Of course it’s not rude to speak in english with the people you’re travelling with. Make an effort to learn a couple of phrases - as others have said, please and thank you are biggies - and you’ll be ok. You’re a tourist, not Dr Who.
The one problem with this, and this applies to all tourists in countries that don’t speak your language, that you do need to remember that you’re actually speaking aloud; leaning across a train carriage and shouting at your friends is still annoying even if the people around you can’t understand what you’re saying. And occasionally they will understand, and that can be amusing - for them at least.
In Paris I was slightly annoyed at the ticket office staff’s dismissal of my poor french - he wouldn’t even let me say a full sentence - and very annoyed that the staff at the British Embassy didn’t all speak english. I think that’s one situation where you can reasonably expect even the security guards to speak English.
Ideally, you would want to know something of the language of any country you are in. But my ability to learn languages is extremely limited. I can sort of have a conversation in French, used to know some German and not much else (I can say, in Danish, I speak no Danish). When I was in Japan I was reduced to pointing, basically, although I did learn hello, thank you, goodbye and the numbers from 1 to 10. And I had been invited by a man who spoke not just English, but also French and German. So I try to be very tolerant of someone who doesn’t speak English.
A couple of vignettes. Last February, I was walking down the street with my wife and an Italian speaking couple asked if spoke Italian (no), but on the off-chance, said, "Est-ce que vous parlez francais?) They did and were very grateful. All they wanted was to know where there was a grocery store and we told them.
On Feb. 26, 1993, I was to meet my brother and my wife and daughter on the south side of Liberty St., just across from the World Trade Plaza at 12:30. I was talking with my brother while waiting for the other two and a woman who spoke no English, indicated somehow that she was looking to take the E train whose stop was in the basement of the World Trade Center. I indicated to her that she should cross the street, go into the building and down the steps to the subway. The bombing had, unbeknownst to us, taken place at 12:18. I have wondered ever since what happened to her. But it wouldn’t have any different if she had spoken English, I guess, except that she would have understood why they weren’t letting anyone in the building.
For example, talking among your own family. My family has travelled all over the world and they usually speak Hungarian among themselves wherever they are.
I have found this to be true. I try to get one of the tourist books for the country that has a small dictionary as well as the usual assortment of phrases. If nothing else, you can do the flip and point at words method of communication.
When I went to Germany solo in '03 I had a 6 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport/train station, and spent it having a blast with a bunch of people in their 20s who bought me breakfast so they could practice english. In traveling in Germany, Holland, France and Spain, I would say that probably a quarter of the people I met spoke some english, maybe another 10 percent were fairly fluent in english but everybody was helpful because I was obviously trying not to be the nasty american tourist.
Why, here in the UK I always make sure to adopt an American accent in such fine establishments as MacDonalds and Starbucks. I make an exeption for Pizza Hut for whom I putta on an Italiano accenta!
Heh. I can’t tell you how many times I got lost in France following locals’ directions before it occurred to me that “a droite” and “en droite”, similar though they sounded to my ear, actually meant very different things. I coulda used someone’s lead then :).
That said, it’s not at all rude to try speaking your native tongue in a foreign land, IMO. Once in a long while someone here will need help but speak very little English, and if I can bumble my way through enough Spanish to get them the help they need, it’s a total thrill.
Well for me, the choices are to me not to travel to certain places at all or visit other places with the recognition only some percentage of the population will speak passable English. It has never been a problem in my travels to many countries. I never force anyone to speak English to me. They just do when they realize that is the only way we have of communicating quickly. I don’t speak more than 10 words of French and have walked around Paris by myself for days at a time and never had one problem there or anywhere else in France. The same is true for Germany, Italy, Mexico, Quebec, Costa Rica etc. Most younger people know English so you carefully watch and select the ones that can and approach them respectfully.
Learning languages is difficult. I was once conversant in Spanish thanks to forced classes in college but I can’t speak it much at all now and can only read some. The really obnoxious thing is when tourists think they can become proficient in a language just by buying a guidebook or by listening to some CD’s in their car. It is nice to know the equivalent of ‘hello’ , ‘thank you’ and ‘where’s the bathroom’ in the language of wherever you are going but you are kidding everyone if you think you can learn much more than that without months or years of actual practice.
There is nothing worse than a tourist trying to validate their meager study of the language by forcing it on the people that can actually speak it. I think it is better and much more efficient to just recognize that English is the reigning universal language and work with that to communicate while being as polite as possible.
You exaggerate. I learned that quickly several languages on trips to several respective countries, without getting a chance to practice speaking until I was already in country, and was able to converse reasonably well within a few days. Now, if we were going to get into the topic of obnoxious attitudes held by travelers, you may want to check your house’s construction material before throwing too many stones.
Oh, there’s one thing worse: yelling at foreigners in English as if that helps them to understand any better. Your lazy approach might serve you well enough in the major touristy zones, if that’s your thing, but risks abject failure in locations where English isn’t quite as “universal” as you like to imagine. The world is wide.
???:dubious: Why on earth do you think the cashiers at this restaurant would know any more English than the average Russian? For the same reason that servers at The Olive Garden always speak a little Italian? Or because the salesmen at Honda and Toyota dealerships are usually conversant in Japanese? What would be the purpose of ensuring the minimum-wage cashiers and baristas all speak English? “Hey, I know this is just a part-time job for you, but we really need you to learn English on the off chance that someone who doesn’t speak Korean comes in here and is too stupid to manage to order by pointing at the menu.”
I remember when an Irish barman was chastised for not having learned Swedish after ten years in the country. His response was “Why should I? Everyone here speaks perfect English”.
He clearly didn’t get about much then. I’m guessing the majority of his customers were from English speaking countries too.
I think you have to make a difference between visiting and settling. I started learning Swedish as soon as I got my personnummer as I thought it was the right thing to do, I had chosen to settle here. I’ve been to Latvia several times (an ex moved there for work) and I never learnt a word of Latvian, there was no point. No one seemed to expect me to either.
It’s not that uncommon for Irish people to move to say continental Europe and work for a few years in an Irish pub without picking up much of the lingo. Often all the staff will be Irish, or at least non-local, and they often attract a primarily anglophone crowd.
Every country I visit, the first phrase I learn is: “Thank you, you are very kind.” You will be universally adored.
In every country I have ever been people absolutely love any effort you put into learning their language. Learn a simple phrase like that, and you will be invited over to dinner, be offered sons or daughters in marriage, be given gifts to take home. People just love to see foreigners making the effort to bumble a few words in their language.
I’m the same. When I meet people who attempt a few words of Dutch it completely melts my heart, however useless of badly pronounced.
I think there is only appreciation for the attempt, rather than anger or contempt if you don’t speak the language. OTOH, if you stay in one place for more than 3 months and don’t try to speak the language I would think it rude. It’s all about trying.
I know. My usual place (http://www.southsidepub.se/) has mostly English speaking staff and the majority of the crowd is English speaking. I’m well acquainted with the concept.
My point was that if you get outside of that comfort zone you rapidly find out that the level of English spoken here is actually quite far from “Everyone here speaks perfect English”. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of very good people, but many are also very, very poor. The problem is everyone thinks they speak perfect English. I see a lot of terrible translation work done by Swedes that were too arrogant regarding their English abilities to hire a translator or even a proof reader.
Not everything you read in books is true, and this is certainly not.
As Japan is a fairly isolated country, it used to be that Japanese didn’t run into foreigners who speak Japanese. With the number of TV personalities who do, this is no longer the case.
