Has anyone actually done this? learned the language only for the purpose of traveling and visiting the country? if so, which one and why? was the juice metaphorically worth the squeeze?
Learn Language before travel?
Has anyone actually done this? learned the language only for the purpose of traveling and visiting the country? if so, which one and why? was the juice metaphorically worth the squeeze?
absolute-fucking-lutely anon. I've learned a bit of Tagalog because I wanted to go to the Philippines but it was still closed (they'll lift all the restrictions Nov. 4th so I'll visit next year hopefully)
I'm currently learning Japanese because I'm going there.
>how did you learn the language
one word: Pimsleur. It costs like 150$ per level but you can find them somewhere on the internet. They are great and good if you just want to learn a couple of sentences and interact with locals.
Everyone speaks English in the Philippines you sped.
I learned some French for a trip to Paris. It was a fun experience to try and ask where things are and how much something costs in another language.
I do envy people that learn languages. I suck at that and they make it seem so easy
use languagetransfer.org, it's free and amazing!
>Argentina language
Mutt education
Argentinian uses its own unique dialect of Spanish. While it's comprehensible to native speakers, it is different. Maybe use Google in the future to save yourself from looking like a dimwit.
I learned conversational Spanish & Russian. German just sort of clicks with me, but I don't really see the purpose of learning the language since I'm not a Nazi - or, interesting in living there for longer than a week or two.
Yeah, I might teach myself some Tagalog too. I plan on living there for a little while, creampies, working out & working on my business.
This is one of these retards who think they're smart.
Just about everywhere I've traveled (Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Moscow, Kiev), you can get by with English for tourism purposes.
I learned some Russian and Spanish before I traveled. I'd say it's worth it if you want to visit for more than a couple of weeks and for more than one trip. And it's really worth it if you want to eventually retire outside an English-speaking country.
Also, beware that to be really conversational and fluent takes years, not just a few months to do.
It is actually a lot of work learning a language properly.
You'd be more likely to travel to a country to learn more about the language than you would be to learn the language before you travel.
>You'd be more likely to travel to a country to learn more about the language than you would be to learn the language before you travel.
This is the truth. My usual cycle is like:
>get interested in a country
>learn some of the basic language, get excited because I feel like I'm making progress
>go to country
>realize I can't understand anything at all, they all speak way too fast, slur their words, use slang, etc that make it a thousand times harder than language classes
>either start studying for real, or just give up
I always try to pick up at least basic phrases when visiting places I don’t already speak the language, just because I enjoy it. Sometimes it works better than others. Turkish is really hard to actually speak, so I find I can’t do as much with super-basics as I can in a lot of other languages; I couldn’t get my head around basic declensions and conjugation in the short time I gave it, so I couldn’t do anything but repeat memorized phrases. And I didn’t pick up much Swahili before or in Kenya, mostly because almost everyone I met spoke decent-to-good English and I was hanging out primarily with Anglophone expats.
But I managed to pick up a decent amount of small-talk Romanian on my way to Moldova and Romania (helped that I have a lot of experience with other Romance languages) and I picked up a bit of Slovenian more easily than I expected to; I find Serbocroatian surprisingly difficult, but Slovene was somehow more accessible to me as an intermediate speaker of Russian.
For those who say it’s pointless, I suppose it might be. But I get a lot of pleasure out of it.
Currently learning Danish for my trip to Denmark in 3 weeks but I'm planning on emigrating to Denmark at some point so I will continue to study after I'm back.
>t. Danmarkboo
This is a classic
every dane tells me danish is a horrible language and i thought they were exaggerating until i tried speaking it
very easy to read though
fuck off, we're full, I hear sweden is nice for immigrants
This is true for most non-English languages, if you're a guy
I learned Japanese before going to Japan. Yes. It was well worth it.
Any amount you learn the language will directly benefit you . This can be as simple as an easier trip getting around for a week to a meaningful experience lasting years as an expat abroad - either way , it will open doors you never knew were there .
That's true but there's also opportunity cost. If you want to visit a lot of countries it's hard to find the time to learn the language for all of them.
I bothered to learn French and Japanese knowing I'd be traveling by myself, or that I was going to be 'the speaker'
Most places will generally speak english to you, but it's useful to read signs, maps, menus, etc
I'm sure it helped though. Did the locals seem happy you tried?
I wouldn't say happy so much as appreciative.
I mean imagine you're walking on the street and some cunt stops you and starts gibbering in Dutch at you assuming you know Dutch.
The Japs were eager to switch to English every time, but I guess it's a testament to my French that in France nobody ever responded to me in English