>>2853580
for "traveling" ie a stay of ~2 weeks max

i learn the barebones basics - hello, please, thank you - and nothing else.

>>2853580
0.00001 effort. That is, I learn "hi", "bye" and "thank you". Anything much beyond that would be insane if you plan to see more than 10 countries in your lifetime.
It's sufficient to get people to respond to you more positively and between me and my wife we speak enough languages to get by with anyone but strict one-country-language monolinguals. Then pantomime always does the job well enough.

>How much time
You can pick up pretty much any language to at least a Dick-and-Jane level within a couple weeks. Say 20-30 hours of actual learning time. The Michel Thomas method + some hours on youtube targeting my specific goals has worked for me every time, and I have a long commute so it's easy to crunch through audio material while I'm in the car.
And it's 1000% worthwhile. All my best travel experiences started with being able to speak. People like >>2853598 must enjoy watching movies on mute, if dialog isn't important.
>if the language is difficult for Westerners
"easy" vs "hard" language is a lot to do with perception. You will pick up basic Chinese or Thai really fast because there's no conjugation or tenses, while a beginner learning Spanish or French will spend a whole semester sifting through conjugation tables. Or for another example, I spent 2 years learning a very niche African dialect, which was hard because the sounds are so alien, but the grammar is so consistent and elegant it made me feel justified in ragequitting French over its irregularities and general stupidity.

>>2853704
I don't mind communicating across a language barrier, it's a mentally stimulating activity which strengthens intuition and deduction ability while reinforcing patient and agreeable behavior patterns. All very good life skills for the adventure traveler. Blabbering endlessly is not as much fun as people make it out to be. Extended conversation nearly always ends up alienating people rather than drawing them closer, in my experience.

>>2853580
No effort, every non English speaking country speaks English.

>>2853704
do you mind describing your process in detail? What material do you go through and do you focus on grammar at all or only words/phrases?

>>2853718
You clearly don't get around the map much. Even Malaysia has many people who don't speak English in the smaller towns.

>>2853820
You would be surprised, they are 99% of the time pretending they don’t know any. But eventually they get sick of wasting time and will suddenly be able to speak enough of it, especially if theres money involved.

>>2853598
Same. Theres not much more a person needs unless they are going way off the beaten path to a country with very few english speakers, even then, you can fumble through with a translation app pretty easily.

Id sooner practice universal hand signs/pantomiming over learning chunks of every language.

>>2854124
Why would they do that?

>>2853580
>$110/month rent
Probably not great.

>>2853817
For languages I'm just trying to cram before a trip, I pirate the Michel Thomas course, which teaches all the grammar you need to know pretty painlessly. Then I start with Pimsleur level 2 or 3 which is a good way to build vocab. Flashcards can be useful but understand the difference between having an active vocabulary vs a passive one (words you have memorized, but are inaccessible during conversation). Ask chatgpt to quiz you on how to say stuff.
My approach to become really proficient over time is basically all of the above, plus a fuckton of comprehensible input vids/podcasts, plus paying online teachers to chat with me.

>>2853713
I have a lot of respect for people who are good at this. You are right to stress the importance of extra-verbal communication. But if you can do this AND learn a language, why wouldn't you?

Depends on how many people learn the language as a second language.

So Chinese, a billion people speak it, but they're all Chinese people and mostly in China. It's of no value when speaking to someone who is not Chinese.

Spanish, not many people in Spain, but a lot of south America speaks Spanish, it's not an uncommon second language in Europe and America, it has value when speaking to Portuguese speakers, some value to English, French, Italian speakers.
AND, nationals of any other county, they might have learned Spanish to speak to any of the aforementioned.

You're far more likely to find a African who speaks Spanish, then an African who speaks mandarin. They might have learned Spanish in Europe, but that means they can talk to you as a Spanish esl.

And that's why English rules the world, so many people learned it already as a second language that esl English is the most widely spoken language almost everywhere on earth, and those who refuse to learn, typically there's a political reason and they suffer badly for it.

So you see it's not really about how many primary speakers the language has, it's about how many secondary. Tertiary speakers.

I've been up mountains and yelled at people in English, they didn't understand. OK, regional languages. French, Spanish Russian. One of them yelled back in Spanish. They weren't Spanish, they were from south America and spoke Portuguese. Fuk. So someone who speaks Portuguese, broken Spanish, can communicate with someone, not English, who is fluent in English as a second language, so can understand at least some Spanish. That's right at the thin end, but it illustrates the value of bridging language barriers.

But I've been to many enclave regions where it was just full power charades, tribal people who couldn't read and write themselves. Unironically, we just got better at charades. The hand gestures evolved very quickly until were in a bar like SWAT using only signs.

>>2853580
I learn:
Hello, goodbye, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry & toilet.
Sorry is useful for when I break cultural norms without realizing like a retard.

>>2854412
As someone who speaks zero Spanish, I actually relied on Chinese a LOT in Central America, because every general store and asian restaurant are chinese-owned.

>>2853580
If you already speak English then you are good to go