Useful Phrases to Learn When You Travel Abroad

Aid your travel experience by learning key phrases and expressions.

When you travel abroad, you are bound to come across some challenges. Even if you have prepared ahead of time, there’s no telling whether your trip goes smoothly or not. Whenever something goes wrong, it’s nice to know there’s someone willing to give you a hand.

But in a country where people don’t even speak your language, you’d have a harder time finding someone to help you. You don’t have to learn an entire language before you leave, but it does help knowing how to say certain phrases when in another country. This strategy not only helps you when you are in a bind, but it could also produce surprising results, such as helping you land a date with foreign women.

Here are some of the phrases to learn:

• Hello
  
  This standard greeting is a good place to start for many reasons. First, hello is always a good conversation starter regardless of language. Second, it’s a good way to get someone’s attention, even beautiful Russian women (if you’re into them, that is). It’s just as important to learn how to say goodbye so that you don’t leave the conversation hanging.


• I would like . . .
  
  This phrase comes in handy when you are in restaurants, cafes, delis, and other food establishments. After all, not all of them have menus. You could also say this when you are in a market. All in all, learning this phrase helps you get what you want.


• Excuse me
  
  There are some cases when saying excuse me is more useful than saying hello. You could use this phrase when you need to bring attention to something urgent, such as emergency health cases. There’s also the obvious case of requesting someone who’s in your way to move a little bit. Anyway, in order to remain polite, you’d have to learn this phrase.


• I only know/speak a little [insert language]
  
  Even after you’ve learned enough words, you still can’t speak the language as fluently as you’d hope you could. So if you find yourself in situations wherein you and the other person just can’t understand each other, it’s always better to come clean and admit that you don’t know enough of the language.
  
  You could just say you don’t understand, but that could give the other person the impression that you simply need a better explanation. At least if you admit that you don’t know the language that well, the other person knows he or she is dealing with a foreigner and would find other ways to communicate.

Once you’ve learned these phrases, the next step is learning how to pronounce them properly. This is to avoid confusion among the locals. Luckily, there are modern tools to teach you how to say these expressions properly. It also helps to anticipate the usual responses of these expressions and learn them ahead of time.

One of the most obvious traveling benefits of learning key phrases is that locals would understand whenever you need something. However, this could also be the push you need to finding a foreign girlfriend. Or it could also convince you to learn another language. Either way, it could enrich your travel experience altogether.