Something a little more lighthearted today to make up for yesterday’s post! When I travel to a foreign country, I enjoy trying to learn that country’s language. A couple of reasons. First, I enjoy learning languages. Secondly, I personally feel that it’s helpful to know at least a few key phrases. Third, beyond key phrases, I think it’s polite and nice to make an effort to communicate in someone’s native language. I think there’s an arrogance in feeling like someone should be able to speak your language but not being willing to learn theirs.
Usually, this isn’t a hard thing. I took some Spanish in high school, and the three countries I’ve traveled to were all Romance languages, so they had a lot of similarities. Honestly, the hardest part is probably not mixing up the languages – sometimes words were THAT similar. To learn (or brush up on, in the case of Spanish) a language, I generally relied on DuoLingo (mostly because it’s free!). I also try to pair it with a podcast or an easy show in that language to help me understand. Obviously, it was hard to work on the speaking part, but I did my best!
France was the first place where I tried that. I found it nice to be able to read direction signs and menus without bothering people so much. I went with my family, and my dad knew French from when he was in high school. I personally think people were nicer to us because we at least made an effort. Most people in Paris knew English though.
Italy was the second country I went to, with my hubs (then boyfriend – see our engagement story). I was able to understand somewhat well, which I found extremely useful in somewhat following announcements when we were on trains – and we took a LOT of trains. The funny thing here though was apparently my hubs look Italian?? So people would constantly go up to him to help him or speak to him in Italian. He would nod, then turn to me and go “what?” The person would then switch to English, or just wait for me to translate. J (the hubs) says it might be because he’s so emotive with his hands.
Spain was the last place I went. Thanks to the years in high school and the podcasts, this was the language I ended up being most fluent in. Apparently, fewer people in Spain speak English than in Italy, so it was a good thing I brushed up. The best part was my hubs would order “jugo” (juice) and would get weird looks. Because I listened to specifically Spanish (from Spain) podcasts, I told him that I think they use “zumo” in Spain, but he didn’t change it until one bilingual waiter told us that “jugo” signifies more like “gravy” in Spain. So it sounds like my hubs keeps wanting orange gravy! The other part was my husband was used to the Mexican accent. And people would keep asking “para beber” (what would you like to drink?), but J kept hearing “para llevar” (carry out?). It was definitely funny!
Miuzing 