How to get around in Central Asia without knowing the languages?
October 21, 2014 8:53 AM   Subscribe

I'm thinking of taking a solo trip to one or more of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. What's the language situation like in central Asia? How dumb an idea is this if I don't speak any Uzbek, Kazakh, or Russian (but do stick to the larger and more touristy cities and methods of transportation)?

I'm fluent in English and can get by in French and Spanish too, if those help (I don't really expect they will, but you never know).
posted by xbonesgt to Travel & Transportation (6 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
If you stick to major cities you will be fine. It wouldn't hurt to have some Russian phrases ready. But if you have a smartphone and get data on it, Google translate is enough to get you what you need at a supermarket.
posted by k8t at 9:22 AM on October 21, 2014


I would at least have a good command of the Cyrillic alphabet so you can search for the transliterated phrases and words. If you're like, 'is that a P or two Ts or what the,' your googles are useless.
posted by resurrexit at 9:50 AM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]


Just came back from Uzbekistan. There will be enough English spoken for you to get by as long as you're OK with sticking to the tourist track. Get even slightly off and the English goes. There will be times when there will be no English.

You have to have a good Russian phrasebook just in case you get ill or something else unexpected happens. You should also be able to read cyrillic - we found that many restaurant bills, shop signs and some transport information was in Russian/Uzbek/Tajik only. Restaurants often only had one or two English menus, so if they're busy then you've got the Russian one and some pictures if you're lucky.

Your French would probably be quite useful in Uzbekistan - there were a lot of French tourists and people tried to sell me things in French before they tried English.

Lovely country - enjoy! Don't underestimate how big it is though or how bad many of the roads are. We spent a week going Tashkent-Khiva-Bukhara-Samarkand-Tashkent, and that included an internal flight, a 9 hour coach trip, a 5 hour coach trip, a 4 hour coach trip and a 3 hour train.
posted by kadia_a at 12:41 PM on October 21, 2014


The language of Central Asia is Russian, followed by the local language/dialect, then probably French. I traveled solo with only a bit of high school Spanish and a few Chinese words and did just fine. Obviously, it's nice to be able to read signs and menus I suppose, but where's the adventure!? French will help you and being able to pantomime and have a big smile will help you even more.

In conclusion, if you're looking to learn a language for the trip choose Russian, but you don't have to and don't let not knowing the right language stop you from going. Have fun!
posted by Bunglegirl at 7:44 PM on October 21, 2014


Its fine. You'll be fine. Drawing little pictograms to communicate with Kyrgyz shepherds is one of my favorite memories
posted by JPD at 10:57 AM on October 22, 2014


The answer will depend on your plans and personality. How well do you cope when you don't have a common language with anyone in the vicinity and can't read anything around you? When you don't know what's going on, or when things don't turn out the way you had thought they would because of misunderstandings?

Levels of English are low, and non-existant off the beaten track (and it doesn't take much to get off the beaten track). Consider your likelihood of encountering these problems, given your plans, and your likely response, given your personality.

If those kind of situations stress you out, make you paranoid, decrease your enjoyment of a trip and make you grouch at local people, then you should learn Russian before traveling. Learning even a bit of Uzbek will make people in Uzbekistan very happy; levels of fluency in Kazakh and Kyrgyz tend to be lower and vary by region of the country.
posted by scrambles at 4:24 PM on October 24, 2014


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