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The Language Question

Photo du rédacteur: CatherineCatherine


One of the main questions we get (apart from “are they ALL your children?!”) is about how we manage to communicate in the various countries we’ve visited.



A map! Finally, we have a MAP!
A map! Finally, we have a MAP!


Firstly, the fact that we all speak English is a non-negligible advantage. On the one hand, it’s sad to think that everyone else is “forced” to speak my language, and it can make native English speakers lazy about language-learning. On the other hand, it opens doors that would otherwise remain firmly shut (hello, Finnish).


Secondly, both adults speak enough German to get by (and Margaux can hold short conversations). Yes, we have to mime sometimes – how do you say “campsite plug adapter”? - but we manage. With English and some German, Danish and Swedish become just-about-readable. Bilingual Finnish/Swedish labels on packaging were my friends later on as I attempted to navigate Finnish supermarkets.


The hardest place for us in linguistic terms was Estonia, where the dominant languages are Estonian (obviously) and Russian. Estonian is closely related to Finnish and isn’t even the first language of a sizeable chunk of the population. And Russian… well, let’s just say that one year of Russian as a minor option at university doesn’t get you very far. That said, having some grounding in a Slavic language is pretty helpful in terms of understanding, and I may need to resurrect my (seriously) limited skills this year.


In Latvia and Lithuania, anything remotely tourist-related seems to operate on the premise that “nobody speaks Latvian/Lithuanian”, so a lot of signs are multi-lingual. In Poland, German is helpful with the older generation, while English has taken over as the main foreign language among younger people. In the Czech Republic, we only visited Prague, which is so tourist-y that it could honestly be anywhere…


More language-related reflections to come after the next loop(s). Spoiler alert: no-one in the family speaks Spanish...

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