Tourists

[Range_This11]

It's mostly knowing the culture that truly matters. Lets say I visit South Korea; I don't need to learn their language to order a hamburger - I can just go to McDonalds and hold up three fingers. Or point at a picture on a menu in the restaurant. What's really important is, for example, giving and accepting money with both hands, or the youngest person in the party has to serve the drinks to all the others ect. If someone notices that you made an effort to understand and appreciate their culture you'll be much more accepted than if you learn a few words.

Totally agreed. Too many tourists (especially American ones) fail to realize that they are a guest in that country and it isn't America.

[Romy]

Expecting people to know English to visit the US would be really hypocritical of me. I mean I lived in Germany for 2 years and only knew the basics of the language.

 

I don't think it's hypocritical. I've never been to the states, or any other country that's national language is English, and I could tell you myself and others know it well enough either way. English, being such a commonly used language, should be known, or atleast it's basics, to anyone going abroad IMO.

[stevepole]

Surprisingly I under estimated the universalness of the English language. I have been yelled at by a french man at McDonalds of all places for not asking the man if he spoke English before I ordered and it just happened to be the first time I slipped and didn't ask. In Italy I picked up basic greetings, I never picked up any dutch while in the Netherlands mostly because they spoke a lot of English and the same with Greece.

[Hedgehog]

Down here we have a lot of tourists during the winter, not foreigners, but mostly elderly people from up north. They are horrible drivers that annoy the hell out of everyone down here. Most people understand that they don't know the city very well and stuff, but it's still quite an inconvenience. But I think that tourists should know at least some English, or at least enough to politely say that they don't speak English; which is basically our standard for visiting other countries.

[SHIPPOU]

Being able to communicate is a good start ... also I hope they do not treat every one like their servants.....sadly I've ran into this before :angry:

[mcneilp]

All the tourists i've came across over here have had a good enough grasp of English for me to be able to understand them. Whether they could understand the Scottish accent when i spoke back is another matter entirely. :shades:

 

Being able to speak the very basics of the language of wherever you're travelling to is a good idea and it's amazing how much you can pick up in a few weeks of staying in the country.

[1_man_army]

It doesn't matter too much if tourists don't speak English if they visit the Uk to me but I do give credit when tourists make some sort of effort (like using a phrase book) when trying to converse. If people try to make an effort I'm happy to give them my time and make an effort to help them if they need it. To be fair though, native English speakers are the absolute worst for not making any effort the average Brit abroad just says the word in English then says it slower (still in English) and then even slower while gesturing.

[stevepole]

I actually saw some Manchester United fans use gestural when talking to some Barcelona fans when I was in Italy. It was funny to watch, the enitre conversation consisted of broken spanish, some english, and hand gestures.

[Lenticular_J]

It's mostly knowing the culture that truly matters. Lets say I visit South Korea; I don't need to learn their language to order a hamburger - I can just go to McDonalds and hold up three fingers. Or point at a picture on a menu in the restaurant. What's really important is, for example, giving and accepting money with both hands, or the youngest person in the party has to serve the drinks to all the others ect. If someone notices that you made an effort to understand and appreciate their culture you'll be much more accepted than if you learn a few words.

Aye.

 

More people speak English than you'd think. A lot just won't speak it to someone they don't think deserves it. I would definitely try to learn some of a local language, or at least a language besides English. Luckily I know a good deal of Spanish and Italian, which are also very common languages.

[Nenga]

Milk is cool :thumbup:

 

 

Miten sinä, Azvareth?

 

Haha swing and a miss. Finnish and Swedish originate from two completely different language trees. :-P

 

edit: not that only "miten sinä?" would make any sense. Needs a verb!

You said if he could say something, you never said it had to make sense. If I said "Go thing be people marry sue tow." I am still saying something, it just doesn't make any sense.

[The Observer]

I just expect them to be respectful of other people. It's the only way I can respect them really, and really, it's not that hard to do most of the time is it. :P