subject: Always Be Prepared-Learn The Native Language Now Before You Travel And You Won't Embarrass Yourself Or Get Lost And Hungry! [print this page] Always Be Prepared-Learn The Native Language Now Before You Travel And You Won't Embarrass Yourself Or Get Lost And Hungry!
When planning a trip overseas, having a foundation in the native language of that country can be very helpful. It can get a bit embarrassing sometimes trying to convey a message or feeling to someone that has no idea what you are saying. Preparing ahead of time can make life much simpler. Anything that requires communication, and that is just about everything, is sometimes taken for granted at home where everyone understands you. I know, not being prepared almost ruined a vacation once.
We traveled to a hamlet about 65 miles outside Barcelona, Spain about 4 years ago hoping to escape the standard tourist traffic. It was awesome! The drive there was amazing. We encountered one little set-back though...We Didn't Speak A Word Of Spanish. No one in the village spoke Englishbesides the owner of the hostel where we stayed and the chief of the local constabulary. And the chief only spoke English haltingly. Thank luck for our host, because he turned out to be a real eye opener.
It turned out that he had studied back here in the states in the mid 80's. You have to love the student exchange program! It literally saved our vacation.
It wasn't till a couple days into our trip that we realized just how much of a disadvantage not speaking our guest country's native language truly was. We had decided to take a road trip, and when we stopped for gas and a snack, I found out that asking for simple directions was impossible. We headed back to our hotel, hungry, and a bit crestfallen.
That night at dinner we were explaining to our host what had happened and he just nodded and told me no problem. He could teach us enough Spanish to get around and go where we wanted. So, two days later, and after much sangria and lots of coaching, we were on our merry way again. With the help of some scribbled crib notes and a few memorized sentences we proceeded to have the time of our lives!
When we came home, the first thing I did was to find some way not to repeat the embarrassment of being unprepared. After looking at quite a few courses online in Spanish, I settled on one that was very user friendly. Not only did it broaden what little we learned from our understanding host in Spain, it provided us with the unique enjoyment of becoming fairly fluent inconversational Spanish.
