Language Learning for Travel

I recently traveled to Greece! I love traveling to Europe because there are so many different languages spoken within the streets! There is always the question of how much of a language someone needs to know to be able to travel. English is widely spoken in many parts of the world, but it is also the kind thing to do to learn the language of the country before traveling.

Here are three examples of language learning I have experienced while abroad:

During my trip to London and Paris, which was almost a decade ago, I wasn’t really into language learning as much as I am now. Obviously in London, people spoke English. When we took the weekend trip to Paris, it was surprising how many people understood English and how easy it was to get by with English.

During my study abroad experience in Spain, I was a Spanish major, so I was very much into learning and practicing Spanish. I spoke Spanish during the whole trip: at restaurants, museums, and everywhere! For the majority of the time, I was in Bilbao, Spain, so I don’t know if many people knew English, because I didn’t try to speak in English, but at that point, I was set on learning a language to travel.

On my recent trip to Greece, I studied some Greek before I went. It wasn’t until I was there did I actually use any Greek. For example, I would say thank you and please in Greek, but the rest would be in English. Everywhere we went in Greece, even the small mountain towns we visited, everyone knew English. This is the first time I realized that writing and reading in a language isn’t as important as speaking and made me realize why some people know how to speak, but not write a language. The Greek alphabet was a huge obstacle to learning Greek, but when you are actually in Greece, it is easy to pick up on the language with the common words that are used.

I still believe that people should learn the basics of a language before they travel, but it was not always necessary. 

If you are trying to learn Spanish to travel to Spain, I have a course you could take to help you along your language learning journey. 

Also, during my trip to Greece, one of the vendors spoke to me in French, and I went along with it because I could practice speaking French! It is so cool to be mistaken for knowing another language. Also, a tour guide came up to me and my family and started speaking Dutch and then said in English, “Wait, you do not speak Dutch?” So, it was also cool to be mistaken for being Dutch, as well. Like I already stated, it is so much fun to hear a bunch of different languages while traveling in Europe!

As you can see, my yellow raincoat has been a trusty world travel with me!

All the photos seen in this post are my photos.