[ TIPS · THE DISPATCH ]

How to Learn 10 Useful Phrases in a New Language Before You Land

You don't need fluency, you need ten phrases. Here's how to learn 10 phrases before traveling that actually matter, the pronunciation shortcut that works, and why 'thank you' beats 'where's the toilet.'

If you want to learn 10 phrases before traveling and you’ve only got a flight’s worth of time to do it, good news — ten is genuinely all you need, and most lists pick the wrong ten. They load you up with “where is the train station” and “how much does this cost,” practical-sounding stuff you’ll mangle and won’t understand the answer to anyway. The phrases that actually change your trip are softer than that. Warmer. Let me walk you through the exact ten and the one shortcut that makes them stick.

I learned this the embarrassing way in Athens, by the way. I’d crammed a dozen useful “transactional” phrases and could not produce a single one under pressure, but I’d also picked up “thank you so much” — efharistó polý — and a waiter named Petros lit up like I’d handed him a gift. He comped us a dessert. For two words. That’s the whole lesson, really.

Forget comprehensiveness. Here’s the list, in rough order of how much mileage you’ll get:

1. Hello (and the time-of-day version if there is one — good morning / good evening)
2. Please
3. Thank you (and ideally “thank you very much”)
4. Yes and no (counts as one, don’t argue)
5. Excuse me / sorry — for bumping past people and getting attention
6. Do you speak English? — the single most useful sentence you’ll own
7. I don’t understand — pairs with the one above
8. How much is it? — and then just watch the number on the till, you won’t catch the spoken price
9. Where is the toilet? — fine, you do need this one
10. Cheers / a toast word — the social grease of the entire trip

Notice what’s NOT on there. No “I’d like to book a table for two at eight o’clock.” No verb conjugation. You’re not trying to converse. You’re trying to be a polite, warm guest who’s clearly trying, and trying is 90 percent of what locals respond to. The effort matters more than the accuracy, every single time.

Here’s the thing that took me years to get: don’t learn phrases by reading them. Learn them by sound. Reading “merci” or “gracias” or “arigatō” off a page and trying to pronounce it from the spelling is how you produce something the locals can’t parse.

So flip it. Use any app or even just a search that will say the phrase out loud — Google Translate has a little speaker button, use it shamelessly — and then mimic it back. Out loud. On the plane. Yes you’ll feel like a weirdo, the person next to you will live. Say it five, ten times until the shape of it is in your mouth, not just your eyes.

And learn the one tricky sound the language hangs on. French has its throaty R and its nasal vowels. Spanish has the rolled R. Mandarin has tones (a whole topic, but even a rough stab helps). Thai has sounds that genuinely aren’t in English. You don’t need to master it. You just need to know it exists and aim at it, because that one sound is what separates “they understood me instantly” from “they tilted their head and said ‘sorry?’” Nail the sounds, ignore the grammar — for ten phrases, grammar literally doesn’t come into it.

This is the part I’d tattoo on travelers if they’d let me. The polite phrases massively outperform the practical ones, and it’s not close.

Think about what “where’s the toilet” actually buys you. A direction. Useful, sure, once. Now think about what “hello, thank you so much” buys you: a smile, goodwill, the bartender who now wants to help you, the shopkeeper who rounds down, the stranger who walks you to the place instead of just pointing. Politeness compounds. It changes how every single interaction starts, and the start sets the whole tone.

There’s a reason for it that’s bigger than manners. When you say “thank you” in someone’s language, badly, with a thick accent, you’re saying something underneath the words — I respect that I’m a guest here, and I didn’t expect you to do all the work of meeting me. People feel that. Tourists who barge in expecting English everywhere get the tired, transactional version of a place. The traveler who fumbles out a “good morning” and a “thank you” gets the warm version. Same city. Completely different trip.

So if you’ve only got space in your tired pre-landing brain for three of the ten, make them hello, please, and thank you. The rest is a bonus. Those three are the keys.

One more thing about when you learn them. Don’t cram all ten in a frantic burst as the wheels come down — your brain’s too tired and it won’t stick. Spread it out. Learn three at the airport waiting to board, mutter another three at cruising altitude, and run the whole list once more during descent. The spacing does the work for you. By the time you’re at passport control you’ll have hello and thank you ready to go without thinking, which is exactly the moment you want them — that first stranger you speak to sets the tone for the entire arrival.

Learn the ten by sound, lead with the warm ones, accept that you’ll butcher them, and say them anyway. Nobody’s grading you. They’re just glad you bothered.

Fluency is a years-long project. Being a gracious guest takes ten phrases and one flight — and honestly, it’ll do more for your trip than the years would.

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