Lost in Translation

(posted by Ange)

When planning a 6 month trip throughout a foreign land, one must not forget to consider matters of communication. We realize that English will be spoken in most places we travel, but since it is imperative that I am able to immediately find out where the bathroom is, no matter where we are, we need a way to communicate in any language. And, we really don't want to come off as arrogant North Americans (don't worry, we'll have Canadian flags plastered all over us) expecting everyone to speak "our" language. Especially in France. I've heard they don't appreciate this.

I researched and considered taking conversational German, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish courses at the local community centre. I then quickly tossed this idea. One, it seems like just a bit too much work in preparation for a holiday! Two, I cannot fathom a way of getting Dave to sign up for 6 conversational language courses between now and next September. And three, I really don't know that either of our brains have enough room for that much new information.

Then I briefly thought, perhaps we can get by with what we know.

What we know:

Hola - Spanish for hello

Bella - Italian for beautiful

Petite - French for small

Spanokapita - Greek for Spanokapita

Hello beautiful little spanokapita!

Okay, maybe we could get a few more words out, but really, we are
L-I-M-I-T-E-D!

So what are our options?

Phrase books. Sounds great, but I'm not sure Dave wants to carry a dozen phrase books around in his pack. That's room for one more pair of shoes!

What about an electronic translator? This gizmo lets you type in your question in English and then translates it to the language required for the person you are speaking with. Could be expensive and we don't even know if we can get one that has all the languages we need. We also don't know if whoever we are trying to communicate with will stick around long enough for us to type in our question.

Then someone then suggested a "point it" book. This, it turns out, is a book for travelers that has pictures of things you can point at it (hence, a "point it" book) to communicate. I believe my 2 1/2 year old nephew Markus has a whole collection of these "point it" books, however I don't know that "apple", "dog", bird, and "cow" would be of much use to us. I need bathroom, food, wine, cigarettes, hostel, museum, to name a few.

I think I'll still think about taking a language course, but in the meantime, the "point it" book seems to me to be the easiest way to go. After all, a picture does say a 1,000 words.