Helena W. & Malia Z.: Why Language Matters More Than You Think When Travelling

When people travel, they usually think about beautiful beaches, great food, or famous landmarks. But what happens when something unexpected occurs? That is exactly why it is important to learn at least the most essential words and phrases of the local language before travelling, or at the very least, to have a reliable translation app on your phone. Ideally, you should have both.

During our stay in Málaga, we witnessed an accident. A young man, like many others before him, was climbing across the large rocks along the beach and wanted to jump into the sea. He slipped on one of the rocks, fell, and was seriously injured. Although he managed to get himself out of the water, he was in severe pain and had to be cared for by his friends until the police, ambulance, and fire brigade arrived. Since we were standing nearby, we also tried to help and later spoke with both the emergency responders and the injured man's friends.

Very quickly, we realised that the biggest challenge was not the situation itself, but communication.

Both of us speak English, and before our trip we had learned some basic Spanish, roughly at an A1 to A2 level. We assumed that, in an emergency, we would at least be able to communicate a little. However, that turned out not to be the case.

The injured man's friends spoke very little English, and one of them spoke only French. Without the translator on our phone, we would hardly have been able to communicate with them. Unfortunately, the difficulties did not end there. When we later tried to speak with the police officers and paramedics, we quickly realised that speaking English was not something we could take for granted. One police officer asked her colleagues whether anyone spoke English. Eventually, an officer came over who was supposed to speak English, but even communicating with him was difficult. It was only after we started using the translation app on our phone that we were able to explain what we wanted to say and finally receive the information we needed.

This experience taught us that it is not enough to speak English yourself or to know a few words of the local language. Communication only works well when both sides understand the same language. Especially in emergencies, where every piece of information can be crucial, misunderstandings can waste valuable time and make an already stressful situation even more complicated.

Of course, no one can become fluent in every language before travelling. However, it is definitely worth learning a few essential words such as help, hospital, pain, or emergency. Even more important, though, is having a reliable translation app on your smartphone. For us, it was not simply a convenient extra, but the key tool that allowed us to communicate at all.

Our experience showed us that language skills while travelling are about much more than ordering food in a restaurant or shopping. Many people assume that English works everywhere because it is considered the world's international language. Our experience proved that this is not always true. In the future, we will not only learn a few basic words of the local language before travelling, but we will also make sure that we always have a working translator with us. You hope you will never need it, but if you do, it can make all the difference.