How to Communicate Abroad: 8 Easy Tools to Use When You Don’t Speak the Language

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Let’s be real – unless you are a walking translator, there will be times when you visit a country and you don’t speak the language fluently. Or at all. So…what do you do? Thanks to technology, it’s perfectly possible to stay in your hotel room the entire time and order food without having to interact with strangers at all. But where’s the fun and adventure in that? If you want to learn how to communicate abroad when you don’t speak a lick of the local language, I have a few suggestions for ya!

Don’t you love when bloggers prove themselves useful?

Personally, I speak English as my primary language, and I am fluent in French. I am also learning Spanish and Japanese.

I’m equally terrible in all of them – especially speaking. So even if you technically know how to communicate abroad in your second/third/millionth language, things like accents, dialects, and slang can create a bit of a language barrier even if you are comfortable with that language at home.

So with all that said, I’ve put together this list of tools and resources that can help you communicate with others when you REALLY have no idea what anyone is saying – and they don’t know what you’re saying either.

Attempt to Speak the Language

Okay, so this one might be a given, but honestly, it’s the bare minimum. If you are traveling, it definitely makes your life easier to learn the basics of the language of the country you are visiting. Even if you know NOTHING else, learning a few key phrases in the local language can help you immensely. Those phrases?

• Hello
• Excuse me? (to get someone’s attention)
• Thank you
• Please
• Do you speak English? (or whatever language you speak)

Seriously. Just quickly look those up before you leave. Even if the local person knows your language, saying please and thank you in the local language can go a long way. People will be more open to helping you, or at least point you in the right direction to getting help.

I know it can be a little nerve-wracking to speak another language abroad, especially if you’re still in the beginning stages of learning, but trust me. The locals will not laugh or look down on you as long as you are earnest in trying.

Well, unless you’re in France. But I digress.

The Phrasebook App

If you really want to learn how to communicate abroad efficiently, you’ll have to up your app game. One of the easiest, in my opinion, is the Phrasebook App. Google Translate is a staple too, but I’ll talk about that one later.

The Phrasebook app is a great way to learn some key basics (see above), but can also be used to get your point across by having the app speak for you. You just plug in what you need it to say and it’ll spit it out what you need it to say. Easy, right?

It is available for the following languages: German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Greek, Arabic, Indonesian, Dutch, Hindi

You just download the language package and then you can use it offline. The offline aspect is a gamechanger, truly. Very convenient for traveling or when you are planning on meeting foreigners in your own country. The downside is that it doesn’t have EVERY language, but if you happen to go to a country that speaks one of the listed above, you’re gucci!

Use Gestures

They don’t call hands your extra mouths for nothing.

Actually, I don’t know if anyone says that.

But it’s true! If you want to get better at communicating with others who don’t speak the same language, practice playing charades. Sometimes, your hands will be your only method for communicating abroad.

If you are looking for a restaurant, act like you are eating and drinking. Or if you’re looking for the airport or subway station, maybe make mimic a plane or train. Just…try not to be obscene when miming for a toilet. People usually understand basic gestures. If you know sign language, even just a bit, many words can be loosely interpreted by people who may not even know sign.

DRAW A PICTURE

And if gestures aren’t enough, draw a picture. For that reason having a pen and paper at hand can be very helpful. Using pictures to communicate abroad bysteps the language barrier part on your end, though then whoever you’re talking to will need to know how to respond, which can be tricky if they can’t just point you in the right direction. But it’s something!

However, it can be hard to always carry around a pen and paper, especially if you need something unexpectedly. So what do you do?

Use your notes app and draw in that with your finger.

If you’re terrible at gesturing, like I am, then this will be much easier. However, if you’re terrible at drawing, like I also am, then you might need a few other tools in your arsenal.

COMMUNICATE THROUGH PICTURES

If you aren’t great at drawing pictures, what about WEARING pictures? It may seem a little cheesy to just carry around a little picture book, but you won’t feel cheesy when it actually helps you find a taxi when you’re lost in the middle of downtown and your phone is dead and all the shops have closed for the day.

Probably the best little travel booklet for this is “The Wordless Travel Book.” It’s literally just a book of common travel icons like the bank, restaurants, train stations, etc. It’s super easy to tuck into your day bag, though I wouldn’t recommend getting it as an ebook because the pictures can be hard to see on a small screen and you can’t really zoom in. Plus, yanno, aside from using it to communicate abroad, a lot of people with aphasia find it helpful as well.

The other option is to literally wear a tshirt with the same icons on it and you can just point to whatever you’re asking for! Super easy AND you don’t have to rummage through your bag to get it! The best one I’ve seen is the Iconspeak T-shirt!

Use Google Translate

When all else fails, Daddy Google will always be there.

When it comes to trying to communicate abroad, the Google Translate App will come in CLUTCH. Similar to Phrasebook, with Google Translate you are also able to download a language to use the translation feature (highly recommend). That said, I do feel as though in some languages, the wording is a bit…off? But whoever you are talking to will get the gist of what you’re trying to say or ask.

Google Translate can use 52 languages offline, but one of the best features I’ve found for this app is the camera translation! Meaning you can use the app to take a picture of something (a sign, menu, instructions, ect) written in another language and the app will translate the words for you!

IT IS MAGIC.

Well. It’s technology. BUT STILL.

I will say that the camera feature doesn’t work perfectly for ALL languages (whew, it had a ROUGH time with Chinese), buuuut it’s better than nothing!

Pocket Translators!

Similar to Google Translate, sometimes it’s easier to just say something! Plus, if you’re trying to get your point across to a taxi driver, they can’t really just take their eyes off the road to try to squint in the backseat at your tiny little phone screen to see a rough translation of what you want to say. It’s a great tool to communicate abroad.

There’s a TONNNNN of pocket translators out there, and I’m sure a lot of them are great! I personally bought the Cheetah CM Smart Instant Language Translator and it worked really well. The battery was fantastic and fully supports 42 languages with super accurate translations.

The only con is that it requires WiFi. That said, I always travel with my KeepGo pocket WiFi so that’s not really an issue because I always have access to WiFi abroad, but definitely something to keep in mind for your own situation.

Save an Album on Your Phone

Sometimes…you really won’t be able to find that perfect translation or icon to point out what you are asking when you want to communicate abroad. I usually run into this problem when I’m looking for something super specific, liiiike a certain small local business I saw on Instagram and my navigation app can’t QUITE find the correct address. Or food trucks.

It always happens with food trucks.

What I do in this instance is take a photo or screenshot of the things I want to find when I am in that country and put them into an album on my phone. That way when I randomly wandering around a neighborhood like a lost puppy, I can show someone EXACTLY what I’m asking for. This happened to me in Singapore when I was looking for a specific little restaurant in a HUGE multi-level building. Although the person spoke English, I didn’t know the NAME of the spot, so by having a picture, they could tell me exactly where to find it.

It also helps if you’re taking the subway or something and you want to know which stop to get off at for the zoo (for example). Show them a picture of the zoo and point to the stop you think it’s at. Super simple way to communicate abroad!

How to Communicate Abroad: Conclusion

Thanks for reading everyone! Hopefully you’ve found at least one or two new methods to help you communicate abroad more effectively. Do you have any tips to help others communicate abroad when they don’t speak the language? Drop your gems in the comments below!

Have you ever used one of my methods above? Let me know how it went for you!

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