That Wonderful Language Barrier

Are you one of those travelers who struggles with languages? You shouldn’t. Getting your hands dirty with unfamiliar languages is one of the great joys of being in Europe.  It enhances your travels, and it can pull back the curtain on some fascinating discoveries.

Still skeptical? Here’s a never-before-published excerpt from my new travel memoir, The Temporary European, that offers a taste of how wrangling with the language barrier can bring new meaning to your travels.

Before my first visit to Russia, I decided to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. I made flashcards for each letter and quizzed myself daily. Deep down I suspected that this was pointless: Would it matter if I could sound out Russian words when I don’t speak Russian?

After landing in Moscow, I went for a long walk and dissected every word I saw, phonetically, letter by letter. And I was shocked at how many I understood. Loanwords from English looked exotic but sounded familiar: йо́га — yoga, or сувениры — souvenirs, or Старбакс кофе — Starbucks coffee, or even the supermarket chain Дикси — Dixie. And I recognized proper nouns, too: Сталин — Stalin, or Италия — Italy, or парк горького — “Park Gorkogo,” Gorky Park. Simply noticing which words had migrated into Russian offered insights about how Russia relates to the rest of the world.

The fearsome cliché of the language barrier intimidates travelers. They view a foreign language as exactly that: a barrier to be overcome. I disagree. Grappling with language is one of the joys of being on the road. Not only is it a fun puzzle to solve; trying to understand it — even psychoanalyze it — can unlock deep cultural secrets.

To be clear: I’m not talking about learning a language before you visit a place. That’s unrealistic. I’m talking about approaching language openly and constructively, rather than assuming it’s a lost cause. You’re smart. You’ve already mastered at least one language. Give yourself some credit to play around with another. Many of my favorite cultural insights have been earned through a willingness to get my hands dirty with Europe’s languages.

For example, universal words are a godsend to travelers. Once you learn that “cashier” is Kasse in German, you’ll recognize it everywhere: caisse in French, cassa in Italian, kasa in Polish, kassa in Swedish, and касса in Russian.

Sometimes these pan-European words reflect history. Throughout Europe, furniture is “movables” — muebles in Spanish, meubles in French, Möbel in German, and so on. This recalls a time when the nobility would take cupboards and chairs with them when moving between their summer, winter, and country estates. The only thing you couldn’t take along was the building itself, which is why real estate is “unmovables” (inmuebles, immeubles, Immobilien, and so on).

Idiosyncrasies between languages are also revealing. The people we call “Germans” are Allemands to the French, Saksalaiset to the Finns, Tedeschi to the Italians, Duitsersto the Dutch, and Deutschen to themselves. This, too, reflects history: Until the mid-19th century, there was no unified “Germany,” but a loose collection of German-speaking kingdoms, fiefdoms, and city states. Whichever Germanic group a culture came into contact with — the Allemands, the Germanni, the Saxons — became the term used for all Germans. The Slavs of Central and Eastern Europe dismissed this whole mess and, with a striking consistency, called them all “mute” (in other words, “people we can’t speak with”): Niemcy in Polish, Nijemci in Croatian, Немецкий in Russian, and so on.

Similarly, the nickname each country uses for syphilis speaks volumes about international relations. To the Russians, it’s “the Polish disease”; to the Poles, it’s “the German disease”; to the Germans, it’s “the French disease”; to the French, it’s “the Neapolitan disease”; and to the Turks, it’s simply “the Christian disease.”

Let’s talk for a moment about diacritics: those wee doo-hickeys that are appended above or below letters, mystifying foreigners and infuriating typesetters. Most Americans can handle simple accents, like á, and umlauts, like ä. (And by “handle,” I mean “ignore.”) But the Slavic lands provide a crash course in advanced diacritics. The “little roof” is easy — it’s just like adding an “h” after the letter in English: č sounds like “ch” and š like “sh.” But each language has its one-offs, like the Croatian đ or the Czech ď. Poland ramps it up, with ą and ł and ń and ż.

The (understandable) temptation is simply to blow right past these. But that’s like skipping minus signs and exponents in mathematics. Each of these carats, curls, or hooks changes the pronunciation and the meaning, sometimes dramatically. (For example, in Turkish, the curlicue over the ğ effectively makes it silent.) Taking the time to learn each symbol gives you a rewarding sense of mastering something that most travelers simply pretend isn’t there. And locals will ooh and aah when you’re the rare tourist who’s bothered to pronounce their hometown right.

Of Europe’s dominant languages, the one I’m least comfortable with is French. I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to pronounce written French, or how to transliterate spoken French. At least a few syllables’ worth of letters always get left out. How can it be that the pileup of words Qu’est-ce que c’est? is pronounced, simply, “kess kuh say”?

A breakthrough came when a Parisian colleague helped me assemble a handful of exceedingly succinct, all-purpose “Caveman French” phrases. For example: Ça (pronounced “sah”). Meaning “this” or “that,” this tiny syllable is the puzzled tourist’s best friend; when combined with pointing, it conveys worlds of meaning.

Also, there’s Ça va (sah vah). While textbooks teach this as the casual way to say both “How are you?” and “I’m fine,” it’s so much more. As a question, Ça va? (“Does it go?”) can mean “Is this OK?” In concert with a gesture, you can use Ça va? to ask, “Can I sit here?” or “Can I touch this?” or “Can I take a picture?” or “Will this ticket get me into this museum?” As a statement, Ça va (“It goes”) is just as versatile. When the waiter asks if you want anything more, say Ça va (“Nope, I’m good”).

Another handy one is Puis-je? (pwee-zhuh). Meaning “Can I?”, Puis-je? is a more refined alternative for many of the Ça va? situations. Instead of saying, “May I please sit here?”, just gesture toward the seat and say, Puis-je? Instead of, “Do you accept credit cards?”, show them your MasterCard and ask, Puis-je?

While English speakers reserve Voilà (vwah-lah) for grand unveilings, the French say it many times each day. It means “Exactly” or “That’s it” or “There you go.” You’ll hear it in response to the questions above: Unsure of how much your plums cost, you hold a euro coin out to the vendor and say, Ça va? He responds with a cheery Voilà…and you’re on your way, biting into a plum.

So there — with seven syllables — you’ve got all you need to politely make your way through the majority of simple interactions tourists are likely to encounter in France. Voilà!

There’s one thing that is, for me, simply hopeless…undecodable: the words for “push” and “pull” in any European language. Maybe it’s a mental block, but I can never memorize these. If you ever spot me in Europe, I’ll be the guy pushing on a door marked tiri or ziehen or ciągnąć.


I hope you’ve enjoyed this excerpt from The Temporary European. Pick up a copy of the book to read the full chapter, which includes an account of the time that I spent a month traveling around Europe to “update” and expand our bestselling phrase books. You get The Temporary European right now exclusively at Ricksteves.com (and it’s 30% off through January 2); it will be available everywhere, and as an e-book, on February 1.

2 Replies to “That Wonderful Language Barrier”

  1. I’m a life-long language hobbyist, and I can get along as a tourist in several languages, which is not the same as being completely proficient in all of them. Even in Scandinavia, where proficiency in spoken English is common, I have encountered situations in which my basic Norwegian has come in handy.

    But I have learned how much you can do with a combination of a few words and a lot of gestures. The prime example was a trip to South Korea a few years ago. I had taken a summer course in Korean, but the textbook they used seemed to avoid teaching anything that could be of use to an adult tourist. Nevertheless, although I found that few people spoke English, I had learned enough of the Korean alphabet to sound out words, and retained about twenty handy words and phrases. My attempts to communicate either were covered by those twenty words and phrases plus elaborate gestures or motivated the other person to go looking for an English-speaker.

    A hint for people going to a country where the Latin alphabet is not used: If you have hotel reservations, print out the maps that are sure to be found on the local language version of each hotel’s website. Either show it to cab drivers or use it to ask passersby for directions.

  2. I just read this excerpt from your book. It was very interesting and funny. We have traveled and we know a few languages well enough to read or converse. Thank you.

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