A
Anonymous01/07/26, 01:50No.2853580
How much effort do you put into learning language for travel?
In particular:
1) how much time do you spend learning it and how long before your trip do you start learning
2) have you found the effort you put into it to be worthwhile (especially nowadays with translate apps bing pretty good)
3) what is your main intention with learning the language
4) if the language is difficult for Westerners (i.e. an Asian language like Thai) do you put less effort into it and just stick to the very basics
5) when your trip is over do you continue practicing the language
16
Replies
A
Anon01/07/26, 03:18No.2853598
for "traveling" ie a stay of ~2 weeks maxi learn the barebones basics - hello, please, thank you - and nothing else.
A
Anon01/07/26, 12:43No.2853678
0.00001 effort. That is, I learn "hi", "bye" and "thank you". Anything much beyond that would be insane if you plan to see more than 10 countries in your lifetime.
It's sufficient to get people to respond to you more positively and between me and my wife we speak enough languages to get by with anyone but strict one-country-language monolinguals. Then pantomime always does the job well enough.
A
Anon01/07/26, 18:30No.2853718
No effort, every non English speaking country speaks English.
A
Anon01/10/26, 08:01No.2854253
>$110/month rent
Probably not great.
A
Anon01/11/26, 03:16No.2854412
Depends on how many people learn the language as a second language.So Chinese, a billion people speak it, but they're all Chinese people and mostly in China. It's of no value when speaking to someone who is not Chinese.Spanish, not many people in Spain, but a lot of south America speaks Spanish, it's not an uncommon second language in Europe and America, it has value when speaking to Portuguese speakers, some value to English, French, Italian speakers.
AND, nationals of any other county, they might have learned Spanish to speak to any of the aforementioned.You're far more likely to find a African who speaks Spanish, then an African who speaks mandarin. They might have learned Spanish in Europe, but that means they can talk to you as a Spanish esl.And that's why English rules the world, so many people learned it already as a second language that esl English is the most widely spoken language almost everywhere on earth, and those who refuse to learn, typically there's a political reason and they suffer badly for it.So you see it's not really about how many primary speakers the language has, it's about how many secondary. Tertiary speakers.I've been up mountains and yelled at people in English, they didn't understand. OK, regional languages. French, Spanish Russian. One of them yelled back in Spanish. They weren't Spanish, they were from south America and spoke Portuguese. Fuk. So someone who speaks Portuguese, broken Spanish, can communicate with someone, not English, who is fluent in English as a second language, so can understand at least some Spanish. That's right at the thin end, but it illustrates the value of bridging language barriers.But I've been to many enclave regions where it was just full power charades, tribal people who couldn't read and write themselves. Unironically, we just got better at charades. The hand gestures evolved very quickly until were in a bar like SWAT using only signs.
A
Anon01/11/26, 04:13No.2854425
I learn:
Hello, goodbye, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry & toilet.
Sorry is useful for when I break cultural norms without realizing like a retard.
A
Anon01/22/26, 01:28No.2856824
If you already speak English then you are good to go