Quickly learn languages before you travel
One of my favorite things about traveling is hearing other languages. I was so disappointed when I first arrived in Mexico, all I was hearing was English and French from all the people who had flown out on the same flights from back home. I kept thinking, “Did I really fly four and a half hours to hear the same two languages I hear all day back home in Quebec?” So I asked one of the women from the hotel where the locals shopped. She warned me about the fact that it was very likely no one would be able to speak English to me if I needed guidance and I assured her that was fine. Which is how I ended up in the real Cancun market, away from the tourists and bargaining, and I was ecstatic to be in a sea of Spanish. It was wonderful and I knew enough to get by – I even managed to find the curtains I was looking for by using some charade-style sign language and the Spanish word for “window”.
If you’re traveling to a destination where the main language is not your own, it’s a wonderful opportunity, but it’s always good to at least know some basics. Most people are fairly patient when a tourist slips up on the grammar and pronunciation because it’s just nice to see someone make the effort. You can quickly learn some of the basics for French, Spanish, German, and Italian by visiting Babbel. They have an online language learning center that will teach you some of the important things you might need to say in another language while you’re traveling. They are also currently working on creating a set of phrasebooks that will be programmed for download to your cellphone or other mobile devices, allowing you to take your “new language” with you.
As a nice bonus, there’s also a bit of a social network feel to Babbel which will allow you to connect with other people to compare language notes and even chat with those who are local to your destination, so that you can get travel tips (who better than a local to suggest a must-see spot or great out-of-the-way restaurant?).
I love language sites, they’re fun to use!
5 Comments
Being a geeky traveller myself somehow, I really appreciate that Babbel.com is reviewd on this site. Thanks for the positive feedback, Sherry!
Best regards from Berlin, Germany,
Markus
(Managing Director at Babbel.com)
http://www.babbel.com
Another great site to check out is http://www.edufire.com. I use livemocha and edufire to learn Spanish currently and they are great resources on the web to learn any language. I will check out Babbel as well, thanks for the link.
If you or your readers want to try eduFire out for free let me know and I can get something set up for all.
Very COOL! This is exactly what I wanted from the “Travel Alarm Clock” posting you made a couple of weeks back. Now if they could just combine the two technologies and provide it as small as both, that would be very, very, convenient. Thanks again for the cool updates.
Ryan M. Rodriguez
I love babbel and use it all the time for quick responses, but for more solid information i have been going directly to the source using eduFire.com . They have language tutors available all the time, I really like getting some input from a live person before I take a trip.
Awesome Sherry! Thanks for the info. I did find another one, apart from the ones in the comments: http://www.studentteacherexchange.com/ which is completely free and uses chat/video/voice and whiteboards as well. They are new but my guess is they will be booming soon since they charge nothing.