Advisable to travel in South America, without knowning Spanish or Portugesee
 

Is it advisable to do this? How many people are speaking Englisch?

In countries where I don't speak the language, I always carry a little book with me with pictures of the most common things like food, gasstation, hotel etc. so with pictures you can show what you want.

I have another, a smaller book but I found this on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Wordless-Trav.../dp/0898158095

Cell Phones
 

Most phones have translator apps. that you can download,, on your phone.

But its fun testing your language skills while traveling..

beer

Because it shares Latin roots with English, Spanish is a (relatively) easy language for English speakers to learn. Take a Spanish course online or get some books and start picking up some vocabulary.

Do you really want to restrict all of your riding to only English-speaking countries?

Hello

No, but you don't need a lot to survive.

As always, younger people closer to big cities will more likely speak some english and the more you pay for the hotel.

Depending on how long you plan to stay think about some weeks of private tutoring or a language school.

I did 10 lessons at home and travelled half way through Mexico.
Was enough but no fun, was planning to go to a school for a few weeks.
Found a great place in Puerto Escondido, first lesson was "difference between ser and estar". dohbeerdoh beer

sushi

People are friendly everywhere - you won't run into difficulties eating and drinking, and people will help you avoid insecure situations. However if you're trying to explain an electrical or mechanical problem (or anything else more complicated) you may find a barrier, however I wouldn't let this stop you - part of the fun. I've travelled many places where I knew little or nothing of the language (in South America and elsewhere), and never been unable to get along.

Spent two years in China and ndver progressed beyond Hello goodbye and counting to 10.
6 months in Turkey and Morocco with zero language ability.
Fair while Mexico andv south America including Brasil with almost no conversation skills.

Pretty good at miming though.

Attitude
 

I think that it has to do a lot with your own attitude.

I you try to meet people in their own way and language as good as you can. Pictures, pointing, trying a few words....They get happy and things go well.
I know some Spanish and Portuguese.
If I start with English and assume that they will adapt to me, they do not what to speak English.

But if I start in Portuguese, and they realize that I try to do my best. But it does not go that well. They often answer with an English explanation. Not good for my learning, but it works.
We are the guests, that should accept and adopt.

Not American gringos that think that they are superior and behave accordingly.

I might get some hammer in my head for this opinion. But that is OK

I did travelling 6 months in SA without spanish skills. Did a Transafrica without french, did travel in Idia, Thailand and Laos without local language skills.

You get what you can expect.

Travelling is possible. For socializing and fight against feeling lonely you can use Traveler Map, or visiting hostels where you can meet english speakers.

Getting in touch with locals is limited to the upper class, who was able to learn other languages.

So you will miss how helpful and nice the people are, even in remote areas.

To train a new language seems a good way to start a trip :thumbup1:

If you like to see landscape, dont want to get in touch with locals - you can start without to know the local language.

Guess some of my most valuable travel apps will help you too..

Surfy

If you don't do well with other languages(me), try to learn a few things--please, thank you, I need, I want, how much, count to 20, where is a motel, menu please, beer please(or whatever you prefer), I like your country, everyone is so friendly, like your food, I speak very very very little Spanish, do you speak English? Be polite, do not show disgust with the local situations, do not talk politics-you are a visitor, not a voter. I went from Louisiana to Bolivia and lived in Lima for a year with that amount of language skill. Smile a lot , even when you want to hit them with a hammer. I found people who spoke English at a cross road in Bolivia. Carry a dictionary. Have fun.

If you want to try an online language course in Spanish then there is a voucher for Babbel.com where you get 6 months extra tuition if you go for the 6 month course. The voucher code is “FISH”. I have no idea how long the voucher is valid for. The voucher is from a podcast called “No Such Thing As A Fish”.

I would hazard a guess that 99% of people who have travelled in South America do not speak any of the native languages.

And they did just fine.

However, your experience will be richer if you make the effort.

You're never going to speak fluent Spanish after a few months or even years of classes and home learning. So don't beat yourself up about it.

I spent years learning Spanish before I went to South America.

And when I got off the plane, I couldn't understand anything nor they could understand me. It was quite disheartening.

Because everyone talks in slang or with very strong accents.

Most hotels or hostels will have a decent grip of English. And all other foreign travellers will mostly speak English.

Technology now means that you can easily translate anything with a smart phone. Even a conversation.

...and English is the most common second language taught in school in much of South America. A lot of young people speak English quite well.

Same happen to me at some places and with some people for communicate in English at UK, specially with some of your fiends at your area!!! Still thinking they speak a dialect...

Javier, it's been well established that "English" is just an exotic dialect of "American." Take it from me.

True. In several South American countries the English taught in schools is British English but with the prevalence of youtube and social media many of the youth pick up some American english.

Sent from my SM-A307G using Tapatalk

Don't worry too much. Just go there.

Do enough people use this App yet, to make it helpful?

When are you going? If you want to experience the sights and people of Latin America off the beaten gringo/tourist path, vs seeking out English speaking travelers at English speaking hostels, then start learning Spanish now. What's your level of commitment to preparing for your trip?

Yes, you can travel in Latin America without Spanish, but it is so much richer if you have some language skills. It's lonely as a solo traveler when you don't have minimal language skills. Without local language skills you will seek out English speaking travelers at English speaking hostals and bars in the big cities.

Use a travel/verbal oriented study method to learn Spanish. Forget reading and flashcards. Pimsleur and Rocket Spanish are two study programs using a verbal approach. Bring a language translation app to fill in the gaps, plus one of those picture books. Prep your language skills with the same gusto as you prep your moto! Both are equally important for a rich experience. With covid restrictions in much of Latin America, you have the time.

With some Spanish skills, I've been invited to dinner with the hotel proprietor and family more than once. Been told of places to visit that the locals know about (oil bird cave, ancient ruins where I'm there solo, local small operation mine, several awesome hikes; waterfalls, petrified forest, vistas, jungle paths...) Found some of the best prepared and fresh fish - several. Watched as a llama got skillfully skinned and butchered for Easter dinner. Because my moto chain terminally broke, I rode down steep, narrow, windy mountain roads in an overloaded potato truck (with bad brakes) and learned about the drivers life and his boys. Got invited by the senior ladies to the community building (I'm an older fellow) to watch the indigenous school kids and singles dancing, plus shared fermented pineapple from a gourd cup. Found places to stay when there appeared to be nowhere to stay. Enjoyed soda with a fellow while admiring his racing quad in his shop. Been informed of several detours around land slide, washed out bridge, road construction delay. Admired dirt bikes with a bunch of younger local fellows over sodas. Be part of a translation string from a Quechua speaking fellow to a gal who translated to Spanish, and through me who roughly translated to my English speaking companera....

That's a taste of how a bit of language skill enrichens your trip (and my Spanish still sucks)!

Is anything like this, available as a app for the phone?

I speak basic Spanish, also have translation app on the phone so I can speak in English and have it repeat in Spanish, but some things just don't translate.

So you Google the word of phrase you want, switch to images and show them the image.

I've attached a PDF of my biking vocabulary for Spanish and French which might be of use (print out and trim off the edges).
.

Staying in a Lima hotel used by North Americans and European travelers, one night it was decided "No more English, lets use something else". Good intention, started with French, moved to German, later Spanish, then settled on the one language all of us could speak--English. When in non urban areas, I got along fine with my limited Spanish and talking to people who wanted to improve their English.

Thanks.

I can see the meaning of 'piñon y corona cardan' (crown and pinion) in terms of a differential or CV joints, however I was referencing the driveshaft rather than the joints, as in a broken GS1200 shaft. The prop shaft on my Spanish Panda 4x4 broke and the garage referred to it as 'arbol de accionamiento'. What would you call that in South America?

And I'm not sure what you mean about the reference to front and rear sprockets which surely would be 'piñones delantera y trasera'.

(I can see my Spanish word for sprockets in the vocab is wrong, somehow in editing 'wheel spokes' was used instead.)

In Mexico, in a parking lot, changing out the front sprocket on my DR650...

https://hosting.photobucket.com/albu...080&fit=bounds

A young moto rider stopped by to watch and help. I asked him for the names of things as we went along: chain....cadena; screw....tornillo; sprocket...sprocket; I turned to look at him and said, 'no, en espanol.." He grinned and said, 'Sprocket.'

..........shu

Tim, I'll have to add that to the HU Motorcycle and Vehicle Tech Terms Translation section that's been growing since 2003 or so. LOTS in there, but can always use more.

If anyone wants to add to it, please check it out!

Currently we're pretty good on: English Deutsch Francais Italiano Portugese Espanol Romanian Russian Japanese Greek Turkish Korean Polish

Wow, didn't realise that existed. Great resource. :thumbup1:

thanks Tim! I need to be better at promoting these resources that are scattered all over the place!
Would you be interested in downloading the spreadsheet and adding your information to it? I'm sure your Spanish is better than mine!

Hi Grant

I've downloaded the spreadsheet. Two observations...

1. It's very English-biased in that the items are sorted alphabetically by the English word. So a German speaker wanting the French word for 'Gaszug' would have to read all the way down to row 138 (throttle cable) to find the French 'cable d'accelerateur'.

I did try to sort the spreadsheet alphabetically by German but encountered an Excel error, 'All merged cells must be the same size'. I couldn't work out what was causing this.

I might be biased but I think my way of grouping like items together (all 'wheel' items, then all 'tyre/tube' items, etc) is easier to navigate.

2. There are some weird colonial English expressions. I couldn't find 'brake disk', but there's an entry for 'rotor'. Similarly 'turn signal' instead of 'indicator'. :smartass:

The solution mentioned above of grouping like items together would get around this.

I wonder how many on here went the route of learning Spanish before or during a trip?

I signed up for a Spanish course at a local college here and decided it was probably more effective and affordable to take a course in Latin America instead.

Either way, I agree that putting some effort in a local language adds a lot of value.

Noted - Working on it now with a couple of updates, will get back soon.

Happy to spend some time playing with this and see what you think.

It's not as if I have a pile of other things to go and do right now.

Use your phone
 

My wife and I have spent a combined 14 months traveling south of the USA border in a dozen Spanish speaking countries. I do not disagree with all of the "learn some Spanish" sentiment - and we did, and we took Spanish language classes in Mexico and Colombia.

However ... before we could speak a word beyond "Hola!", and often even after we were marginally conversational, we used our phone and Google Translate. I have had long discussions with locals who spoke no English, totally using our phones. You talk into the phone, and it translates into Spanish for them. They talk into their phone (or you hold up yours and they talk into yours) and it translates to English for you. The technology works well. And if you are off-line (last I knew) you have to type out your sentence (voice recognition needs data connection).

I have fond memories of several long "conversations" that I have to stop and remind myself were facilitated by phone. Like a good foreign movie - you forget that it was subtitled.

Google translate is brilliant for conversations, BUT where we've found it falls down is on technical terms, especially ones like "fork" or "rim" or "spoke" which to us have a specific meaning but to everyone else including google have a completely different meaning! Therefor the Bike / Vehicle Technical Terms Translation Table. :)

Old times
 

In the old times....


before mobile phones, GPS,internet, Euro.....


I was touring France for a summer with my girlfriend.
The countryside without tourists. Visiting castle, vineyards,local restaurants....

without knowing a word of French.

I took he wrong roads, got lost, ordered food and got something very different from what I thought I had been ordered, and .....

It was a wonderful vacation.

Of course. If I had been able to talk to the locals in the bar and at the lunch. it had been even better.

Some small phrases of courtesy is good. Then you will be treated better.

Everything does no need to be perfect

Just go for it.

With a partner in crime, you dont need so much exchange with the locals either!

Travelling solo - would have changed the need for the local language, at example for dating purpose :innocent: Dont want to say you need the local language (because you will meet tourists), but you get more options beer

Surfy

Non tourist areas
 

The countryside without tourists. Visiting castle, vineyards,local restaurants....

Unexpected a small part of the same discussion is also to find here, specially the newer ones and for south america bier

https://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hu...-abroad-101222

Surfy