A foreign language under your belt will absolutely 10x your travel experiences
I read an article just now that nearly sent my blood pressure through the roof — it claimed that in the today’s world, English is the only language you need to navigate your way around the planet as a traveller.
If you are prepared to switch the word “traveller” to “gawping tourist” then maybe we have some room for negotiation.
Otherwise, you’re toast…
Digital nomad-ism is the main culprit here and it’s a classic case of the blind leading the blind.
The idea that you can absorb and experience another culture passively without lifting a finger or challenging your own world view 1) smacks of entitlement and 2) is so blissfully naive.
Needless to say this post was from a native English speaker — an American to be precise.
Although, shamefully I will admit that the British are even lazier when it comes to making an effort in a second language.
We’ve all seen the Anglophone backpackers disturbing the peace in the local markets at Mediterranean hotspots or in the dive bars of South East Asian mega-cities.
You can spot them a mile away — self-interested, often abrasive and convinced that their search for a novel sensory experience gives them the right to shout down a local in a patronising way.
When you don’t speak some one else’s language because you are convinced that they should be learning yours you create an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ dynamic.
Ultimately language is a tool for communication, far more powerful a tool than whatever decent exchange rate you got on your way over.
It amazes me how many Dale Carnegie, self-improvement types avoid language learning when it is undoubtedly one of the best ways to win friends and influence people
Their excuses for not making the effort are often the same. “A lack of time” and “too much effort” pop up frequently as usual suspects, but if you are hell-bent on emulating the four-hour work week then what else are you going to do once you’ve been to the gym and checked your balance for inbound passive income…?
What even is the point in adopting an alternate lifestyle that takes you far away from your friends and family if the limits of your language dictate the limits of your lived experience?
Curiosity about someone else’s language, even a willingness to speak it badly in the effort to get to know someone goes a long long way.
We’re not just talking quaint interactions that give you the opportunity to pat yourself on the back — whole worlds can open up in front of you that you never knew existed.
I’m not fluent in 6 languages but I can hold a conversation in all of them and it has unlocked untold riches in my life through strange, exciting and even dangerously memorable experiences that I will remember when I’m on my way out.
When you speak multiple languages you gain access to multi-dimensional experiences that most people are oblivious too.
From being invited by two students to a secret cabaret club at the back of a vintage clothes shop in Kyiv, through a spontaneous roadtrip to the Côte d’Azur with a French family and dinner with two Brazilian businessmen in a working mens club in suburban Lisbon — I can safely say these events would not have happened if I had asked if they speak English.
When you are plugged in and attuned to what’s really happening around you the frequency of serendipitous moments that you experience skyrockets and you feel like you have access to an exclusive club.
Because you have to work so hard for this privilege it never feels like a god-given right and you remain humble in the presence of native speakers.
This is endearing — you shake off their first impression of you as a loud-mouthed tourist and make yourself someone worth knowing.
It’s disarming. You become a curiosity to them.
As you establish genuine connections with people around the world and build a network of friends and lovers who you only met through linguistic serendipity you realise that learning a language is one of the most underrated skills there is and it can have a compounding effect on your experiences.
Furthermore, learning a language even on the road is not actually that difficult.
The excuses that people use are repetitive and unpersuasive - born out of cliches and a learnt behaviours from other monolinguals rather than personal experience.
You just have to think outside the box. It really depends how willing you are to experience a little bit of discomfort and unfamiliarity.
The world is waiting.
Freddie Kift writes about language, communication, flow, collaboration and technology
