by Tom Rowsell
It is always wise to learn the language before you visit another country, not only because it is polite to do so, but also because it will make your visit easier and more enjoyable. Yet in many cases, the modern traveller may find they haven’t time to learn much of the language prior to departure and are therefore forced to learn it on the fly.
This is the situation I found myself in when I visited South America. I spent several months in Venezuela and a few weeks in Bolivia, but I hardly spoke a word of Spanish before I left. It’s quite true what they say about how you learn a language more quickly when you are forced to, but I don’t think it really helps you to learn it properly.
There are some really essential phrases you need when travelling. It didn’t take me long to understand how to order food and read menus, find cash machines or a bureau de change and ask what time it is. But the subtleties of conversational Spanish eluded me as I had no English speaking friends there to show me the ropes. More often than not I relied on intuition and guessing words from perceived etymological relationships with English or French words that sounded similar to me. This actually works much better than you might imagine, but still left me bamboozled when rapid fire group conversations took place.
Even when you are able to build up quite a wide vocabulary of words, inferring the meaning of a sentence from only the context and a couple of words that you’ve recognised, can still be difficult. There is also a risk of misunderstanding what was said and then proceeding or answering accordingly, a path which leads to more crossed purposes and confusions.
In short, learning a language on the fly isn’t a proper substitute for language lessons any more than Google translate is a substitute for professional . I managed to make it work though, mainly by studying a phrasebook every evening and straining my mind to interpret meanings through intent and context. The use of a phrasebook or a translation app in a restaurant or train station is likely to invoke grunts of derision from locals, especially if there is a queue behind you. That means you need to commit a few phrases and responses to mind before you get there.
If you have time to take lessons or even a home study course then you can really get the hang of things like tenses, cases and both formal and informal greetings and titles. If you’ve a natural ear for language or you have learned another similar language previously then you might be able to get by learning a new language on the fly. In any case, you won’t suffer much by taking some lessons before you leave, or at least checking out some of those free language learning videos on YouTube!