Tourism: try to speak the local language, natives will be nicer!

Tourism

In most cases when tourists visit a country, they do not know the local language, and they often do a big mistake of speaking in English instead of trying to speak the local language first!

My advice, is to try to speak the local language first, even if it’s just for a few words, and here’s why:

When you try to speak in English in a non English speaking foreign country, you are pushing the person you are communicating with outside his/her comfort zone, and if he /she knows little English, you are pushing him/her to make fun of self. That will build a wall, other than the communication wall that is already there, and minimize the friendliness of the natives.

On the other side, if you try to speak their language, even if you fail, you are going outside of your comfort zone, you are ready to make fun of yourself, thus you will get a feeling of sympathy and appreciation for your effort, this will help remove the communication wall that is in place.

Advice: when planning a trip to a country, try to learn few verbs, and few nouns, even if you can’t construct a phrase and even if the people you’ll meet are able to communicate in English, do so and you’ll have a much better experience.

Tip: invest a bid of your time to learn 30-50 essential verbs and 30-50 essential nouns, note them in a notebook and keep it with you.

The French Poste – Courier mail service – Bad VERY BAD

last day i went to send a very important document,

i asked the employee what is the best solution for such a document

she offered 4 solutions:

one was for 3 EUR another 13 EUR a 3rd one for 14 EUR and the last for 40EUR

the difference between the first and the 3 others is that for the 1st one there is no tracking.

well that’ according to the employee (who consulted with her boss who was near her)

the last one was simply fast compared to the previous 2.

well great;

i decide to send quickly ; went to get some money from the ATM machine,

then i changed my mind i decided to send slower by with tracking.

so went for the 13€ solution.

i went to the counter, another one because the first was very busy,

and i found a lady that seamed like if she was stoned, i asked her for the solution i chose,

and she consulted with the 1st lady and got me the envelop.

i put the documents filled the adress and gave her the envelop.

and then asked for a receipt, she was unable to find the scan code so she consulted with the first lady again who consulted with the boss again and then told me this is not tracked.

so basically she misinformed me; the only difference between the 3€ solution and the 13€ solution was that the first was for 100g max while the second was for 1kg.

my document weighed 40g so basically this was a complete ripoff – out of ignorance and incompetence of the post service