The Art of Travel Language
I really want to open this piece with the statement that “any American who travels abroad and doesn’t learn at least a few words of the language of the country they are going to are utter and complete jerks.”
But I won’t.
My friends say that I should be a little more lenient because languages come easy to me. I will admit that they do, but I really want to admit that they do for everyone, you just have to have a passion for learning, find the right teacher, and the right method of learning.
It wasn’t until my first foray into the Czech Republic a few years ago that I had put this to the test. For the most part, my travels had taken me to places where, if I didn’t completely understand what was being said, I could get by. I had been traveling to places where I had already studied the language of the country – Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Mexico … But heading into the Czech Republic was daunting to say the least. I had heard many rumors about the language, how difficult it was to learn and how alien it sounded. And most daunting of all, that nobody in the Czech Republic spoke English.
Fair enough.
I had kept my eye out for a Czech class in the Bay Area for years and had never found one, so on entering the country, I was flying blind. Fortunately, the very first person that I met spoke English, not what I had expected but it gave me a reprieve of a day before having to put effort into understanding what was going on around me. The second day I bought my Czesky/Anglicky dictionary and dove in.
I have to admit that I wasn’t flying completely blind. That first person I met who spoke English was available for reference throughout my stay, and my grandfather was Bohemian and spoke Czech. That whole generation of my family did. But he passed on before I even entered the first grade, and the only word I really remember from him was Ahoj! That’s not to say that the sounds and the cadence of the language weren’t familiar to me when I got to Prague. They were. I just didn’t know how to put two and two together.
So I spent my days wandering the streets with my dictionary, looking up words, trying to figure out how to communicate. And I have to say that even though it was a struggle, and it was challenging, it was also fun. I enjoyed myself. It was like living within a puzzle that had more dimensions than I could count.
After a few days of going to the same bakery and the same grocery store in the neighborhood where I was staying, the clerks started helping me with the pronunciations of words. I would read the names of the items as they were being rung up, and the clerk would chuckle and say it correctly. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make a Czech store clerk chuckle?
It made me chuckle too. That was the connection that I was making with these people, through their language.
Even in countries where I know the language, I can run into fun problems. Like the time I went to the local market in Saint-Denis to buy peanut butter to make an African dish for my friend K. for dinner. I was not permitted to purchase the item until I could pronounce it! To this day I can not pronounce the words arichide or cacahouette correctly. Although I did, eventually, get the peanut butter that day.
Many English speakers are afraid of putting themselves out there when it comes to speaking another language. I know of many people who are somehow under the impression that if they don’t speak the other language perfectly that they will be looked down upon, be considered stupid, or people won’t help them. This is a popular misconception, one that is far, far, far from the truth.
Language, or words, are the keys that you can use to open doors while traveling. Knowing something about the local language, and making an effort to speak it, makes your host, and yes, the people of the city, town or village you stay in are your hosts, know that you actually care about the their home. That you are visiting because you want to learn about the place, its inhabitants, and its culture.
Never hesitate to use your words. And if you make a mistake, don’t forget to laugh at yourself.
Tags: language
August 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Hey there! One of my best conversations was in Roma at the airport. We were traveling with my mom and my in-laws and we were all flying buddy passes and we got bumped. Of course, that was the last flight out that day so we had to stay over night. We’re in the middle of no where and we’re at the mercy of any hotel. I went downstairs and there was a guy sitting at a hotel information booth. He was obviously off the clock and reading a newspaper with his feet up. It took me a while and he was very hesitant to extend a helping hand. We started talking about ourselves and ended up talking about everything and anything. He ended up calling a friend at another hotel, getting rooms for us, got the price reduced to almost nothing and escorted us by shuttle to our hotel. While we waited we chatted for close to a total of two hours. He barely spoke English and my Italian was passable but between French, Italian, English and Spanish we shared our entire lives with each other and became fast friends. I tried to offer him money and he was shocked and said he was doing it as a favor. He showed up the next morning with another shuttle and took us to the airport where he had already pre-checked us in and escorted us to our gate. All he would take was a hardy handshake, which just goes to show that people are just people and if you are nice and friendly people anywhere will accept and welcome you!