Wanderlust and multilingualism

Amidst all the uncertainties in life, there are two things in life I know for certain about myself: I was born with a passion for travelling and a passion for learning languages. I become even happier when I get the chance to do both of these at once!

People assume that English will be spoken everywhere but this is truly not the case, particularly when venturing away from tourist hotspots. So here are some tips to help you make the most of your time abroad:

Before you go

1. Buy a miniature language guide and practice some of the key phrases you will need such as greetings. I normally buy the Berlitz guides at the airport and spend some time during the journey learning key phrases. Some of them even come with CD's to help you hear how the words sound.


2. If you are saving all your funds for your trip, use the power of Google to find sites with basic sentences and jot these down in a notepad. Here are a few you can use:

French - http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/ss/greetings.htm

Spanish - http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishfortravelers/a/greetings.htm

German - http://german.about.com/od/vocabularytips/a/Learn-German-Greetings.htm

I'm sure there are many more options out there, the Google world is your oyster!

3. Practice saying some phrases out loud to increase your confidence in using them.

When you are abroad

4. Make sure you take your little guide/notepad everywhere with you. You never know when you might need it!


5. Take mini steps - don't try to rattle off big sentences right from the outset. Get confident in the basics first and then you can experiment more.


6. Don't worry about making errors or pronouncing the words wrong. It is in fact by making errors in a language that you learn the most. Also, the locals will be more than delighted that you are trying to make an effort.


7. Learn a few conversation savers such as " I don't understand" , "Can you repeat? " and "I don't speak Spanish/whatever language".


8. Absorb all the language around you - look at signs to see what you can understand, posters on the walls, menus in cafés and restaurants and most importantly listen to the locals communicate amongst themselves. Even if you don't understand everything they are saying, you will still be taking in words here and there.


If you are going for an extended amount of time it is probably more worthwhile to have a good handle on the language, just in case you get into any sticky situations or to get the most from your experience. In this case I recommend using www.duolingo.com which is great for working your way through different topics. You can select to do it for 5 minutes a day or longer if you prefer. It has a huge variety of languages and more are being added. You can even get it as an app for your phone.


Hope this post was useful,


Nikki