Low Cost Travel Cafe

Linguist · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 2

Date Originally Posted: 07/12/2006 11:12 AM

I went travelling to Russian and China by train a few years ago. The language barrier was a real problem. I've seen a few things in the market place to help especially when its difficult to even understand the lettering. One of the best I've bought is called a Lost for Words card. Has anyone seen any books like this?

Edit Reason: Removed URL. This looked like a not very subtly disguised promotion. Apologies if it wasn't.

Moderator: Alan L

attitudetravel · Editor of attitude Travel Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 55

Date Originally Posted: 07/12/2006 4:35 PM

Chinese pictograms, I agree, are more difficult to master, but if you're planning to travel east across Russia and China, even if you have no time to learn more than a couple of basic phrases in Russian, you can do yourself a huge favour by learning to read the Russian alphabet.

It won't take you much more than a couple of hours at most - about half the Cyrillic letters are very similar to their Latin alphabet counterparts, but it will pay dividends with all the signs and timetables you will come across on the train, at railway stations and on the metro systems.
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Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

Linguist · Joined: 11 Feb 2007 Posts: 2

Date Originally Posted: 07/12/2006 4:35 PM

Thanks for the reply. Cyrillic is OK as the letters I know sound like they look if you know what I mean (I always think of Aeroflot and the Russian for Restaurant which looks like PECTOPAH), it was China where my problems lay. For instance, even when I pointed to phrases in my BBC phrasebook, there were quite a few blank faces. Whether they had a different dialect, were illiterate etc I do not know.

I agree though, that you should always at least attempt the language as it is polite and breaks the ice in many ways.