Travel Tips: When You Don’t Speak the Native Language

One of our favorite things about traveling is getting to immerse ourselves in cultures that are new to us and different to our own. It’s an amazing way to learn different ways of life and to expose yourself to new experiences even late in life!

Often times when exploring new cultures, you’ll find yourself in regions where you do not speak the native language or local dialect. How exciting! But often times we know the prospect of not knowing the native language can be intimidating for travelers, and even a deterrent to booking trips in new places.

At One Day Travel, our goal is to remove as many barriers as possible for our readers to begin traveling & feel comfortable while doing so.

We hope the list of travel tips below enables you to feel more confident in situations where you do not know how to speak the common language. Happy traveling!

1. Carry Your Hotel’s Business Card

This first tip is a no-brainer, but also often overlooked! One of the first tips I was given when traveling through China (where I did not speak the language) was to pick up the business card of each hotel I was staying in as I checked in for my stay.

The business card will contain the name of your accommodation, a phone number or email to contact it, and the address of its location. By having this on hand, you have an easy way to communicate with taxi drivers or other local ride services where you would like to get back to, without the need for a translation app or cellular data.

If all else goes wrong, it is comforting to know you have a way to communicate that you would like to go back to your base hotel. Often times hotels hire staff who are multi-lingual, and can assist you with any issues you may be running into upon your return or over the phone.

2. Print a Copy of Your Itinerary

Piggy-backing off of the first tip, it wouldn’t hurt to have a printed copy of all of the major attractions you are planning to go to on your trip as well. Similarly to having a hotel card, having a physical list of your itinerary may just make it easier to communicate your intentions while traveling from place to place.

Of course you can bring your destination up on a cell phone to show your driver, but it is always nice to remove dependencies on cell service or data when you can. Sometimes paper copies are just more reliable when abroad.

If you do choose to print out a copy of your itinerary, make sure each destination is listed in both your own native language as well as translated into the local language right below.

3. Ask the Hotel’s Help Desk

Our next tip is to utilize the resources available to you, and not to be too shy when asking for help! As mentioned above, hotel accommodations will often prioritize hiring staff who are able to speak multiple languages. This is to simplify the exact situation we’re speaking about where their guests may not be familiar with the local dialects; instead, they hope to find employees who are able to speak to you in your own native language!

Hotel desks are usually happy to help you coordinate transport to and from their accommodation, provide recommendations on tour services, outline public transport routes on a map for you, or just serve as a translator if you need help!

The best thing to do when you’re not sure about how to do something is usually to just ask the help desk. They’ll point you in the right direction 🙂

4. Book a Guided Tour

Another helpful tool for exploring new regions where you don’t know the language is to utilize the local tour guide services! If you’re in a highly touristed area, there are usually a few tour services to choose from per attraction, or even services that offer complete city tours in one package, that will pick you up directly from your accommodation and shuttle you around so you don’t have to worry about language barriers at all!

Tour guide services such as these can often be booked online in advance. If you’re someone who prefers not to lock your itinerary down ahead of time, this is also a good opportunity to walk down to your hotel concierge and ask them for their recommendation on a local tour company. They will likely be able to help you book something for the following day.

5. Download a Translation App

If you do have cellular data service where you are traveling, our next tip would be to download a couple of apps to help you translate live if needed throughout your trip. A couple app recommendations from our own travels would be WordReference or GoogleTranslate.

GoogleTranslate is pretty ubiquitous these days, so people are used to seeing their format and often understand that you are trying to communicate with them as soon as you pull it up. WordReference does a good job at providing various definitions for a single word based on differing contexts.

Whatever your preference, if you have the ability to do so it will definitely be helpful to have access to a service that allows you to look up the translation of a word or phrase.

6. Learn Key Phrases in Advance

If you have the time to do so, we also highly recommend learning a few key words and phrases in the native language of the country you will be traveling in. This will help with basic conversations that will very likely come up during your travels. Our list of keywords to learn are below.

• “Thank you”
• “Excuse me”
• “Yes”
• “No”
• “Do you speak (your native language)?”
• “Help”
• “I’m allergic to (your allergy)”
• “Where is (the bathroom, the train, or anything you want to hold up on your phone)?”
• “How much is this?”

If you don’t feel like you will be able to memorize these words in advance, you can also keep a “cheat sheet” in your Notes app on your phone to pull up and refresh your memory when they’re needed!

I myself grew up speaking English, and later chose to study Spanish, but have traveled through regions where I don’t understand the local dialect – including Mandarin, French, Portuguese, Italian, and more! All of these tips have come in handy during my own travels. I hope they make your travels go more smoothly as well!

Let us know if you have any tips for traveling in regions where you don’t know the language in the comments below!

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About the Author: Hi, I’m Jill! I am a biomedical & mechanical engineer who loves traveling during my free time. My hope is to help make it easier for others to plan their dream trips by providing firsthand experience from the places I’ve been! Read More.