Do you learn the language?

[briggl]

[jamesjoyce]

I always try to speak the language of the country (whereever its' possible). I think it's a matter of politeness. One thing I hate is that when you go to Mallorca (cycling vacation) people immediately begins to speak in German. I'll refuse to answer then.

[laz]

Interesting topic!

I am usually quite disappointed that the English do not try to learn the languages of other countries when they travel, but resort to speaking very loudly instead (OK, it's a cliché, but it's true). I remember being in a hotel in Germany, and a Brit at the next table being asked "Kaffee oder The?", to which he replied, very loudly and very slowly, "I WANT COF-FEE". How hard could it have been to answer "Kaffee"??!

Having said that, as I get older, and my brain gets softer, I find it harder to remember even a few key phrases. Also, I have recently been travelling a lot more on business, so do not learn any phrases at all.... firstly, most of the people I encounter on business will speak english; secondly, I may only be in a country for a day or two, and see almost nothing of the city I am in . But then, I feel very embarassed when I suddenly get in a taxi and realise I don't understand the driver, he doesn't understand me... and I'm stuck

I think also that us Brits are a bit shy when it comes to speaking in a foreign language, because all we have is what we learnt at school. Little do we realise that the foreigner speaking back to us in english probably knows as little as we do, but it more willing to try. A few years ago, my spoken german was reasonably good, but I still struggled to speak out (especially in the UK if I heard german tourists struggling). Even when I did, I often found that the people I spoke to then assumed my german was good, and would answer very quickly, and I wouldn't understand it first time; if I asked them to repeat it, they would then speak in english... and sometimes worse english than my german! [I also often think that because the UK is very multi-cultural, and we expect everyone to speak english, we are quite tolerant about bad english, and can usually understand - or would usually try to understand rather than try speaking in someone else's language. Yet when I have tried to communicate in, say, french, I find that unless my pronunication and grammar is nearly perfect, I am not understood...!]

Ummm... sorry, seem to have rambled on a bit there... but one final point:

I think that English is now so universal, that it's not only the Brits/Americans that extend its usage. If, say a Dutch guy or a Brazilian goes to Vietnam for example, he's unlikely to learn much Vietnamese, but instead will rely on English as the most likely common language.
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[GregW]

It would be nice if I learnt the language, but I am not good with languages. I speak a little bit of French. Of course, that's after 7 years of study in public school, and all I can do is order in restaurants and ask about hotel rooms. I speak even less Spanish.

I was a little worried about travelling in Russia and China, given that I don't speak that at all. But in some ways, I found it really liberating. In some ways, not being able to communicate with people frees you from any responsibility of HAVING to communicate with people, and you can just enjoy the place without feeling any draw to understand it. I don't know if that makes much sense.

Anyway, I have found that smiling and pointing and nodding can get you a very long way.

[mikeman]

I find it has become increasingly difficult to find opportunities to speak the local languages. In countries where it used to be essential for survival as a traveller, they now have english speaking staff working the front line jobs. Too bad. Although my skills were poor, I did enjoy trying.

When faced with the "stage fright" of kicking off a conversation in the local tongue, it is now so easy to accept their switch to english.

[Xhosa]

I have always found that learning at least a few phrases will get you more respect in the countries that visit.

I think France is the country where I have found people the most unwilling to speak English - I wonder why? I found it better to start speaking to them in Afrikaans (my first language) and then they try and help me in English.

Furthermore I am married to a Spaniard, and the first time I came to Spain, I was quite shocked that almost nobody speaks English. That first week was almost hell because I only spoke to my wife. Well now that I think of it, maybe it was a good thing because then I couldn't answer all the questions from the in-laws My few words from the phrase book definitely didn't help.
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[Sidesplitter]

Its hard learning the language but a couple of phrases usually goes a long way and will make people see u are making the effort. I found the same with the French ! They are just a bit too proud of their culture and so they should be I suppose!
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[darknsparkly]

I speak a couple of different languages. English (obvious,I know) Spanish and a little bit of French (not enough to not annoy the natives) but I travel with non English speakers a lot and I find it easier to correspond through written language then speech. As a way of keeping tabs on a big group I text message a lot but it can be confusing to some-so even if I'm able to communicate with the natives I always insist that my travel companions learn some of the shorthand message terms and always link them to fasttext.t9.com so that we can all be on the same page. Plus texting in a different country is not as expensive as using the phone so it has two functions for me.
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[neilsy]

I always try to learn the lingo - have learned enough Portuguese and Finnish because of this to get by, though sadly I also do not make an effort to remember it when I get back.

I did learn Arabic when I went to Tunisia, but sadly the variant I learned was Egyptian Arabic, which is different in many ways from Tunisian, thus I would get into a taxi asking to go to my funduq (hotel) and wondering why I was getting strange looks from the drivers. On the last day of my trip a nice gentleman told me that in Tunisia a hotel is a hotel; a funduq is the term, more or less, for a fleapit.....

[mollybean]

I'm lousy at learning languages so find that hand signals and pointing and grunting works just fine. I don't expect anyone else to speak English when travelling in a non-English speaking country and have not really had any problems in getting around the world in the last 20+ years with English being my only language. I do try to learn a few of the basics to try and be polite.

Molly
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[BradleyD]

I try to at least learn a few phrases to get by wherever I go. Might not be very useful, but people seem to appreciate it when you make the effort. Luckily my wife speaks fluent Japanes, so when we go there I have a personal interpreter. I speak decent spanish too, which is always helpful when visiting spanish speaking countries. Last place I visited was Amsterdam, it is amazing how everyone there speaks english.

Brad
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[azalea]

I am always trying to learn at least few frazes and polite words.Usually people are really nice and polite with you if they see you are trying to speak their language. I haven't had as ituation when someone was picking on me cause of my broken foreign language, they usually start speaking English. But, thanks God I havent travel a lot in places where the language that is spoken is totally new for me

[KONS]

It is always interesting to speak with the people in their language and itself learn to their language

[azalea]

Sometimes we are in so funny situations when we say something which sound different than it suppose to... I am happy when peple are nice and just make joke of it correcting me not making fun of me.

[djd]

I'm American and make an effort to get a few basics down...

From my few experiences it seems at least like people were more willing to help out when they saw you making a conscious effort (france ) rather than just saying... 'Hey do you speak english?"

Plus it adds to the international feel and excitement for me at least.

Despite English's dominance when I was in Capri off season I didn't see a single person that spoke English. Between my bits and pieces of Italian and a translation book I was able to find a place to stay fortunately enough.

djd
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