Do you try to learn new languages for your travels?

[perditax]

I've been playing with a free app called Duolingo (sort of like Rosetta Stone but free, and therefore a bit less polished) and dusting off my high school Spanish. Just wondering how many folks attempt to at least learn a few phrases for their non-English ports of call. And if you do, how well does it go over when you try to utilize them?

[Shmoo here]

I've been playing with a free app called Duolingo (sort of like Rosetta Stone but free, and therefore a bit less polished) and dusting off my high school Spanish. Just wondering how many folks attempt to at least learn a few phrases for their non-English ports of call. And if you do, how well does it go over when you try to utilize them?

 

Yes, we do. And let me tell you, traveling to Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary on our river cruise, it was quite challenging. I finally just printed out a little page of helpful phrases to read off (phonetically) when there.

 

It seemed to be appreciated when I made the attempt.

[perditax]

Yes, we do. And let me tell you, traveling to Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary on our river cruise, it was quite challenging. I finally just printed out a little page of helpful phrases to read off (phonetically) when there.

 

 

 

It seemed to be appreciated when I made the attempt.

 

 

Hah! I can only imagine. I'm guessing those get a bit more tricky than Spanish. (That said, I'm no linguist, but diving back into Spanish I'm reminded how nice it is that the pronounciation rules are seemingly so consistent.)

[headhunterke]

I speak English, French, Dutch and German fluently and have a basic knowledge of Spanish. So I'm covered in quite a lot of areas. Whenever I travel to a region where they don't speak one of those languages, I try to learn some basic words. But I have a great app on my phone which will translate loose words into pretty much any language, even offline. So, when using that app, I'm slowly picking up some words as well.

 

Duolingo is great, and I use it (although not as often as I would want to) to help me improving my Spanish.

[klfrodo]

I try to.

I've got the phone app also.

What I find funny is that I have to think what I want to say and then sometimes I find I'm using the wrong language. I was on Air France and instead of saying Merci, I said Bitte, felt like a fool.

Sometimes I speak so bad, they give up on me and speak back in better English than I speak.

I have fun with it though

[pseudoware]

Since I made the effort to complete a Rosetta Stone level for French, I had to break out what little I knew while in Paris.

 

Well, when you speak to someone in French, they're more than likely gonna reply in French, really fast, and possibly quite verbose. I barely knew what I was saying, and had no clue if I got a proper answer, or was told something like "you're a stupid American", lol. Actually, my experience w/the French while on vacation has been more than positive.

 

In hindsight, I think I would have gotten more bang-for-my-learning-buck with Italian. It seems like most locals in touristy parts of France can communicate in English to some extent. I didn't find that to be the case in Italy.

 

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Edited December 1, 2015 by pseudoware

[Keith1010]

Yes, we try to learn some words in new languages prior to our travels.

 

We also will read up about the history of the places we are visiting.

 

I think it's a great idea on your part.

 

Keith

[Jacs]

Yes of course, I think it's the respectful thing to do. I learnt some basic phrases in French and German for our European trip (I learnt some Italian at school so already knew enough of that) and for our Egypt cruise stop I learnt some basic Arabic. I try to learn typical greetings, yes, no, please, thankyou, how much, excuse me and do you speak English? Most times people will reply in English if I attempt to speak their native tongue lol, but they appreciate the attempt.

[biker@sea]

I did take a couple of Basic Philippino language and history classes offered by NCL.

 

I do like to give the crew a proper greeting in their own language. :D

 

I do use my " cheat sheet " NCL provided.

 

.

Edited December 1, 2015 by biker@sea

[euro cruiser]

Most of the time I can manage to get out "please", "thank you", and some form of "hello/good morning/good day", whatever the usual phrase of greeting is in the language. Czech almost did me in - one server said to me "that's why we all speak English" as I struggled to even say "please".

 

On cruises with the kids we've always asked the servers to teach us how to say these simple words in their native language. It started as a way to get the kids engaged but it's become more than that over time. River cruises are more interesting for this as the staffs tends to be more multi-cultural than I've found on the big cruise lines.

Edited December 1, 2015 by euro cruiser

[navybankerteacher]

Learning a few key words and phrases in the several languages to be encountered is not that difficult, and is almost universally appreciated even if you mispronounce: simply making the effort is itself a demonstration of respect and courtesy.

[SuiteTraveler]

Yes, I always make the effort and it is appreciated most of the time. I know quite a bit of Italian and French and Spanish and this usually goes over well in the various places we visit. However, I have found one cultural difference that surprised me. If the person is French, for example, but owns an Italian restaurant that I am patronizing I would tend to speak to the owner in Italian - even if the owner is French - the idea being that the restaurant is Italian, so the owner must have some Italian ties and probably speaks Italian - otherwise, why own an Italian restaurant in France? In the US, speaking in Italian at an Italian restaurant is usually appreciated, but not in France, where the restaurant owner actually made fun of me saying "Graci!" instead of "Merci!" Fortunately, I have a sense of humor about these things. This fellow probably has never been to the US and doesn't realize that I was, flattering him for having such an authentic Italian restaurant. Oh well...

[sparks1093]

I've been playing with a free app called Duolingo (sort of like Rosetta Stone but free, and therefore a bit less polished) and dusting off my high school Spanish. Just wondering how many folks attempt to at least learn a few phrases for their non-English ports of call. And if you do, how well does it go over when you try to utilize them?

 

Yes, I always try to learn the polite phrases and greetings.

[calliopecruiser]

I've been playing with a free app called Duolingo (sort of like Rosetta Stone but free, and therefore a bit less polished) and dusting off my high school Spanish. Just wondering how many folks attempt to at least learn a few phrases for their non-English ports of call. And if you do, how well does it go over when you try to utilize them?

 

Of course - it only seems polite to try. I try to know the standards:

 

Hello

Good bye (or good night)

Thank you (and thank you very much)

Please

I'm sorry and/or Excuse me

Do you speak English?

I don't speak ________

Bathroom?

 

Most everything else can be managed with a combination of body language, hand signals, or writing it down (if you use the same alphabet). I find that if you make an effort and at least have a few words of the local language, people will make an effort to understand you and help. I did a road trip that took me to the north of Portugal for a week where very few people spoke English, and I managed fine with those basics. However, acting like you expect them to speak your language is bound to make you seem arrogant and not garner much help from the locals.

[iancal]

I want to learn Spanish. Often wonder if Rosetta Stone will truly work for me.

 

I had a working knowledge of French 30 plus years ago and grew up in a bilingual city. Alas I lost much of it when we move to an English speaking environment.

 

Surprising how it comes back. We were in Paris in October. DW thought I managed just fine. The indication for me was that when I listened to someone speak I understood it....I did not have to translate it to English in my brain.

 

I suspect this is attributable to our previous month in the Greek Islands. Many of our fellow guests on various islands were French and we heard that frequently for a month.

[perditax]

I want to learn Spanish. Often wonder if Rosetta Stone will truly work for me.

 

Try out duolingo for free-they use roughly the same teaching methods, at least at the beginning. Duolingo is available on the web, and I assume most phones/tablets. (I started out playing with it on my ipad, but today found out that the web version works fine on my desktop.) If it works out for you, you could consider spending the money on Rosetta Stone.

 

https://www.duolingo.com/

 

Seems to be totally free, I didn't even see any offer of in-app purchases on my tablet. I don't know how they're funded. For full functionality, you should use it on a phone or tablet with a mic, OR be using a computer with a built-in mic or headset/mic.

 

Due to my job, I know a lot of U.S. natives who hold degrees in other languages. When I've asked their input on Rosetta Stone/duolingo type learning, they say it's good enough to start with, but to become really fluent you do need immersion and a teacher who speaks the language. But for travel purposes I don't think most of us are intending to be 100% fluent.

Edited December 1, 2015 by perditax

[OCruisers]

While I'm in no way fluent in Spanish, I can get by in Spanish speaking places.

The first thing I say in Spanish before entering into to a conversation: "I'm sorry! My Spanish is not very good."

I've been told by many that I worry too much about the verb tense so to just say the base verb and they'll understand what I'm trying to say. :D

 

LuLu

[iancal]

perditax....thanks so much for that link. I am going to try it.

 

Agree that you need immersion to be fluent. I may start here and then find a local class.

[cruisemom42]

I take Italian lessons and I use Duolingo from time to time for extra practice or reinforcement of newly learned words. (When you are learning in a class setting, there isn't always a lot of time to go back and reinforce what you learned in previous weeks....)

 

I think it's pretty good and keeps your interest, at least in short bursts of use.

[nybumpkin]

I minored in Spanish in college. I can read Spanish well, but have difficulty understanding native speakers unless I say "despacio, por favor.":) I'm conversant enough to get by in Spanish-speaking countries. In July we were in the Dominican Republic and I ordered a rum punch at the beach bar in Spanish. The bartender was so excited that I spoke Spanish that he forgot to pour my drink.:p

 

We do try to learn a few phrases in the language of the ports we visit. Two years ago we were in St. Petersburg and our guide taught us a few basic phrases. When we returned through Customs to board the ship I said "thank you" in Russian to the agent. As some of you may know, the agents in St. Petersburg have a reputation of being rather stern. When I thanked the agent, she broke into a big smile and said "You're welcome" right back in Russian.

[electro]

Of course - it only seems polite to try. I try to know the standards:

 

Hello

Good bye (or good night)

Thank you (and thank you very much)

Please

I'm sorry and/or Excuse me

Do you speak English?

I don't speak ________

Bathroom?

 

 

Your forgot the most important ones:

 

White (or red) wine please

Beer please

:D:D

[Talisker92]

When i was working, I had customers all over the world, so I bought a series of books called "Just Enough" from Amazon.They are very small and can fit in a man's pocket.

I used them to buy cold medicine in Russia, and hair spray in Costa Rica.

The one thing I learned, is that Americans are right to the point, where in other countries, you greet the person first.

The 4 words to learn are Hello Goodbye, please and thank you, for starters.

People in these countries will appreciate you making the effort.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Talisker92

[sail7seas]

After college, I had a decent ability with Spanish and French. But when you don't use it you lose it. Prior to our travels to Spain some years ago, I enrolled in local Community College for night classes to brush up on my language skills. Sadly the course was not very good and I was disappointed to not get much out of it. We did a great deal of travel throughout Spain on numerous trips and I was able to manage fairly well. Now I've forgotten it all again. :o

Edited December 2, 2015 by sail7seas