If you met a stranger, and you two don't speak each other's languages, how would you communicate?

Pantomime.

“The only way warriors can truly communicate, is with our fists.” – Ryu

Point to my stomach, roll my eyes and lick my lips. It might be a little different if she points at my crotch, exposes her breasts and claps her hands…

*If

Interpretive dance

Draw pictures.

Beer. Beer is universal.

I don’t have to imagine. I am in some strange foreign land and I was often in this situation. Lots of gestures. Often the person speaks enough of the local language that we can communicate via that. I have Polish friends but I don’t speak a bit of Polish. We speak via their kid who translates, or we both have enough of the local language where we can talk using that in a very broken way. One of my friends when I first moved here was German but she didn’t speak English. She sat in front of me in Norwegian class. Her facial expressions were enough. We laughed and laughed. Another woman in the class was a Russian mathematician and we ‘spoke’ with a great deal of gestures. She had 7 kids and her husband was also a math professor at the local university. When I was in France, again… gestures, and when they spoke in French, I could make out some words, because I understand better than I speak it.
Honestly, the warmest, sweetest people I have met here are Polish and German. My German bestie left Norway and moved back to Germany and I miss her terribly. Aggie and Beata have been friends since before any of us could speak the local language together. We bonded over food, our kids and just being foreigners here. Hugs are universal.

^ That was very sweet. I hope you keep in contact with your friends.

You are bringing me back to my time in Thailand. I can hardly speak Thai, but I managed to communicate with cooks in the canteen fine. Some of them know a little English, but for those who don’t, finger pointing works for them then again I’m good at finger pointing. The woman in the mini store inside the canteen matches the person you are thinking about: no English at all. Everyday we talk with her calculator and bows. Somehow I managed to create a relationship with her. I remember the time when I bought the wrong item and had to talk to her to change. She had to call a passerby to act as a translator, whose English was as bad as expected. After some back and forth, she finally understood and was more than willing to change. It was hilarious.

But what really fits your question is the 3-day field trip in a Thai village. It had everything in your question: no language other than Thai, no internet, nothing! I did homestay with one roommate and two Thai friends, and we lived with an old woman. I only had my Thai friends as interpreters, but their English wasn’t very good. So most of the time the woman and I hardly talked. But that didn’t stop us from bonding. Mutual respect bounded us together. I showed her that I respected the culture and her value. I didn’t wear short jeans in her house. I came home early in the evening. I woke up early to get ready for the traditional offering. I offered to help her with housework and enjoyed her ant eggs meal. Our parting was bittersweet as if we had talked for a long time.

You made me miss my time in Thai :’(

Once I was suddenly confronted with a guy who spoke a language that I never even heard of. It was next to impossible and very frustrating for both of us.

Before going to New Caledonia I studied up on French because I was told that that’s the language that is spoken there. However I didn’t realize that the native people living there speak their own language. I was at a total loss when I tried to communicate with a very friendly native man. I wanted to camp on his beach that he was renting. About the only thing that he understood was that I was interested in camping but where and how much he was charging was very unclear and I was about to give up when his son showed up who spoke French. And that was hard enough but we soon got everything clear. It was the best beach I ever camped at.

This past Saturday I warned a man about the ants he was about to stand in the middle of. I told him to watch out, which even though he didn’t understand the words, I think he understood my tone. He told me he was from the Netherlands, but his English was obviously not good. I pointed to the ants and used my hand to signify they bite. In America most of the ants up north don’t bite, so I’m thinking in Holland it’s the same case, and maybe he doesn’t realize fire ants can really be miserable.

You just use your body language, your hands a lot, and mime and charades.

@gondwanalon I LOVE Polynesian languages. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t learn more Maori when I lived in New Zealand. (and talk about beaches to camp on! The East Coast of the North Island is amazing. One Easter, a tent, a car and a new boyfriend and it was the best camping trip ever.

I used paper and pencil to make drawings and equations to describe some technical systems to Japanese engineers. The method worked and they eventually picked our company over a Japanese company.
i would also squat alongside the engineer’s desk as I did it. They would inevitably offer me a chair on their side. I didn’t do this intentionally. It just felt right. That formed a bond.

^^Oh yeah, pictionary too. Lol. Besides Charades.

Math is an international language, which is really cool.

I had this happen, but we were both from Canada and we both spoke English.
I am from the west and he’s from the east and we had to work together in the oilfield.
I was a teenager and he was a guy from Newfoundland area or “Newfies” as their called I guess?
He was my boss for the day and I could barely understand a word he was saying. He was speaking English, but the accent was so strong that I just kept saying “What?” and he kept getting louder and we would just look at each other and shake our heads.
Here’s a video of a guy talking kinda like he did. https://youtu.be/-vWllvfQTck
I never did figure out how to comunicate with this other guy from Canada I can’t imagine going to a foreign country, LoL.

Video won’t work sorry.
I can’t communicate well with YouTube either.

@Cooper_Saldana You bring up a funny experience I had with other so-called English speakers. In 1988, I moved from the Midwest of America to New Zealand. I knew they were speaking English, but my ears would get so tired, just trying to understand them. Especially the younger ones from the country. I got used to the dialect and to other dialects including inland Australia. It did feel like I was having to relearn English, though. I also worked with a guy from Liverpool who loved to turn his ac
cent on just to confound me. Dialects are the bane of the linguist, I swear.
Norwegians LOVE to conjour their dialects when they meet a foreign person as well. Fuck them.

@cazzie LoL!
I know all these accents are so weird to me.
In Elementary school we’re taught the alphabet, what sounds each letter makes and how to pronounce words.
In parts of the country where they talk with an accent did they learn that letter’s make different sounds and that words are pronounced differently or is it just slang that’s picked up in certain areas?

@Mimishu1995 sorry.
I like all the experiences you people have. It’s very interesting to read about all different ways you dealt with the language barrier.

@cazzie “Dialects are the bane of the linguist, I swear. ” No, they’re not, quite the opposite. Dialects are the most natural thing that a language can offer. If you knew anything about linguistics you wouldn’t say that shit. And calling people “so-called English speakers” because they speak in a dialect is very, very offensive and ignorant. It’s your own fault you’re unable (or unwilling, as it seems) to understand them, not theirs for speaking the way they do.

@Cooper_Saldana The same goes to you.
“Did they learn that letter’s make different sounds and that words are pronounced differently or is it just slang that’s picked up in certain areas?” Of course they learnt it, don’t make people look ignorant because they speak differently. And if you’re going to call others ignorant, at least you get educated and write properly. It’s letters, not letter’s.

Boy, I swear everyone on fluther is in a bad mood today, LoL.

@Sneki95 Geez. Sorry that I have travelled and speak different languages. How many do you speak?

@cazzie You didn’t talk about different languages, but different dialects of the same language. There’s a difference.
That is what I called you out on.

No, there isn’t. I thought accents and things were funny when I just spoke English, but then, when I started learning a second and third language and especially the dialects in Norwegian, it just wasn’t funny anymore, it was a real problem to communicate. How about you learn a few different languages before you start calling yourself a ‘linguist’.

@cazzie Your problem. It still doesn’t justify the “so-called speakers” and “dialects are the bane of linguistics” and “Norwegians LOVE to conjour their dialects when they meet a foreign person as well. Fuck them.”

Yeah, fuck those peasants for using their own language in their own country.

@Sneki,
Wow. Ignorant much?

Call me when you start learning your third language. You might have something to share then.

Try it. It’s been happening quite a white.

I’m drunk but just know that I love you all very much.
Please don’t fight it makes me sad.
Thanks. :)

@cazzie Ok

By your own logic, you should know better.