Vacationing In A Foreign Country
Solo travel is on everyones bucket list, and sometimes we all reach a point in life where we have the luxury of planning a solo trip to a land far-off, exotic, and often not having English as a primary language. But language barrier isnt that big, right? Sure through some mumbles and mispronunciations we are able to eventually ace that language (or not) -but before that comes these stages that everyone goes through the moment they embark on their first trip -or even a later one- to a country with a foreign language.
Buy A Translating Dictionary
We scourge the bookstores looking for that super affordable and accessible dictionary that can conjugate even the toughest foreign verbs for us and we can just converse with locals like absolute pros. Well at least thats how we imagine our tryst with this translating dictionary is! But it is complicated, and torturous, and challenging.
Trust Google Translate
And when our brilliant dictionary fails to help us give a political opinion in say, French, we resort to the internet. And Google is definitely extremely helpful and quite useful. However getting that free wifi is surely tricky.
Find The Locals Intimidating
Even in the most hospitable of countries with the kindest people, we cant help but feel quite lost and intimidated but also intrigued with the effortless charm these strangers have speaking their language. We hear them in clusters and avoid having long-drawn discussions with them.
Learn The Three Cardinal Words
Money, Food, Toilet. That is pretty much our lives anyway; so we quickly adapt our tongues to learn these words and say them off with a panache only the locals can match. At least we know that at any point in time we wont be broke, hungry, or dying of a bladder bursting.
Upping The Gesticulation Game
Those hands -that body language. Putting it all to use now. Everything becomes a game of charades when we are visiting a foreign language country. The good part is that gesticulation often works on impulses and reflexes so we are usually on the mark, plus its pretty much universally uniform.
Learn The Art Of Effectively Nodding
A local guide is telling us to take the left turn. We nod. A man is trying to sell us vintage souvenirs. We nod. People are wishing us a good day. We nod (also give a little smile). Nodding is a polite way of enforcing attention without being too overt. Its effective, but it is also interactive as it signals that you are listening and paying attention; regardless of how much you can actually understand, you are at least trying.
Source: www.ndtv.com
