa P.S. I also welcome [...]

03/17/2006 03:51 PM

National Day in Hungary called NEMZETI UNNEP (March 15th)

Zsuzsa wrote me about an important holiday celebrating freedom, that takes place in Hungary on March 15th. It’s National Day and it’s called Nemzeti ünnep in Hungarian. Here in Hungary we have a national holiday on the 15th of March. On the 15th of March in 1848 our revolution and war of independence began. [...]

03/15/2006 09:25 AM

Please Send An Endearing Term for Grandma and Grandpa in Your Language

Kathy wrote me… Dear Mamalisa, I was delighted to find your website and will be using it in the future. I am researching translations for the word “grandma” in various languages. I am most interested in the familiar, sweet terms children might call this individual. I am aware that in some cultures this would [...]