When you don't speak the
language
This is a true story from my
husband's and my trip to France last summer.
I speak French fairly well
and was the interpreter for my husband because he knows no French other than
hello, excuse me, and please. After we returned home, he revealed to me that
each time we arrived at a new destination, he picked up one of the hotel's
brochures or business cards and put it in his pocket until we reached the next
hotel. He figured that if we were separated for some reason or something
happened to me, he would be able to use the hotel literature as a point of
contact if he needed help. He saved the last one from the hotel in Paris, and
it's now a part of my photo album/scrapbook from our trip.
It's not a bad
idea for anyone even if you do speak the language. Because hey what if you
loose your voice and can't speak loudly?!
It's a great idea for children
especially. We have had the kids carry the business cards of various
b&b's while in Europe. I always worried about becoming separated from
them in the Metro, Tube or whatever.
Phrase Books
I have an old
copy of the Multilingual Phrase Book by Passport Books - a nice little
phrasebook that includes Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, German, Italian,
Serbo-Croat and Greek, but is still small and light enough to carry around with
you.
I damn near wore out pages from my LP Eastern/Central European
phrase book. It had Czech AND Slovak, which was great. Wish it had included
Romanian instead of Italian.
Their Italian book was good too though, it
had a Latin section, which was helpful when looking at old Roman
ruins
The thing I particularly like about phrasebooks and the way they
let me muddle through the vernacular, is the food & restaurant
section. The food/menu section can really be useful. There are so
many dishes where the name of the dish is a singularly unhelpful clue as to the
contents and preparation of the dish.
