A language for a trip

The order

1. Politeness. “Hello”, “thank you”, “please”, “excuse me”. Four words that change the tone of a conversation entirely.
2. Café and shop. Ordering, asking the price, asking for the bill. The conversation is predictable: few lines, and almost all of them repeat.
3. Directions and numbers. Right, left, how much, what time. Numbers you will have to catch by ear, and they say them fast.
4. Rescue phrases. “I don’t understand”, “repeat, please”. They come in handy exactly when there is no time to figure things out.

Languages

• 🇹🇷Turkishrelocating, resorts, property, work
• 🇪🇸Spanishtravel, series and music, working in international teams
• 🇬🇪Georgianmoving to Tbilisi and Batumi, work, wine and mountains
• 🇦🇲Armenianmoving to Yerevan, work, family, roots
• 🇲🇻Maldivianresort work, diving, island life
• 🇱🇰Sinhalaliving and working in Sri Lanka, long winter stays, family
• 🇱🇰Tamilwork in India and Singapore, family, interest in the culture

What this is based on

• Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many times
  Donovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
• Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many times
  Adesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.

What usually stops people

Why learn phrases if there is a translator in my phone?

Only while there is signal. And it does not help with politeness: a phrase said out loud works differently from a screen turned towards the person you are talking to.

What if I don’t manage to learn it before the trip?

Thirty phrases is not “learning a language” — it is a week’s checklist, ten minutes a day.

Next

• TurkishTurkish — Turkic family, about 85 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: the Latin alphabet with six letters of its own: ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, ü. This site has 4057 words and 29 letters with audio.
• SpanishSpanish — Indo-European family, about 500 million native speakers, over 600 million counting second-language speakers (estimate, Instituto Cervantes, annual report).
• GeorgianGeorgian — Kartvelian family — no relatives outside it, about 3.7 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: Mkhedruli — 33 letters with no capitals, plus the Mtabruli heading style.
• ArmenianArmenian — Indo-European family, about 6–7 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: Aybuben — the Armenian alphabet, 39 letters, created in 405 AD.
• MaldivianMaldivian — Indo-European family, about 350 thousand speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: Thaana — written right to left, with vowels as obligatory marks.
• SinhalaSinhala — Indo-European family, about 17 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: the Sinhala script: rounded signs where a vowel is written as a mark on the consonant.
• TamilTamil — Dravidian family, about 80 million speakers (estimate, Ethnologue). Script: the Tamil script: 12 vowels, 18 consonants and their combinations.
• Language for residence and citizenshiprequirements by country