Around the world in 5 words

One of the sobering parts about this trip sofar is the realization that the world is getting to be rather homogeneous. Though I can't complain about the cool things I have seen, life here seems to be getting to be rather similar to the world I already knew.

Frankly, one of the biggest differentiating factors is still... language.

I have been into languages all my life, I studied linguistics, even designed my own languages, and since an early age I made learning as many languages as I could my "hobby". One of those languages was chinese, and though I didn't get very far with it, it definitely helped, and allowed me to pick up more chinese words quicker.

Of course, even as someone very much into languages, faced with japanese, korean, chinese, thai, hindi, arabic, and turkish, there was no way no how I could have learned anything meaningful for this trip. So for the three countries sofar it has been a procedure of: arrive at the airport, get your hands on a quick phrase list, and see how far you can get with just a few words.

Surprisingly, you can get very far. Being creative, you can get away with VERY few words and still communicate, even facing people that don't speak a word of english, and who have a rather different culture.

Here's how to get around the world in 5 words or so:

thank you: this is what you'll say by FAR the most often :) It also substitutes for "good bye"

hello / excuse me: you need one of these 2, to draw attention from people when you want something, but also, even if you intend to ask a question in english, starting with something in the native languages shows that you care at least a little bit and gives a positive starting point.

one/two: you don't need more counting words than these. "one" is particularly flexible, since it can substitute for I/we want/buy kind of phrases, by just using "one" and pointing at stuff. Sometimes also learning "I want" is useful, where "one" may be ambiguous.

yes: used a lot more often than no :) confirmation is very useful.

where: don't bother with "where is", sentence structure is so overrated.