Hi, I am planning to visit a wide variety of places speaking a wide variety of languages and I was wondering how one goes about getting through the language barrier. Should I try and learn a few basic languages that a wide variety of people speak, should I try and learn a few key phrases of each language, or should I do something else?
Thank You for all your help.
Although it's nice to know thank you/please/hello/goodbye, if you go through enough language groups, it's pointless to learn them all before you go. Also, you'll get used to using basice sign language (you'll point a lot and demonstrate).
Where are you going? Areas of high linguistic diversity often use a lingua franca (eg Hindi in India, Russian in former soviet union) and you'll get further learning the ligua franca than individual languages.
Personally, I'm a big fan of phrase books. If you're visited areas using related languages, it gets a lot easier to memorise those phrases.
It's always nice to be able to say hello, please and thank you (and maybe goodby) in other languages, but chances are (depending on where you're going), you may find people who speak English where you go.
I would however, bring small phrase books for the main languages of where you're going, in case you get stuck.
I've known people who have traveled through Morocco without knowing anything but English and did fine.
I see from your other thread that you are planning a multi-year adventure that takes you to a lot of different places. After a while you'll learn how to cope. Sign language, a few of the essential local words, English. You'll find that in a lot of places it won't be that hard to find someone who has at least a smattering of English, especially in places that get a lot of visitors.
Your list begins with a lot of countries that do not use Roman alphabets. If the language issue is going to be a part of your comfort zone, then you might want to start with either Europe or South America, where you can read the street signs and where there will be a lot of language cognates you can recognize. Where you'll have fewer problems communicating that you need a place to stay, some bananas, or a toilet.
I talk about this comfort zone, because when I first began to travel, one of the things I worried about was the language barrier. My first trip out of the US (other than some border towns) was to Europe--the UK plus Germany & Austria, since I had studied German in school and I figured I'd be happier if I could communicate. It was the right approach for me. I learned to feel a lot more comfortable about travel and communication. Had my first trip been to, say, China, I would have been overwhelmed.
As you become more familiar with the rhythms of your travel, you'll find yourself having a great time in some bar in a country where you can neither read nor understand a word of the local language.
try and learn a few basic languages
Are you someone who picks up languages easily? How fluent would you like to be? One possibility would be to take a local language course in some place that appeals to you & where you'd like to stay for a few weeks. Another would be to study a European language such as Spanish or French before you leave. Not just to learn the language, but to discover how language learning works for you. If you find it easy or difficult to learn a new language. , what kind of study seems to work for you.
To "learn a few basic languages" to any truly useful degree would require years of effort. Do you have years to devote to the task?
You're asking the wrong questions. I've also had a look at your proposed itinerary and what you really need to be thinking about is "How difficult is it to travel in country X (Y, Z, etc.) knowing only English?" The answers would range from "incredibly easy" (Belize, Malaysia, The Netherlands, UAE) to "fairly challenging" (Tajikistan). Based on what you presently have in mind, the languages that would serve you best are Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic, roughly in that order. Bear in mind, however, that Russian is usually considered one of the most difficult European languages, and that Arabic and (Mandarin) Chinese are routinely classified as two of the most difficult languages in the world, period, for English-speakers to master.
