What's your experience navigating life errands as a non-native speaker?
September 30, 2013 9:09 AM Subscribe
What's your experience navigating life errands (especially grocery shopping) as a non-native English speaker in an English speaking country? Any experience as a non-native speaker in any country would work as well. This is for a research project.
I'm particularly interested in grocery shopping, but other scenarios incorporating everyday errands would work as well, such as post-office, dry-cleaning, etc. I'm pretty open about how well you know the language of the country, as well as how long you've lived there, but please specify.
What were the barriers (language, cultural, social, etc) of performing the errand?
What would have made it easier for you?
Please also specify country, native language, how long you've been in said country, and how well you know the country's language.
Thanks!
I'm particularly interested in grocery shopping, but other scenarios incorporating everyday errands would work as well, such as post-office, dry-cleaning, etc. I'm pretty open about how well you know the language of the country, as well as how long you've lived there, but please specify.
What were the barriers (language, cultural, social, etc) of performing the errand?
What would have made it easier for you?
Please also specify country, native language, how long you've been in said country, and how well you know the country's language.
Thanks!
I'm an English speaker who lived in a small village in Cameroon for two years. At the time, I didn't speak French - which, although the "official" language of the country was not spoken much in the village anyway so no big loss. (I've also lived in other French-speaking countries but by the time I did so I was speaking French fairly well so my experience there isn't quite as relevant.)
So, with that preamble setting the context, possibly the most challenging thing was understanding how various goods are parceled out and the norm for payment.
For example, at the outdoor market it was easy to point at something you wanted, hold up the correct number of fingers for how many you wanted, and, at a certain point understand how much money you were being asked to exchange for said goods. But at the beginning it was difficult to know if I was paying a fair price or if I was being fleeced. (I realized I was probably paying some sort of "skin tax", as the local kids called it, me being the only whitey around and all, which was fine.)
The kids are really the ones who helped me learn how to navigate the system and understand local prices and systems - they got satisfaction out of teaching me and didn't really have any ulterior motives (like scamming me).
What would've made it easier was if stuff was clearly labeled. But that's not really going to happen in the middle of the rainforest...
posted by hapax_legomenon at 9:35 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
So, with that preamble setting the context, possibly the most challenging thing was understanding how various goods are parceled out and the norm for payment.
For example, at the outdoor market it was easy to point at something you wanted, hold up the correct number of fingers for how many you wanted, and, at a certain point understand how much money you were being asked to exchange for said goods. But at the beginning it was difficult to know if I was paying a fair price or if I was being fleeced. (I realized I was probably paying some sort of "skin tax", as the local kids called it, me being the only whitey around and all, which was fine.)
The kids are really the ones who helped me learn how to navigate the system and understand local prices and systems - they got satisfaction out of teaching me and didn't really have any ulterior motives (like scamming me).
What would've made it easier was if stuff was clearly labeled. But that's not really going to happen in the middle of the rainforest...
posted by hapax_legomenon at 9:35 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I love shopping in foreign supermarkets. I've done it living in Spain and Argentina. It's fun to look at the different items and foods I was unfamiliar with. Generally the only problems I had was buying fruit. In Spain you bag it, and weigh it yourself and a machine prints a sticker with the price. I didn't know this and brought my produce to the cashier and held up the line as they sent somebody back to do the labeling. In Argentina there is a specific person to bad produce and sometimes you can find him. Kinda annoying.
There was also a whole procedure for recycling beer bottles. You had to leave them in a machine which would give you a ticket that would allow you to apply a credit to a new bottle of beer.
Generally, the big supermarkets took a while to check out. I started buying from my local one man grocer across the street. It was great. He always gave me free samples of stuff and we became friends.
I was in SPain 3 months, but Argentina 3 years. My Spanish skills ranged from sort of proficient and almost fluent to totally fluent but I had to learn new vocabulary all the time. Carne picada in Argentina is ground beef but I think it was something else in Spain for example.
The cuts of meat were all different too.
posted by Che boludo! at 9:46 AM on September 30, 2013
There was also a whole procedure for recycling beer bottles. You had to leave them in a machine which would give you a ticket that would allow you to apply a credit to a new bottle of beer.
Generally, the big supermarkets took a while to check out. I started buying from my local one man grocer across the street. It was great. He always gave me free samples of stuff and we became friends.
I was in SPain 3 months, but Argentina 3 years. My Spanish skills ranged from sort of proficient and almost fluent to totally fluent but I had to learn new vocabulary all the time. Carne picada in Argentina is ground beef but I think it was something else in Spain for example.
The cuts of meat were all different too.
posted by Che boludo! at 9:46 AM on September 30, 2013
TL;DR for the following: sign language and a big smile will get you 99% of the way there.
Grocery shopping, or any other mostly-self-service task, is perhaps a bad example for you to choose for this, especially if your focus is on non-english-speakers in english-language countries: in many countries it is entirely trivial to purchase groceries without ever exchanging a word with anyone. You wander the aisles, you pick what you want, you can see the prices because everyone uses the same numbers, you put your groceries on the belt, if you didn't bother to do the math while you shopped you look at the cash register readout to see how much you are supposed to pay, you pay, you go. Simple.
The only times I remember getting tripped up (as a monolingual american in Europe, Turkey, and Morocco, spending at most a couple weeks in any given country -- incidentally, assuming you are a student, it's likely that many of your peers will have spent at least some time doing the Eurail thing, and will be able to give you plenty of stories to work with) are:
* Germany: there was a stack of grocery bags next to the cashier, but she didn't bag my groceries while she rang me up. So I grabbed a bag and started bagging them myself -- at which point she became enraged, and I became confused. Once she figured out I didn't understand her, she pointed at the bag, then pointed at a coin, and I realized you have to pay for the bags. So I did. She remained enraged, but I had already spent enough time in Germany to know that that was par for the course.
* Spain: I couldn't find the soap in a pharmacy. So I went to the pharmacist and asked for the soap by rubbing my hands together, then rubbing my hands under my armpits, then pointing around the shop while shrugging. The pharmacist got it immediately, laughed, and led me to the soap.
* Spain (again): I was looking for band-aids. The pharmacist spoke English! But didn't know the word "band-aid" and all my attempts to explain what I wanted seemed to make him even more confused. It took a lot of lengthy explanation and mutual confusion before the lightbulb finally went on: "Oooooh, you want plasters." This would have been much easier if he had not spoken English at all.
Much more challenging tasks than grocery shopping are those where there is a well-established process for doing a thing, which is different from what you are used to back at home, but which is obvious enough to the locals that there is no signage or explanation of what is expected. Gas stations (pump your own? Wait for an attendant? How does the pump even work?), restaurants (seat yourself? Wait? Menus with no pictures? No menu at all? Not open at the hours you expect?etc), non-self-service shops where you have to ask for what you need (difficulty level even higher if the items aren't on display to be pointed at), and public transport (city buses can be especially challenging: buy tickets ahead of time? On board? Is exact change required? and everyone is by default in a hurry and pissed off at you if you don't get it right away. Shopkeepers are in general much more willing to be accommodating to uncomprehending tourists than bus drivers are. I did a lot of walking.)
posted by ook at 9:53 AM on September 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
Grocery shopping, or any other mostly-self-service task, is perhaps a bad example for you to choose for this, especially if your focus is on non-english-speakers in english-language countries: in many countries it is entirely trivial to purchase groceries without ever exchanging a word with anyone. You wander the aisles, you pick what you want, you can see the prices because everyone uses the same numbers, you put your groceries on the belt, if you didn't bother to do the math while you shopped you look at the cash register readout to see how much you are supposed to pay, you pay, you go. Simple.
The only times I remember getting tripped up (as a monolingual american in Europe, Turkey, and Morocco, spending at most a couple weeks in any given country -- incidentally, assuming you are a student, it's likely that many of your peers will have spent at least some time doing the Eurail thing, and will be able to give you plenty of stories to work with) are:
* Germany: there was a stack of grocery bags next to the cashier, but she didn't bag my groceries while she rang me up. So I grabbed a bag and started bagging them myself -- at which point she became enraged, and I became confused. Once she figured out I didn't understand her, she pointed at the bag, then pointed at a coin, and I realized you have to pay for the bags. So I did. She remained enraged, but I had already spent enough time in Germany to know that that was par for the course.
* Spain: I couldn't find the soap in a pharmacy. So I went to the pharmacist and asked for the soap by rubbing my hands together, then rubbing my hands under my armpits, then pointing around the shop while shrugging. The pharmacist got it immediately, laughed, and led me to the soap.
* Spain (again): I was looking for band-aids. The pharmacist spoke English! But didn't know the word "band-aid" and all my attempts to explain what I wanted seemed to make him even more confused. It took a lot of lengthy explanation and mutual confusion before the lightbulb finally went on: "Oooooh, you want plasters." This would have been much easier if he had not spoken English at all.
Much more challenging tasks than grocery shopping are those where there is a well-established process for doing a thing, which is different from what you are used to back at home, but which is obvious enough to the locals that there is no signage or explanation of what is expected. Gas stations (pump your own? Wait for an attendant? How does the pump even work?), restaurants (seat yourself? Wait? Menus with no pictures? No menu at all? Not open at the hours you expect?etc), non-self-service shops where you have to ask for what you need (difficulty level even higher if the items aren't on display to be pointed at), and public transport (city buses can be especially challenging: buy tickets ahead of time? On board? Is exact change required? and everyone is by default in a hurry and pissed off at you if you don't get it right away. Shopkeepers are in general much more willing to be accommodating to uncomprehending tourists than bus drivers are. I did a lot of walking.)
posted by ook at 9:53 AM on September 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
Native American English-speaker living in Spain for a total of five months with passable but not amazing Spanish fluency. Groceries were more or less fine, though occasionally the need for a specific cultural item would cause consternation and require searching. For example, apparently women's shaving cream/gel wasn't a thing when I lived there and it took going to three shops and lots of descriptions before a really overpriced can was found in the depths of a department store. I think I paid 8 euros for it. The timing of the stores was weird to get used to as well - only the deli section of the grocery store was open for a very small window of time on Sundays and the rest of the store was completely shut down for that day.
I also go to a lot of Asian grocery stores here in the US and have no familiarity with any of those languages. Some of the groceries have English translations of varying levels of accuracy on them, but many don't. I feel pretty safe with sweets/chocolates and most beverages and will buy them even if I don't fully understand the packaging. As a vegetarian, I do stay away from the more savory boxed/frozen items and the chewy candies that may have gelatin if they don't list the ingredients. Most of the vegetarian frozen products say so though: "Vege Ribbon Fish" for example. I have no problem buying produce. I'm more willing to buy cheap items as experimental trials whereas if it costs a lot (like many of the vegetarian frozen meats) I'm more selective.
Pictures on packaging helps a lot. Pictures of what the inside contents look like, pictures of it in its ready-to-eat form (post-cooking/processing), etc. Clearly marked pricing is obviously always nice.
posted by vegartanipla at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2013
I also go to a lot of Asian grocery stores here in the US and have no familiarity with any of those languages. Some of the groceries have English translations of varying levels of accuracy on them, but many don't. I feel pretty safe with sweets/chocolates and most beverages and will buy them even if I don't fully understand the packaging. As a vegetarian, I do stay away from the more savory boxed/frozen items and the chewy candies that may have gelatin if they don't list the ingredients. Most of the vegetarian frozen products say so though: "Vege Ribbon Fish" for example. I have no problem buying produce. I'm more willing to buy cheap items as experimental trials whereas if it costs a lot (like many of the vegetarian frozen meats) I'm more selective.
Pictures on packaging helps a lot. Pictures of what the inside contents look like, pictures of it in its ready-to-eat form (post-cooking/processing), etc. Clearly marked pricing is obviously always nice.
posted by vegartanipla at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2013
Blogger Rachel Lucas just got back to the US from several years in Italy. She posted a lot while she was there about language and grocery shopping.
posted by Bruce H. at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2013
posted by Bruce H. at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2013
Not speaking the language does affect where I shop for groceries - when I'm in that situation and don't feel like trying to make myself understood I'll usually choose the biggest supermarket I can find, as this usually means less human interaction. I may also avoid fresh fruit/veg, because the rules about how you pay for them differ by country and sometimes by individual shop (e.g. weighing/bagging or not).
posted by gnimmel at 9:59 AM on September 30, 2013
posted by gnimmel at 9:59 AM on September 30, 2013
I am a native English speaker, with an accent that differs considerably from the RP which most non-native speakers will be most accustomed to.
I have had no issue shopping in foreign supermarkets where I can't speak the language - I can read French quite well for someone who doesn't speak it, and it's easy for me to work out what I'm buying, but what I found difficult was not being able to speak to the person at the checkout. I can see the total on the LCD screen, but I can't chat to them or say much beyond 'please' and 'thank you'. Estonia was trickier as I didn't have enough familiarity with the language to pick out what I needed (we tried to buy bear meat but we couldn't work out what it was). I do feel nervous about going to, say, Japan or Russia, as there's a whole new alphabet going on as well.
The only issue I had was in Holland - I had an item in my basket which I didn't want, and in the UK you just give this to the cashier who will put it back for you. Apparently, in Holland the shopper has to do this, and I didn't understand why she was getting irritated with me. I kept saying to her 'I'm sorry, I don't understand Dutch, I don't know what you are asking....' until somebody behind me explained what was wrong. When I asked if I could have a leaflet from behind the counter -with pointing as she spoke no English - she refused to give one to me, presumably because I'd pissed her off, and when she went to serve the next customer I heard her remark 'Oy oy ooooooyyyy!' I must have seemed unbearably rude and entitled to her, but what I was doing was normal in my experience of supermarket shopping. In the UK we don't have people bagging our groceries for us, so I imagine there are similar misunderstandings from those who come from countries where they don't need to do this myself.
posted by mippy at 10:01 AM on September 30, 2013
I have had no issue shopping in foreign supermarkets where I can't speak the language - I can read French quite well for someone who doesn't speak it, and it's easy for me to work out what I'm buying, but what I found difficult was not being able to speak to the person at the checkout. I can see the total on the LCD screen, but I can't chat to them or say much beyond 'please' and 'thank you'. Estonia was trickier as I didn't have enough familiarity with the language to pick out what I needed (we tried to buy bear meat but we couldn't work out what it was). I do feel nervous about going to, say, Japan or Russia, as there's a whole new alphabet going on as well.
The only issue I had was in Holland - I had an item in my basket which I didn't want, and in the UK you just give this to the cashier who will put it back for you. Apparently, in Holland the shopper has to do this, and I didn't understand why she was getting irritated with me. I kept saying to her 'I'm sorry, I don't understand Dutch, I don't know what you are asking....' until somebody behind me explained what was wrong. When I asked if I could have a leaflet from behind the counter -with pointing as she spoke no English - she refused to give one to me, presumably because I'd pissed her off, and when she went to serve the next customer I heard her remark 'Oy oy ooooooyyyy!' I must have seemed unbearably rude and entitled to her, but what I was doing was normal in my experience of supermarket shopping. In the UK we don't have people bagging our groceries for us, so I imagine there are similar misunderstandings from those who come from countries where they don't need to do this myself.
posted by mippy at 10:01 AM on September 30, 2013
German, moved to the US 3 years ago. In my experience, grocery shopping (all kinds of shopping, really) are much easier in the US than in Europe. Stores are more spacious, there's easy parking everywhere, no need for a coin deposit in shopping carts, groceries are packed for you, grocery bags are free, more convenience food, I could go on. The biggest difference is that customers are treated much better and more politely than in Germany. If you ask for something, you will be walked to the respective aisle instead of getting a grunt and/or scowl. So that makes up for most language problems one might have.
I did not find anything that needed improvement in that respect. I was a bit surprised at how friendly customer service people were, at first, but I got used to it. My English is decent, though (fluent before I arrived here), I guess non-english speakers might have problems in some parts of the country, where 'not speaking english' is still parsed as 'weird alien, do not want!'.
Well, one thing I still find annoying. Lose those f'ing pints, inches and quarts. Drives me mad!
posted by The Toad at 10:01 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
I did not find anything that needed improvement in that respect. I was a bit surprised at how friendly customer service people were, at first, but I got used to it. My English is decent, though (fluent before I arrived here), I guess non-english speakers might have problems in some parts of the country, where 'not speaking english' is still parsed as 'weird alien, do not want!'.
Well, one thing I still find annoying. Lose those f'ing pints, inches and quarts. Drives me mad!
posted by The Toad at 10:01 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Living in spain as a native english speaker with a reasonable spanish fluency for 7 years: grocery shopping was easy because stuff is all right there with pictures of the food. Stuff like the butcher or baker was sometimes odd because I had no idea what the words were for specific cuts of meat, or what mysteriously named pastries contained.
Post office, bank, etc were all fairly easy; the main problem was that older people spoke the local dialect or Catala, which I had no previous experience with. Luckily it is close enough to Spanishy French for fiddling out the details.
The biggest issue was going to the doctor and having to describe specific symptoms for parts of the body that are not normally discussed in detail in foreign language classes - while attempting to schedule a regular checkup and pap smear at the lady parts doctor, I accidentally described needing an annual vehicular emissions inspection.
Also going to the hardware store for small but vital objects tended to stretch my vocabulary to its limits. This was before the widespread availability of internet connections on your phone, so there was a lot of making it up as you went along.
posted by elizardbits at 10:15 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Post office, bank, etc were all fairly easy; the main problem was that older people spoke the local dialect or Catala, which I had no previous experience with. Luckily it is close enough to Spanishy French for fiddling out the details.
The biggest issue was going to the doctor and having to describe specific symptoms for parts of the body that are not normally discussed in detail in foreign language classes - while attempting to schedule a regular checkup and pap smear at the lady parts doctor, I accidentally described needing an annual vehicular emissions inspection.
Also going to the hardware store for small but vital objects tended to stretch my vocabulary to its limits. This was before the widespread availability of internet connections on your phone, so there was a lot of making it up as you went along.
posted by elizardbits at 10:15 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
Lived in Holland for 8 years as a native English speaker. My early Dutch language skills were developed almost exclusively by going grocery shopping & watching the evening news. There were photographs on a lot of the products, which was helpful, and a lot of shop assistants were tolerant and keen to help once they realized I wasn't just another entitled English-speaker with no interest in learning their language. In particular I remember my neighborhood wine shop's keeper who helped me with my menu plan many weekends - he originally approached me asking what I was looking for, and when I haltingly told him in my best (awful) Dutch that I was looking for a white wine to serve with food, he patiently took the time to talk me through what I was serving (fish... what sort of fish? and potatoes... how will I prepare them? and vegetables... which ones?) and then recommend a few wines he felt would pair nicely. At first, sometimes I had to mime or use convoluted ways of explaining things ("I like the green vegetable that looks like a little tree... I will hit the potatoes until they are like pudding"), but he was always warm and patient with me. I often went there before the fishmonger or butcher to be sure I knew what it was I was looking for and how it should be pronounced. Some shop employees were kinder than others, some insisted on answering me in English despite how clear it was I was attempting to learn Dutch, but I remembered the places with staff who loved what they did and were happy to let me bungle my way through our interactions, and would go out of my way to shop there.
posted by pammeke at 10:28 AM on September 30, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by pammeke at 10:28 AM on September 30, 2013 [5 favorites]
As a native English speaker who has lived in Italy and France with varying competencies at the languages, I spent/spend a lot of time not knowing the correct word and giving lengthy explanations of what I'm trying to say.
posted by ellieBOA at 10:38 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by ellieBOA at 10:38 AM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
1. The language would be necessary, in the grocery shopping context, to know what one is buying. A common goof for illiterate westerns would be to buy what they thought were dinner rolls or hamburger buns only to find that they were filled with sweet bean paste. People think pictures of food on cans help, but I could still see someone buying a can of whale thinking that it was some other sort of canned meat.
2. Knowing the language better would have made things easier, I suppose. However, my proficiency level is high enough that food labels aren't daunting. I remember one have a discussion with a cashier about where the listen price appeared different that the price that the register showed. That would have not been possible if I couldn't speak. In other contexts, such as visiting the doctor, I would make sure to confirm certain medical vocabulary that I thought might come up e.g. the word for appendicitis. I've noticed foreigners struggling with buying train tickets, both from automatic vending machine and ticket counters.
3. I'm a non-native of Japanese who lived there for several years and goes back to visit every year. We speak Japanese at home. All of the incidents described above were in Japan.
posted by Tanizaki at 11:51 AM on September 30, 2013
2. Knowing the language better would have made things easier, I suppose. However, my proficiency level is high enough that food labels aren't daunting. I remember one have a discussion with a cashier about where the listen price appeared different that the price that the register showed. That would have not been possible if I couldn't speak. In other contexts, such as visiting the doctor, I would make sure to confirm certain medical vocabulary that I thought might come up e.g. the word for appendicitis. I've noticed foreigners struggling with buying train tickets, both from automatic vending machine and ticket counters.
3. I'm a non-native of Japanese who lived there for several years and goes back to visit every year. We speak Japanese at home. All of the incidents described above were in Japan.
posted by Tanizaki at 11:51 AM on September 30, 2013
I'm a native speaker of English who lived in Japan. I have a modicum of competence in spoken Japanese, but it could be better.
Shopping for food was not a problem. I found that shopping for over-the-counter drugs and toiletries was kind of a problem—for whatever reason, I was (and lots of other people are) more adrift. There's an "American pharmacy" in Tokyo that apparently caters to exactly this sort of malaise. The one time I tried to buy aspirin at a different pharmacy, I asked the pharmacist for "aspirin" and he didn't have it. WTF? I later learned that in Japan, "aspirin" is a trademark of Bayer.
Getting a haircut was always an adventure in miscommunication. I really didn't have the vocabulary for describing what I wanted done to my head correctly.
The post office kept banker's hours, so if I had to pick up a parcel, it always had to wait until Saturday, because I was never home from work early enough. I sent a lot of stuff by mail, and got a pretty good understanding of the available services.
Speaking of banks—I think this has changed, but back then, the ATMs also kept banker's hours—half-days on Saturdays, closed Sundays. That's one of those quirks you adjust to soon enough, but it was definitely a quirk.
posted by adamrice at 12:06 PM on September 30, 2013
Shopping for food was not a problem. I found that shopping for over-the-counter drugs and toiletries was kind of a problem—for whatever reason, I was (and lots of other people are) more adrift. There's an "American pharmacy" in Tokyo that apparently caters to exactly this sort of malaise. The one time I tried to buy aspirin at a different pharmacy, I asked the pharmacist for "aspirin" and he didn't have it. WTF? I later learned that in Japan, "aspirin" is a trademark of Bayer.
Getting a haircut was always an adventure in miscommunication. I really didn't have the vocabulary for describing what I wanted done to my head correctly.
The post office kept banker's hours, so if I had to pick up a parcel, it always had to wait until Saturday, because I was never home from work early enough. I sent a lot of stuff by mail, and got a pretty good understanding of the available services.
Speaking of banks—I think this has changed, but back then, the ATMs also kept banker's hours—half-days on Saturdays, closed Sundays. That's one of those quirks you adjust to soon enough, but it was definitely a quirk.
posted by adamrice at 12:06 PM on September 30, 2013
I'm another native speaker of English who lived in Japan for six months. I speak conversational Japanese, but am functionally illiterate (I read at a kindergartenish level.)
Nevertheless, shopping for food was never a problem for me. I don't have any dietary restrictions, so I enjoyed experimenting with mysterious grocery items. Many Japanese food packages include diagrams in the instructions, so I was able to follow directions to prepare food even when I could only read a few words. I would imagine that a lack of reading skills would be a much greater barrier to easy packaged-food prep in countries where diagrams aren't common.
Over the counter medications were another story. I wasn't familiar with what is and isn't available over the counter, and because my reading skills are so minimal, I didn't try to read the list of ingredients when taking cold medicine. I wound up accidentally mixing codeine and alcohol, and fainting on a train platform. (Luckily, I was with friends!) I later looked at the medication package, was able to read "codeine" in katakana, and realized what had happened... at the time, I hadn't lived outside of Canada before and had no idea that codeine was available over the counter in some countries.
I have also had experience navigating life errands in Québec as a native speaker of English with an intermediate level of French over the past year--but these experiences are more about language politics than actual language proficiency/ability to communicate. Memail me if you are interested.
posted by snorkmaiden at 12:29 PM on September 30, 2013
Nevertheless, shopping for food was never a problem for me. I don't have any dietary restrictions, so I enjoyed experimenting with mysterious grocery items. Many Japanese food packages include diagrams in the instructions, so I was able to follow directions to prepare food even when I could only read a few words. I would imagine that a lack of reading skills would be a much greater barrier to easy packaged-food prep in countries where diagrams aren't common.
Over the counter medications were another story. I wasn't familiar with what is and isn't available over the counter, and because my reading skills are so minimal, I didn't try to read the list of ingredients when taking cold medicine. I wound up accidentally mixing codeine and alcohol, and fainting on a train platform. (Luckily, I was with friends!) I later looked at the medication package, was able to read "codeine" in katakana, and realized what had happened... at the time, I hadn't lived outside of Canada before and had no idea that codeine was available over the counter in some countries.
I have also had experience navigating life errands in Québec as a native speaker of English with an intermediate level of French over the past year--but these experiences are more about language politics than actual language proficiency/ability to communicate. Memail me if you are interested.
posted by snorkmaiden at 12:29 PM on September 30, 2013
Native English speaker with fluent French and passable Spanish.
Shopping itself wasn't a problem- the Romance languages being related makes labels that much more readable- what really threw me was the more culture-specific stuff.
For instance, in some shops in Italy (I think I saw this the most in Venice) there is a gate to prevent people turning around and going out the entryway rather than through check-out. I'd never seen this before and I actually wound up getting stuck in one. That was embarrassing.
The other incident I recall was attempting to buy a reusable water bottle (think Sigg or Nalgene) in France. I don't think the French grok the concept of drinking tap water, because even with fluent French I could not get the manager of the massive Carrefour I was in to understand what I wanted. He kept pointing me to glass lemonade bottles instead.
posted by Tamanna at 12:31 PM on September 30, 2013
Shopping itself wasn't a problem- the Romance languages being related makes labels that much more readable- what really threw me was the more culture-specific stuff.
For instance, in some shops in Italy (I think I saw this the most in Venice) there is a gate to prevent people turning around and going out the entryway rather than through check-out. I'd never seen this before and I actually wound up getting stuck in one. That was embarrassing.
The other incident I recall was attempting to buy a reusable water bottle (think Sigg or Nalgene) in France. I don't think the French grok the concept of drinking tap water, because even with fluent French I could not get the manager of the massive Carrefour I was in to understand what I wanted. He kept pointing me to glass lemonade bottles instead.
posted by Tamanna at 12:31 PM on September 30, 2013
Another experience about OTC meds. I'm an American English speaker with almost no German language skills. During a brief visit to Berlin I came down with a terrible headache. I made my way in great pain to the nearest supermarket to find some painkillers (I knew enough from my science background to ask for paracetomol than acetominophen) but I hadn't realized that all meds that are OTC in the US are sold through pharmacies in Germany. The nearest one was way downtown and closed for the night anyway. It was a long painful night til a friend got back to the hostel and gave me some that he had brought with him on the trip.
posted by Sublimity at 12:48 PM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Sublimity at 12:48 PM on September 30, 2013 [1 favorite]
The biggest problem I've found is not strictly the language barrier, but the fact that certain products/foods simply don't exist in other countries or are packaged and sold in very different ways (canned vs. tetrapak, fresh vs. frozen, etc). For example, when travelling in the Netherlands, we experimentally purchased something at the market called "vla" which is a kind of thin custardy thing with no real American counterpart. You also run into this at the butcher case. Often the cuts of meat are quite different and even with a phrasebook to translate, they don't seem to match up 100%/
posted by Rock Steady at 12:55 PM on September 30, 2013
posted by Rock Steady at 12:55 PM on September 30, 2013
I went to Hong Kong on a short trip, I'm a native English speaker and I can't read or speak Chinese of any kind apart from saying "thank you" and things of that level.
Often I was reasonably successful at shopping by pointing and gesticulating.
I struggled to buy snack food in the airport, because the snacks I found were a selection of dried mystery things and I was very unclear whether they were definitely ready-to-eat or whether they were some kind of local speciality that should be rehydrated and done something fancy with. In the end I bought something that turned out to be dried salted plums and was somewhat disappointed in their snack value.
I also was bemused by some of the personal hygiene aisle in the supermarket; in a European country where I don't speak the language I can often guess the product by the general shape and colour of the packaging and the brands and pictures, but in Hong Kong I could imagine expecting toothpaste and getting haemorrhoid cream.
I wasn't always sure of the difference between cooked food (e.g meats) and raw food. For example, in Europe there are sausages that need cooking, and then there are hot dogs, and charcuterie, and I don't need to read the packaging to tell the difference. In Hong Kong I avoided a good number of things in case I got them back to my hotel room and discovered they were raw meat.
Not surprisingly, pot noodles were easy to recognise from the packaging.
I was very reliant on friendly waiters to manage to find me appropriate food in restaurants. In a European country I know there are probably starters, mains, desserts, and drinks (some of which might be cocktails) and I can guess which are which even if I don't know what they are. Good luck working this out in Hong Kong unless there is an English menu!
I got stuck once at a series of glass swinging doors at the entrance to a shopping mall. I approached it from a distance, slightly before a local gentleman reached the same door from the other side. Without much thinking, I opened the door for him (after all I got there first), and he just stopped on the other side. He stood there and looked confused at me for quite some time. Finally he went to the next door along, opened it and pointedly held it open for me.
But any time I was discouraged this just made it all better.
posted by emilyw at 12:55 PM on September 30, 2013
Often I was reasonably successful at shopping by pointing and gesticulating.
I struggled to buy snack food in the airport, because the snacks I found were a selection of dried mystery things and I was very unclear whether they were definitely ready-to-eat or whether they were some kind of local speciality that should be rehydrated and done something fancy with. In the end I bought something that turned out to be dried salted plums and was somewhat disappointed in their snack value.
I also was bemused by some of the personal hygiene aisle in the supermarket; in a European country where I don't speak the language I can often guess the product by the general shape and colour of the packaging and the brands and pictures, but in Hong Kong I could imagine expecting toothpaste and getting haemorrhoid cream.
I wasn't always sure of the difference between cooked food (e.g meats) and raw food. For example, in Europe there are sausages that need cooking, and then there are hot dogs, and charcuterie, and I don't need to read the packaging to tell the difference. In Hong Kong I avoided a good number of things in case I got them back to my hotel room and discovered they were raw meat.
Not surprisingly, pot noodles were easy to recognise from the packaging.
I was very reliant on friendly waiters to manage to find me appropriate food in restaurants. In a European country I know there are probably starters, mains, desserts, and drinks (some of which might be cocktails) and I can guess which are which even if I don't know what they are. Good luck working this out in Hong Kong unless there is an English menu!
I got stuck once at a series of glass swinging doors at the entrance to a shopping mall. I approached it from a distance, slightly before a local gentleman reached the same door from the other side. Without much thinking, I opened the door for him (after all I got there first), and he just stopped on the other side. He stood there and looked confused at me for quite some time. Finally he went to the next door along, opened it and pointedly held it open for me.
But any time I was discouraged this just made it all better.
posted by emilyw at 12:55 PM on September 30, 2013
Native English speaker (American) who lived in Italy for a year and has traveled in France.
My French is pretty good, but I often didn't have words for what I needed, and most of my shopping expeditions started with, "Bonjour, Madame. I only speak a little French, and I don't know the word for what I need. I'm looking for a thing with which you [fill in the blank]." I once went through quite a lengthy explanation of what an envelope is, only to find out that the French word for "envelope" is "envelope."
I had similar exchanges in Italy, which decreased as my Italian ability increased, but I'd still get tripped up sometimes by cultural differences. Italian has two words for what we'd call "blue" in English; the Italians differentiate dark blue from turquoise. I was trying to find turquoise socks, but I asked for "blu" rather than "azzurro," and the assistant kept giving me navy even when I said "light blue." It was a frustrating few minutes. (I think I finally found something turquoise-y to point at, at which point she corrected my vocabulary.)
Since American shops are usually more "pick out what you want yourself," it was weird having to interact so much with shop clerks in general.
Italian grocery store cashiers are also fanatics about wanting exact change, or some amount of change that will not result in them giving you back a bunch of coins. I was not used to having to do quick arithmetic at the check-out. At the beginning I pretty much just held out whatever coins I had and let them pick out what they wanted.
The Italian post office remains a deep mystery to me. I was trying to send a package home, I think it was sweaters that I wouldn't need anymore, and I put them in a used box, crossed out the previous address and put on the new address, and took it to the post office. They refused to take the package because it was "too ugly." I had to go buy butcher paper, wrap the damned thing, readdress it, and take it back. When I described this to an Italian friend, he expressed surprise that one wouldn't automatically wrap every package in butcher paper.
posted by jaguar at 1:37 PM on September 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
My French is pretty good, but I often didn't have words for what I needed, and most of my shopping expeditions started with, "Bonjour, Madame. I only speak a little French, and I don't know the word for what I need. I'm looking for a thing with which you [fill in the blank]." I once went through quite a lengthy explanation of what an envelope is, only to find out that the French word for "envelope" is "envelope."
I had similar exchanges in Italy, which decreased as my Italian ability increased, but I'd still get tripped up sometimes by cultural differences. Italian has two words for what we'd call "blue" in English; the Italians differentiate dark blue from turquoise. I was trying to find turquoise socks, but I asked for "blu" rather than "azzurro," and the assistant kept giving me navy even when I said "light blue." It was a frustrating few minutes. (I think I finally found something turquoise-y to point at, at which point she corrected my vocabulary.)
Since American shops are usually more "pick out what you want yourself," it was weird having to interact so much with shop clerks in general.
Italian grocery store cashiers are also fanatics about wanting exact change, or some amount of change that will not result in them giving you back a bunch of coins. I was not used to having to do quick arithmetic at the check-out. At the beginning I pretty much just held out whatever coins I had and let them pick out what they wanted.
The Italian post office remains a deep mystery to me. I was trying to send a package home, I think it was sweaters that I wouldn't need anymore, and I put them in a used box, crossed out the previous address and put on the new address, and took it to the post office. They refused to take the package because it was "too ugly." I had to go buy butcher paper, wrap the damned thing, readdress it, and take it back. When I described this to an Italian friend, he expressed surprise that one wouldn't automatically wrap every package in butcher paper.
posted by jaguar at 1:37 PM on September 30, 2013 [2 favorites]
I've travelled to a number of countries where I had very little to no knowledge of the language, and grocery shopping is usually as easy as it gets. The few pitfalls I've come up against:
* The varied ways of weighing produce mentioned above
* Arabic speaking countries use Arabic numerals, which is a totally different set of numbers and oh my god why is the 5 shaped like a 0, that gets me every goddamn time.
* In places where you deal with specific people who dish stuff out, sometimes there are language barriers especially with bulk goods -- if you want three oranges, you can use three fingers, but if you want 500 grams of pistachios, what fingers do you use?
* In particular, the most basic thing you learn for numbers are generally the simple numbers up to 10, which is fine in some situations, but can screw you when you need orders of magnitude more or less -- the 500 grams above, for instance. Most notable case was when I went from Gulf Arab countries, where a dinar is actually a few dollars so you really need the 1-10 or 1-20 range, to Syria, where the smallest bill is a 50 and you can't really do anything without dealing in the hundreds or thousands.
* Raw versus cooked food -- I once had a chicken leg in Switzerland that was breaded and looked cooked, but was not and I had no way of cooking it.
* Vocabulary and culture expectation mishaps - halfway through the package of beef jerky in Switzerland, I wondered why there was a picture of a horse on the package, and then belatedly found Pferde in my dictionary. Or the fun tendency the Chinese have of packaging salty meat snacks in the same ways as Westerners would package candies.
But it's amazing what pointing, gestures, numbers typed on the ubiquitous calculator, English loanwords and grunting can accomplish, particularly when you spend a little time observing to figure out how things work here, and are cheerful, polite and recognize that the person who doesn't speak the local language (i.e. you) is the one who is being silly here.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:02 PM on September 30, 2013
* The varied ways of weighing produce mentioned above
* Arabic speaking countries use Arabic numerals, which is a totally different set of numbers and oh my god why is the 5 shaped like a 0, that gets me every goddamn time.
* In places where you deal with specific people who dish stuff out, sometimes there are language barriers especially with bulk goods -- if you want three oranges, you can use three fingers, but if you want 500 grams of pistachios, what fingers do you use?
* In particular, the most basic thing you learn for numbers are generally the simple numbers up to 10, which is fine in some situations, but can screw you when you need orders of magnitude more or less -- the 500 grams above, for instance. Most notable case was when I went from Gulf Arab countries, where a dinar is actually a few dollars so you really need the 1-10 or 1-20 range, to Syria, where the smallest bill is a 50 and you can't really do anything without dealing in the hundreds or thousands.
* Raw versus cooked food -- I once had a chicken leg in Switzerland that was breaded and looked cooked, but was not and I had no way of cooking it.
* Vocabulary and culture expectation mishaps - halfway through the package of beef jerky in Switzerland, I wondered why there was a picture of a horse on the package, and then belatedly found Pferde in my dictionary. Or the fun tendency the Chinese have of packaging salty meat snacks in the same ways as Westerners would package candies.
But it's amazing what pointing, gestures, numbers typed on the ubiquitous calculator, English loanwords and grunting can accomplish, particularly when you spend a little time observing to figure out how things work here, and are cheerful, polite and recognize that the person who doesn't speak the local language (i.e. you) is the one who is being silly here.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 7:02 PM on September 30, 2013
Native English speaker (U.S.) who lived in Heidelberg, Germany for three years. My level of German was fairly close to nonexistent at the beginning. (I'm ashamed to say I got a lot of use out of the phrases meaning, "I'm sorry, my German is not very good. Do you speak English?")
I was never tripped up by the weigh-your-own-produce or bring-your-own-bag stuff (I'd carefully researched all that before I moved), and I agree with the posters who say that grocery shopping, being low-interaction, is for the most part fairly simple ... except for one thing. I'm vegan.
Foods may be labeled as vegetarian if you shop in the right places, but I rapidly discovered that knowing the words for "milk" and "eggs" does NOT help much if a product contains, say, cream, butter, butterfat, milk powder, casein, or egg protein. I went through, essentially, a very rapid crash course in learning such words.
Other errands varied pretty much depending on how complex they were. Purchases tended not to be very hard. Sending a letter at the post office was easy. Explaining to my internet provider over the phone that my service went down whenever it rained was ... extremely difficult.
posted by kyrademon at 4:41 AM on October 1, 2013
I was never tripped up by the weigh-your-own-produce or bring-your-own-bag stuff (I'd carefully researched all that before I moved), and I agree with the posters who say that grocery shopping, being low-interaction, is for the most part fairly simple ... except for one thing. I'm vegan.
Foods may be labeled as vegetarian if you shop in the right places, but I rapidly discovered that knowing the words for "milk" and "eggs" does NOT help much if a product contains, say, cream, butter, butterfat, milk powder, casein, or egg protein. I went through, essentially, a very rapid crash course in learning such words.
Other errands varied pretty much depending on how complex they were. Purchases tended not to be very hard. Sending a letter at the post office was easy. Explaining to my internet provider over the phone that my service went down whenever it rained was ... extremely difficult.
posted by kyrademon at 4:41 AM on October 1, 2013
A friend of mine said that in certain places in France where she lived, you went to a greengrocer who assisted you in choosing fruits and vegetables, so you had to talk to them in French. I went shopping in Paris once and the cashier asked my husband and myself a large amount of questions, none of which we understood. Instead of thinking I didn't understand, people thought I was deaf instead! France was the most difficult for me because I don't even know the basics in French.
In Japan, I seemed to have no problems whatsoever. I even managed to buy cosmetics, cold medicine, clothes and eye glasses. (Eye glasses in Japan are much cheaper and better quality than they are where I live.) The amount of Japanese I know is very, very low. The most difficult trip was probably the one for clothes, but it was a learning experience and I left with a few items.
I somehow managed to get by on key phrases, such as 'Do you have any recommendations?' or 'Something more colourful' and 'That price for that is a little high...'
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:53 AM on October 1, 2013
In Japan, I seemed to have no problems whatsoever. I even managed to buy cosmetics, cold medicine, clothes and eye glasses. (Eye glasses in Japan are much cheaper and better quality than they are where I live.) The amount of Japanese I know is very, very low. The most difficult trip was probably the one for clothes, but it was a learning experience and I left with a few items.
I somehow managed to get by on key phrases, such as 'Do you have any recommendations?' or 'Something more colourful' and 'That price for that is a little high...'
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:53 AM on October 1, 2013
Response by poster: Thanks everyone! You've all been so helpful, and I knew I could depend on you. I posted the same question on Reddit, got 1 upvote, and 1 downvote, and 0 responses. Booo!
posted by lacedcoffee at 1:18 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by lacedcoffee at 1:18 PM on October 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
When I first lived in Japan I spoke absolutely no Japanese and had no idea about Japanese food or cooking.
I had a roommate, a "Japan hand" who had been in-country for 15 years who sort of taught me the ropes. I think we made mostly spaghetti and burgers and potatoes and stuff that was easy to make.
He also taught me, more importantly, how to order food and drinks in a pub.
Later on I lived on my own while working for a different school. The school had an onboarding policy, where teachers would help other teachers learn the ropes, including going grocery shopping.
However, all I can really remember eating was canned tuna, iceberg lettuce, pasta, and Mandarin oranges. I had no clue what most of the vegetables were, or how to cook them.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:38 PM on October 17, 2013
I had a roommate, a "Japan hand" who had been in-country for 15 years who sort of taught me the ropes. I think we made mostly spaghetti and burgers and potatoes and stuff that was easy to make.
He also taught me, more importantly, how to order food and drinks in a pub.
Later on I lived on my own while working for a different school. The school had an onboarding policy, where teachers would help other teachers learn the ropes, including going grocery shopping.
However, all I can really remember eating was canned tuna, iceberg lettuce, pasta, and Mandarin oranges. I had no clue what most of the vegetables were, or how to cook them.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:38 PM on October 17, 2013
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Another barrier is that in many continental countries you are expected to have weighed your fruits and veg yourself and tagged them with a sticker before going up to the till. Sometimes you're not even supposed to touch the fresh food yourself at all, but in those cases it is usually easy enough to point and use charades.
The whole checkout process is usually fine because the total gets displayed in numbers on the till so you don't really need to know how to speak, just how to count the money. Using a card could be problematic, but if you stick to cash there isn't much of a problem.
To specify some of my examples would include:
France, English, 2 days, fairly well enough to get by
Spain, English, 1 day, only what I can derive from latin roots
Portugal, English, 1 day, only what I can derive from latin roots
Germany, English, 1 day, only what I can guess from sounding out the word in a bad german accent
posted by koolkat at 9:25 AM on September 30, 2013