I plan on going abroad in the coming year & want to know enough of the local language to ask basic things. Does anyone know something like 100 or 250 words that I could memorize to get across basic ideas & questions? I don’t care about being grammatical correct just enough to cave man speak during my time there.
Zero.
Communication doesn’t need to be written or verbal. Body language can effectively convey almost all basic human needs and wants.
If you go to the other side of the world, there’s a good chance your actions won’t be understood or might even convey the opposite meaning. Namely, mixing western and Asian body language is messy, depending on how much British colonization happened in the Asian half of the dialogue.
Source: I’ve been to India with Americans that believed they could communicate if they repeated their English statement slower, with the same verbal shortcuts, and angrier. This works in the big cities at customer service. The success rate drops as population density drops.
Instructions unclear. Got my ass kicked due to cultural body language differences.
You know what you did