Planning a trip somewhere you don’t speak the language? Here’s what travellers recommend learning (thanks to everyone who contributed)

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who replied to my last post about what parts of a language are actually useful to know when travelling.

There were way more thoughtful replies than I expected, so I thought I’d summarise what people suggested in case it helps anyone else planning a trip somewhere where they don’t speak the language.

The biggest takeaway honestly seemed to be that you don’t need to learn loads. Just enough to be polite and get through simple situations.

The words that kept coming up were

• hello
• please
• thank you
• sorry
• excuse me
• goodbye

Quite a few people said even just these make interactions a lot nicer and locals tend to appreciate the effort.

Another suggestion was learning simple words instead of full phrases, since gestures and context usually fill in the rest anyway.

Words people mentioned were

• yes
• no
• where
• how much
• food
• taxi
• train

Numbers also came up quite a bit, especially for Japan. Apparently a lot of menus are numbered, so you can literally just say the number and point. A couple travellers said they ordered loads of meals like that, which tbf I do in London as well, but I guess in my head I forgot that was an option lol, using visuals round you will help a lot.

One phrase several people recommended learning was something like

“Sorry, I don’t speak ___, do you speak English?”

Someone pointed out that asking this first makes interactions much smoother instead of just launching into English and hoping for the best.

There were also a few smaller tips I hadn’t thought about before

• learning how place names are written in the local script
• knowing how to explain dietary restrictions
• paying attention to local gestures
• using your phone calculator to show prices if numbers get confusing

There was also a bit about language apps, which enlightening and they said:

- against Duolingo for travel because it teaches things like “my mother is nice” before useful stuff like ordering food or paying. - it’s fine if you have a lot of time and want to actually learn the language, just not necessarily the fastest way to pick up survival phrases.

Apps that came up in the thread were

• Google Translate, long time friend
• Duolingo, as mention above
• Praktika, which I know is mainly about speaking the language to practice skills

A couple people also suggested watching shows in the language or just quickly looking up phrases before walking into a shop or restaurant.

Anyway, thanks again for all the advice. It definitely made the idea of learning a few basics before travelling feel way less intimidating.

Out of curiosity, what’s one phrase you learned before a trip that ended up being way more useful than you expected? because it was nice to see those pop up in my post from yesterday

LINK TO PREVIOUS POST: https://www.reddit.com/r/travel/s/HShwGYLDR8