There Are Ways of Communicating Even if a Language Is All Greek to You

There is something sad and funny about trying to communicate with someone who speaks a language I don’t know, which happens frequently when I travel. At a bookstore in Beijing, I once tried to ask for the children’s section. I used what little Chinese I know--hardly more than “hello,” “please” and “thank you”--gestured like a madwoman and pointed to kids, all to no avail.

Generally I’m more successful. I speak some French, though I sometimes think I understand more than I really do, which causes problems, like ending up with a plate of sweetbreads instead of veal in a French restaurant.

On the other hand, my French is good enough to occasionally serve as a lingua franca. Last spring in the Seychelles, I met a charming Italian couple who spoke no English, which would have aborted our friendship because I don’t speak Italian. But we got along famously in a messy kind of French that would have horrified a native speaker.

Also, I did a little acting in college, and I think that helps me act out my questions when I can’t ask in the language of the land. I love to meet people who are just as adept at communication by facial expression and gesture. We may look as though we’re playing a nutty game of charades, but when that moment of mutual understanding occurs, I feel as though we have forged a connection that goes deeper than words.

There are many ways to understand and make yourself understood in a place where you don’t speak the language. “The Wordless Travel Book,” by Jonathan Meader (Ten Speed Press, 1995), and similar compendiums of pictures help travelers communicate by opening the book and pointing to what they want--a fork, a pineapple, a camel.

Lingo Corp., based in Brooklyn, N.Y., markets pocket translators. The standard, non-talking model (about $40 from Radio Shack stores and the Sharper Image) translates words and common phrases between English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

But I haven’t tried a picture book or pocket translator, because what happens when you say a word or point to a drawing and the person you’re trying to talk to spouts a long, unintelligible response?

In China five years ago, I found a novel way to understand, if not communicate in, an extremely difficult foreign language by using “I Can Read That: A Traveler’s Introduction to Chinese Characters” by Julie Mazel Sussman (China Books & Periodicals Inc., 1994). It introduces some useful and common Chinese characters so you can walk about in Shanghai or Beijing and recognize key components in street and shop signs, like east, west, north and south.

The idea for the book stemmed from research Sussman did to prepare for a trip to China, which included learning about 50 characters. Recognizing them in China was exciting, she says, and reminded her how a child must feel while learning to read. “It was as if the characters I knew were lighted up in neon,” Sussman says.

Of course, there is no substitute for learning the language of the country you plan to visit, or at least enough to get by. “Knowing enough to show people you are open to their language and are trying will get you a long way,” says John Bennett, a New York-based manager for Berlitz North America, which produces language books, tapes and CDs and provides one-on-one live instruction. Bennett says that travelers from the U.S. are notorious for assuming that people in foreign countries speak English, which contributes to the “ugly American” cliche.

The Berlitz approach, which focuses on spoken language immersion, was developed almost by accident in the late 1870s. Company founder Maximilian Berlitz, a foreign language instructor in Providence, R.I., hired a French teaching assistant who didn’t speak English. When Berlitz came down with pneumonia, the assistant took over in French only, producing results that surpassed those achieved in classes where both English and French were allowed. Since then, the Berlitz Method has come to be used in 375 Berlitz language centers worldwide.

English is the language most in demand at Berlitz, followed by Spanish, French, German and Italian. Since Sept. 11 there has been a noticeable increase in requests for instruction in Arabic languages, spokeswoman Mary Conti says.

Romance languages, including French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, are easiest for native English speakers to learn, says Kay Rodrigues, a spokeswoman for the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, a language school for U.S. military and government employees in Monterey, Calif. There, proficiency in those languages takes intensive instruction for 25 weeks, compared with 34 weeks for German, 47 weeks for Czech, Russian and Vietnamese, and 63 weeks for Arabic, Mandarin and Japanese.

At the nearby Monterey Institute of International Studies, a private graduate school that awards degrees in subjects such as translation and interpretation, the curriculum also includes cross-cultural communication independent of language. This means teaching students “how to look and listen,” says provost Steven J. Baker.

Berlitz’s Bennett knows two good lookers and listeners who are 5-year-old playmates; one speaks only French, the other only English and Chinese. “They want to communicate and have the best time in the world,” Bennett says.

How do they do it? When I can answer that, I’ll never again have to play charades with a bus driver or pretend I like sweetbreads.