经验丰富的旅行者们，你们认为旅行中最有用的语言是什么？
Seasoned travellers, what is the most useful language you’ve learnt and why?
译文简介
为了应付旅行上的困难，我应该学的最有用的语言是什么？我会一点法语，足以用来问路之类的了，但我想知道我还应该学些什么，特别是亚洲的？
正文翻译
I am about to turn 18 and I’m planning to try and visit every continent (apart from Antarctica) before I’m 21, so I have Asia, Australasia, South America and Africa left... What’s the most useful language for me to learn to help me get by? I already know a little French, enough to ask for directions etc but I wanted to know what else I should learn particularly for Asia?
我快年满18岁了，我打算在21岁之前去各个大洲（除了南极洲）旅游，所以我的目的地是亚洲、澳大利亚、南美和非洲，为了应付旅行上的困难，我应该学的最有用的语言是什么？我会一点法语，足以用来问路之类的了，但我想知道我还应该学些什么，特别是亚洲的？
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I've found learning the following words and phrases are enough to get by just about anywhere:
Yes, No, Please, Thank You, How much?
Straight, Left, Right, Back
Numbers 1 to 10
Water, Bathroom
我发现学下面的词汇可能就足以应付了：
是、不是、请、谢谢、多少？
前、左、右、后
数字1到10
水、浴室
You forgot "excuse me", both versions. The one where you make an innocent mistake (sorry) or need to make your way past someone. Eg lo siento vs con permiso
People underestimate the power of con permiso when you're lost on a crowded bus and try to politely force your way to the exit before it leaves and vice versa.
你把“抱歉”忘了。它有两种版本，一种是当你犯了无心之失时（对不起），或者你要借过时。
当你在拥挤的公共汽车上晕头转向，想要在车开走之前礼貌的迫使别人让路时，可别低估了“抱歉”的力量。
Don't forget "disculpa" for getting someone's attention
别忘了说“打扰了”来引起他人的注意
You forgot, “Two large beers please, my friend will pay.”
你忘了“请来两大杯啤酒，我的朋友会付钱的”。
Food. Where is food. Where can I get good food. What is a good food. What food is a must try. What is a good food with alcohol. What is a good midnight snack.
Come on man, why else would you even travel if not for food
食物。哪里有食物？我可以去哪里找到好吃的食物？什么食物好吃？哪种是必吃的食物？有哪些含酒精的美食？有什么好吃的夜宵？
得了吧兄弟，如果不是为了食物，干嘛要去旅行？
English, Spanish and Mandarin cover most of the world.
Basic conversational skills are better than complete fluency if you can learn in multiple languages. But when it comes to learning languages, if you don’t continuously practice they tend to be quickly forgotten
英语、西班牙语和普通话覆盖了大多数国家。
如果你能学会多种语言，拥有基本的会话技巧就可以了，不用非常流利。但是在学习语言的时候，如果你不经常用的话很快就会忘了。
Add French and you've covered the vast majority for sure
加上法语，肯定就覆盖了绝大多数国家。
Hindi too with the population of india (and pakistan)
还有印地语，印度和巴基斯坦的人口在用
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
I’m Indian and understand almost no Hindi. It’s technically the national language but not totally universal. And Pakistan is more Urdu, not Hindi.
我是印度人，几乎不懂印地语。严格来说，印地语是国家法定语言，但它并不完全通用。而巴基斯坦人主要说乌尔都语，不是印地语。
English is widely spoken and understood in India (and Pakistan) being former parts of the British Empire.
Widely spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia etc. Literally a quarter of Thais speak English as do over half Malays etc.
Spanish is the one I'd go with since very few people in Latin America understand English. Those two languages (English and Spanish) cover you for pretty much most situuations.
印度作为大英帝国的前殖民地，英语被广泛的使用。马来西亚、新加坡、印度尼西亚也有广泛使用。四分之一的泰国人、一半以上的马来人说英语。
我认为西班牙语是重点，因为在拉丁美洲没多少人懂英语。英语和西班牙语在大多数情况下够你用了。
I’ll back this up. Travelled Peru, Bolivia and Chile in 2017 and its true, even at major tourist spots not many people speak English.
顶楼上。我在2017年去了秘鲁、玻利维亚和智利，和楼上说的一样，即使在主要的旅游景点也没有多少人会说英语。
Mandarin and Hindi, while spoken by a huge number of people, are not really going to help in "world travel" a great deal. They'll just help in a couple of countries.
English, Spanish, French and Arabic are the languages that cover vast swaths of the globe.
普通话和印地语，虽然说的人多，但对“世界旅行”并没有多大帮助，只能在几个国家用。
英语、西班牙语、法语和阿拉伯语是覆盖最广的语言。
Arabic? Most places you travel in Arab speaking countries will know English and some even French
阿拉伯语？阿拉伯的大部分地方都会英语，有些地方甚至会法语。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
100%, is Hindi even that useful for a foreigner? I thought plenty knew english in India.
确实，印地语对外国人有什么用？我认为很多印度人都会英语。
Yeah but in places like Thailand and Singapore a lot of people speak mandarin.
是的，但在泰国和新加坡这样的地方，很多人会说普通话。
Mandarin does help a person travelling around Asia, when you understand Mandarin, it is easy to pick up numbers and certain words in languages like Korean, Cantonese and Thai. The roots are there, just pronounced differently.
普通话对你在亚洲旅行确实有帮助，当你会了普通话，就很容易学会韩语、粤语和泰语等语言中的数字和某些词语。根子上是一样的，只是发音不同。
I agree. Most places will have either English speaking people, or immigrants speaking Spanish or Chinese (might be Cantonese instead of Mandarin, but younger people should have learned Mandarin). It won’t always work, but statistically this will help you most on global scale.
大多数地方要么有说英语的人，要么有说西班牙语或汉语的移民（可能是广东话而不是普通话，但年轻人应该会普通话）。这并不完全有效，但从统计学上来说，这三种语言在全球范围内是最有用的。
Yes. I know only “not useful” languages for traveling besides English but it’s been fine. Honestly the hardest place to get around is Japan.
To be fair by the way, if you're in the right mindset this is actually super fun! It's kind of delightful/novel to be like a 5 year old again where you can't read anything and have to figure out things. You basically never have trouble just knowing English in almost any other country, so fun to figure it out.
除了英语之外，我只会“无用”的语言，但会英语就可以了。老实说，我去过最困难的地方是日本。
不过，如果你心态放平，这会很有趣！是一种令人愉快的体验，就像5岁的小孩一样新奇，你什么都看不懂，必须要弄明白。基本上，你只要会英语，在大多数国家就没问题了。
Can you explain more about Japan? I plan to go there one day, but I don’t know where to start with learning the language
日本方面的问题你能多解释一下吗？我打算去日本，但我不知道该从哪里开始学日语。
there is no point in learning japan if you just go there for holidays.
learn hello and thank you to be polite but that's all you need (even that is more than you need).
如果你只是去那里度假，学习日语是没有意义的。
学 “你好”和“谢谢”是为了礼貌，但也就这样了（甚至都多了）
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Just that most people who are not in tourism don't speak English for the most part, announcements are usually just in Japanese, and because of the writing being completely different you often can't parse much of it. But you are very clearly not from there, everyone is super polite in Japan, so it's not a deal breaker, just be prepared to do a lot of pointing and not being totally sure of what you're ordering, etc.
The first time I went to Japan was pre-smartphones so getting lost was far easier, but TBH these days with Google Maps it was nowhere near as tough on my second trip. So I don't think that's much of an issue any more.
在日本，大多数不从事旅游业的人基本都不会说英语，公告通常只用日语写，由于文字完全不同，你基本无法理解其中的大部分内容。不过在日本，每个人都超级有礼貌，所以也不是不能忍，只要做好准备很多事情只能用手来指，以及完全不确定你点的是什么菜等等。
我第一次去日本的时候还是智能手机出现之前，所以很容易迷路，现在有了谷歌地图，我第二次去日本时就不容易迷路了，所以我觉得这已经不是什么大问题了。
English is definitely the single most useful language for traveling. You can really travel the whole world with just English. You will surely miss something, but it's entirely doable.
Spanish is extremely useful in Latin America.
French is useful in significant part of Africa and some other locations, mainly islands.
Russian is handy in all post-Soviet countries.
Rest of the languages covers just too limited area.
Specifically for Asia:
Central Asia, Russia and Caucasus - Russian.
Middle East - Arabic, except of Iran and Turkey. Majority of people in Gulf countries usually speak decent English
South Asia - English is quite common, as they were British colonies. Otherwise many local languages.
SE Asia - lots of difficult local languages, locals don't expect visitors to speak them. English is common in tourist areas. In Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, English is very common everywhere.
East Asia - expect language barrier. Otherwise Mandarin, Korean, Japanese. Difficult.
英语绝对是旅行最有用的一门语言。你可以只靠英语就周游世界。你确实会错过一些东西，但这是完全可行的。
西班牙语在拉丁美洲非常有用。
法语在非洲的大部分地区和一些岛屿很有用。
会俄语在后苏联国家很方便。
其他语言的覆盖范围很有限。
亚洲部分单独列：
中亚、俄罗斯和高加索——俄罗斯语
中东-阿拉伯语，伊朗、土耳其除外，大多数海湾国家的人通常都能说不错的英语。
南亚-英语相当普遍，因为他们曾经是英国的殖民地。此外还有很多本地语言。
东南亚-有很多难懂的本地语言，当地人都不指望游客会说这些语言。英语在旅游区很普遍。在马来西亚、菲律宾和新加坡，到处是说英语的人。
东亚-会遇到语言障碍。普通话、韩语、日语很难。
Based on my experience, English and google translate is all I needed.
根据我的经验，会英语、有谷歌翻译，这就够了。
My brother has an interesting observation on this. You can get away with English everywhere, but you'll be paying a premium.
If you know Chinese, you can go to most places and be able to find cheaper food / services (most cities in the world have a Chinatown / Chinese stores / restaurants). Ditto w Spanish.
我兄弟对这个问题有个有趣的体会，你可以只用英语去各地旅行，但你会被宰客。
如果你会汉语，你可以去很多地方，能找到更便宜的食物和服务（世界上大多数城市都有唐人街、中国商店、餐馆）。西班牙语也一样。
I lived in China from 2016-2018. I don’t speak Chinese but it was honestly really easy to find cheap stuff. My grocery bill was like $20 a week. You don’t need to know Chinese because the super cheap stuff is everywhere. It’s actually harder to find the expensive western places.
2016年到2018年我住在中国。我不会中文，但说实话，很容易就可以买到便宜的东西。我一个星期的杂货费也就20美元。你不需要知道中文，因为到处都是超级便宜的东西。事实上，要找到那些昂贵的西式地方反而要难得多。
Actually not talking about when in China. But when travelling the world. For example, if you go to Southeast Asia, or Europe and use English, you'll be charged more expensive in general. But if you can speak Mandarin, you can find cheaper items if you go to Chinatown / restaurant etc
其实我说的是不在中国的时候，而是在各地旅行时。比如如果你去东南亚或欧洲，用英语，通常会被收更高的费用。但如果你会说普通话，如果你去唐人街、中餐馆等，你就可以找到更便宜的东西。
Outside of China, a lot of Asia is easy to get by with English to be honest. It’s always polite to try and learn some phrases of the country you’re visiting, but it’s not worth learning an entire language just to visit one country (and each country there has its own language, so learning bahasa, for example, sn’t going to help you much outside of Indonesia).
Chinese is a useful one if you’re going to spend a long time in China. And may be impressive on your CV. But it’s also incredibly difficult to learn so may not be worth it.
I would say pick a language if you’re more interested in a specific country over other ones, or if you plan on living in that country.
When it comes to Europe, German is probably the most useful (after English).
And in South America, Spanish is your man.
Africa maybe french would be useful in some countries (like Morocco).
老实说，在中国之外，很多亚洲国家都可以用英语搞定。你去其他国家旅行时，试着学一些当地的短语可以显得很有礼貌，但为了旅行而专门学一门完整的语言并不值得(而且每个国家都有自己的语言，你学了这个国家的一些短语，离开这个国家后就没用了)。
如果你要在中国呆很长时间，那汉语还是很有用的语言。可以让你的履历显得不凡。但要学起来非常难，所以可能也不值得。
如果你对某个国家比较感兴趣，或者你打算住在这个国家，那你可以选择学习。
说到欧洲，德语可能是最有用的（仅次于英语）。
在南美洲，西班牙语是你需要的。
在非洲，法语也许在一些国家会有用（比如摩洛哥）。
Learning German is a really unnecessary. Maybe it's useful for conversations with older generations, but most younger Germans speak English well. I can say fron personal experience that Spanish for South America is way more important.
学德语真的没有必要。跟老一辈交谈也许有用，但大多数年轻德国人英语说得很好。从我的个人经验来看，西班牙语在南美洲更重要。
There are really 3 large parts of the world where few people speak English and its Spanish for Latin America, French for much of Africa, and Russian for the former USSR. I'm suprised to see German mentioned so often in the thread because many Germans know enough English to get by whereas very few Russians or Khazaks, Georgians, Ukrainians do.
Also when you say German being more useful in Europe being able to communicate with the 110 mil people in European Russia, 40 mil in Ukraine, and 10 mil in Belarus is more useful than 80 mil in Germany where the average person speaks better English theres more English signage and there far more info on internet about how to do things there.
世界上有三大地区很少有人说英语，拉丁美洲说西班牙语，非洲大部分地区说法语，前苏联国家说俄语。看到帖子里这么多人提到德语，我很惊讶，因为很多德国人英语都说得不错，然而没多少俄罗斯人、哈萨克人、格鲁吉亚人、乌克兰人会英语。
当你说德语在欧洲更有用时，你可知道俄罗斯有1.1亿人，乌克兰4000万，白俄罗斯1000万，而德国人才8000万，在德国，普通人的英语说得很好，有很多的英语标牌，在网上有很多信息告诉你怎么做事。
I have visited every continent (including Antarctica) with only English.
If you only want enough language ability to enable your visit to places then English is enough. If you want to engage with people then English will be enough for more places than you might expect, but obviously learning the local the language will be better.
我只靠英语就游遍了各个大洲(包括南极洲)。
如果你只是想要有足够的语言能力去一些地方旅行，那么英语就足够了。如果你想与人交流，英语其实也足够，但显然，学习当地语言会更好。
Thaï is not very difficult and funny to learn. The tone is nice, it's like a melody when you speak.
Vietnamese is hard to learn, because of the pronounce.
Malay is little bit hard too, but it's fine.
I don't know about Chinese language I didn't visit yet China.
Most of the time everyone speaks English in Asia, don't worry about that.
泰语不是很难学，而且很有趣。音调很好听，说话的时候就像在唱歌。
越南语因为它的发音所以很难学。
马来语也有点难，但还好。
我不会汉语，我还没去过中国。
在亚洲，很多人都会说英语，无需担心。
Don’t focus on mastering any one language if your want to travel the world. My advice would be to learn the numbers and helpful phrases wherever you go. “How much for,” “where is,” “I’d like to go to,” “excuse me,” etc.
如果你想环游世界，不要把精力集中在掌握一门语言上。我的建议是，学会你要去的地方的数字和短语。“…多少钱”、“…在哪里”、“我想去…”、“抱歉”等等。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Kudos to your endeavour! I've been to 35+ countries and speak 4 languages fluently. In my experience, the most useful language for travelling is learning the basic words of the local language and a smile!
The locals greatly appreciate the effort and you'll have a better experience too. Learn: hello and goodbye, please and thank you, yes and no, food and water, 1-10, toilet (very important one)!
Oh, and don't listen to the people who try to tell you that learning a specific language is hard. You just need to know a few basic words to get by.
向你的努力致敬！ 我去过35个以上的国家，能流利地说4种语言。以我的经验，旅行最有用的语言。就是学习当地语言的基本词汇，还有微笑！
当地人会赞赏你的努力，你也会有更好的体验。学习:你好、再见，请、谢谢，是、不是，食物、水，1-10，厕所(这个非常重要) ！
另外，别听那些人说学一门语言很难。你只需要知道一些基本词汇就可以了。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Mandarin, although difficult to learn was surprisingly useful in SE Asia. On a trip through several countries, I was able to use it getting around Malaysia - one of the primary languages there, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong. Also quite a few workers from China especially in the service industries
普通话虽然很难学，但在东南亚却出人意料地有用。在一次穿越几个国家的旅行中，我能够用普通话在马拉西亚都出走，它是那里的主要语言之一，还有越南、台湾、香港。有很多来自中国的工人，特别是在服务行业。
English is basically the de facto language of global tourism. I'll second what others have said in this thread about being able to (more-or-less) get around fine nearly anywhere with English augmented with a few basic courtesy phrases (please, thanks).
One asterisk I should put on that is that you can get by with English "on the beaten path", but its utility plummets in some areas if you do more local stuff (vs. major attractions).
Literally the only place I've been out of over forty countries that had a noticeable dearth of expat/tourist-focused English signage was Xi'an in China.
英语基本上是全球旅行用语。帖子前面已经有很多人说了，用英语和一些基本的礼貌短语（请，谢谢等）就能够去大多数地方。
要注意的是，在大多数热门地区你可以用英语，但在某些地区(相对于主要景点)，如果你要办一些当地的事情，英语的作用就直线下降。
真的，我去过40多个国家，唯一一个明显缺乏外国人、游客用的英语标牌的地方，是中国的西安。