Which do you think would be more important when going to a new place: being able to understand and speak the language like a native, knowing the customs and practices of the place, or understanding the streets like somebody who has lived there for decades?
edit: as somebody described it, it’s language vs customs vs lay of the land
I guess I’ll go against the common answer. I choose “customs”.
Learning customs requires vastly more time than language. Each situation would have its own nuance given the parties involved, the prior events, and the intent you want to communicate. Social class, religion, and history all influence customs. Dress, speech, body language, all are part of customs that are subtle and not necessarily written down to study.
To be able to instantly know all the customs for every situation would be amazing! Language can be learned in isolation and with the instant knowledge of custom language learning itself would be significantly easier.
Language, and it’s not even close. The other two can easily be learned if you know the language well.
Or even just with a map and travel guide pamphlet.
If I can do the former, I can learn the latter.
Yeah, language is a no brainer. If I know the language, I can find my way around.
Obviously the language and people, because even if you are blind you could just make friends to show you around
Language is a more universal and practical thing in many situations.
You can navigate anywhere: Time and space operate by the same rules pretty consistently, and even when you can’t do orienteering, there’s always map and compass or GPS.
Customs are easy enough to look up and in many places, they’re not even that important to know: You can probably get by without knowing all the customs and if any are really important, it’ll probably apparent.
Languages are different all over the place and much harder to pick up: I am only really fluent in 1 language, can sort of understand a couple others, know tiny bits of others, but most of them I do not understand and there are hundreds of them all over the planet. On top of that, knowing the language would also help you ask for directions, find out about local customs, etc.
Language for sure.
Plus, people will generally cut foreigners some slack for not knowing local customs. Hell, some black men used this fact to escape some of the effects of segregation in the Jim Crow era. A black American traveling through the South would be expected to accept discriminatory treatment. But foreigners were seen as exempt from these rules. Some black men would wear turbans while traveling through the South, pretending to be Indian and thus outside of the South’s racial caste system.
Language by a country mile
Language, easily.
Google maps already lets me navigate almost like a local.
A quick search on the most important customs would cover that fairly quickly, plus a lot is likely to be overlooked because I’m a foreigner.
But language, it takes years to learn a language properly, and even then it’s not native level. Knowing the customs and streets is pointless if you can’t communicate, and google translate is not going to be that much help in a real conversation.
Personally: etiquette.
Maps and dictionaries can mostly solve the other two problems, but if you come out as rude or do weird stuff, nobody is going to tell you and you could offend a bunch of people for nothing.
You can look up the etiquette for whatever culture.
language 100%.
I like wandering, worst case I get lost, and then I find my way again.
Hell of a lot easier when I can ask for directions.
Language. I would always choose language. That can unlock the other two.
This isnt even a question lol
100% language and customs. I’m pretty good at navigating once I’ve spent a little time in a new place.
I miss read the question at first glance:
Language vs customs vs lay of the land.
Now in that case it’s not as easy choice.
