It always surprises me how many people seem hesitant to travel because of concerns about a language barrier. Good news, if you understood the previous sentence without any difficulty, it means you’ll be fine almost anywhere! English is incredibly wide-spread, and is probably the most dominant language in the history of mankind. Those who aren’t born with it learn it, those who haven’t learned it want to, and those who don’t want to feel increasingly guilty and “left out.”
I actually couldn’t find a single map that demonstrates where one can get by with English (I’m adding that to my list of things to do), so I’ll have to give you several. You’ll have to mentally overlay where English is the official language (first map) with where English is spoken conversationally by a majority of people (second and third). My point is that there are few place where you won’t be able to find someone who can help you or even chat with you in English. In my experience from 34 countries the only exceptions to that are (as odd a paring as this may be) France, Japan, Côte d’Ivoire, and sometimes South Korea. I’m interested to know what other “English no-go” countries my fellow travelers can list. But even in countries like that, my follow-up point is that where you cannot communicate in English, you can always find other ways to communicate and people who are willing to help you break down the barrier with charades, a dictionary, a translator app, or whatever. DISCLAIMER: This is NOT to say that you shouldn’t learn any of the language while you’re there, and if you’re staying for more than a month or two then you absolutely should learn as much as you can while you’re there. This may be the most important and influential thing you bring back from the experience, whether it’s a couple hundred words or fluency. But if you’re in the country for a couple weeks, no one expects you to
communicate in the local language, and usually you don’t need to. Learn to say “hello,” “thank you,” and maybe “do you speak English” in the local language, and you’ll be good to go.
Basically, if you speak English then the world is open to you in a historically unprecedented way, so please don’t let language be the thing that stops you from putting that opportunity to good use!
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