Last week, braving the north Nordic seafaring winds and the icy-cold night, I watched a two-and-a-half-hour open-air Danish play in the city of Aarhus. The relentless wind was brutal and frosty, but the play, with a premise of an ancient Viking love story between a red-haired pirate and a princess, was spectacular. That is, if I were allowed to use just one adjective to describe it, but no other bushels of superlatives.
The point I’m trying to make here? I don’t speak or understand Danish, except for a few words, like the most important one to show gratitude — thanks, tak . All the same, I enjoyed every bit of the play without falling asleep midway. Trust me, no frosty wind on a cold night outdoors can deter my sleep. I’ve snoozed in a rocky crevice on Mt Kinabalu braving the cold breeze, waiting for the sunrise, right after reaching the summit. Sure, it helped that a friend translated the important plot points of the play, but largely, I followed most of it. I mean, you smile and laugh in delight when you are happy and wail and weep when tragedy strikes, no matter the language. Which got me thinking, can the inability to speak a language hinder your experience when you travel?
Perhaps not entirely. But language is a source of pride around the world (militantly so in India) and a little knowledge of it can leverage a lot of benefits. It’s true that the world is anglicising itself faster than the time it takes for a bottle of beer to lose its fizz after it’s popped open. By making an attempt to familiarise with the language, you show your appreciation for the culture. You learn to say please and thanks in the native language of the country you’re visiting and it’s easy to see how strangers will start appearing friendly. Which I did in Danish by the way, so I’m not all empty rhetoric.
Language can also foster friendships in unlikely ways. At a home stay in Ubud, Bali, I befriended the grandmother of the family, who spoke an assorted four sentences in English. She must have felt some odd karmic connection with me that she insisted on laboured conversations. “Breakfast, already?” She used to ask everyday. “Here, lot of turtles,” she showed me her pet turtles that basked in the sun in her lily pond. “You go already?” She was sad when I left. “You come back?” she asked expectantly. It perhaps helped that I get along perfectly well with people in their seventies and eighties. I should get a job in elderly care, I’ve often been told.
Learning a little bit of the language of the country you’re travelling in also helps in practical ways. To be able to say “Can I have a beer please?” or other stock phrases, makes people realise the appreciation you have for the language. You might not be able to go beyond those phrases and hold a perfectly understandable conversation, but you open doors to further communication.
A quote attributed on the Internet to Nelson Mandela perhaps nails it best. “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” I can vouch for that, because my attempt to learn Kannada, the language of the city I called home for five years, has made me countless friends.
Besides, it can be dizzying to wander around in crowded marketplaces and catch a word or two of the language you just attempted to learn (and I usually start spinning tales in my head based on the exchanges I just heard.) That said, I’m not all immune to the difficulties of learning a new language, however.
I still shy away from ordering food in restaurants or a drink in pubs, with my limited German knowledge, without fear of being judged for improper pronunciation. The exact fear I have successfully gotten rid of in my travels. On the other hand, I can say one thing in German perfectly, the phrase to indicate that I don’t know the language or that my language is rusty. “ Mein Deutsch ist schlecht geworden .” And that works perfectly well.
The writer is an independent journalist who lives in Stuttgart, Germany, and often writes stories that intersect food and travel
