Don’t let the language barrier ruin your trip!

Vanessa, one of our friends at learning holiday company GoLearnTo, shares some valuable basics on coping with the language barrier on a ski holiday.

I was a latecomer to ski holidays and I was 25 before I hit the slopes. My first trip to Soll in Austria saw me on skis but all that snow ploughing didn’t really do it for me so the next year, I switched to snowboarding. Despite the bruises and hours spent sitting in wet snow, I was hooked. 

My first boarding experience was in Whistler, Canada where they speak the same language so it was easy to make myself understood shouting, “sorry, I’m still learning” as I careered down the slopes not having mastered the ability to turn or slow down without catching my edge.

A year passed and I headed to France where on my first day finding my boarding legs, I found myself needing to shout ‘sorry I’m still learning’ as I careered across the slope at high speed picking up a small child on the way, I’m not quite sure how it happened, I was trying to avoid a nasty accident and the only way to get him out of the way was to pick him up at high speed.  Picture this, a small French child in tears, two angry parents and an out of control beginner snowboarder crying ‘sorry I’m still learning’. If that’s not enough to encourage you to learn French to explain why I took off with their child and to beg forgiveness I don’t know what is.  

So with a weekend in the Sierra Nevada mountains planned and a week in Zell Am See, I thought it best to learn Spanish and learn German so I could make myself understood lest another ‘French accident’ occurred.

So here’s my guide to saying that all important phrase ‘Sorry I’m still learning’ in French, Spanish and German (I’ve added Italian as although now, after a lot of lessons I‘m much more in control I’m off there next month and you never know!)

French: Pardon, j’apprends/je suis debutant(e)

Italian: Mi scusi, sto ancora imparando!

German: Entschuldigung, ich lerne noch!

Spanish: Lo siento, aun estoy aprendiendo!

And in case you were worried, the small French child was unharmed and forgave me, the parents on the other hand…