Feature Photo: miguelitos91 Photo: Puamelia
The simple act of eating might be the most important thing you can do to learn a new language.
If you’re living abroad, struggling with a foreign language and can’t seem to find the time to go over phrases in a textbook, what’s the best way to learn?
Go out to dinner!
Here’s how to eat your way to fluency.
1. Start Small
Photo: davies
The best way to learn a language is to start off with simple words.
The vocabulary of food is dead simple. Even if you’re taking the easy route and going to a McDonald’s, you can still use words like “beef”, “chicken” and “drink”.
Editor’s Note – Is there any real chicken left at McDonald’s? How do you say McNugget in Mandarin?
2. Daily Meals
Try to eat out at least once a day to build your language skills and practice any material you might have reviewed. It’s tempting to save money and just let the rice cooker do the work at home, but you lose opportunities by staying in.
When I was living in Japan, each day I typically had one set phrase that I learned from the textbook, bounced off my coworkers, and then practiced in the restaurant (e.g. “Kyou no osusume wa nan desu ka?”, or “Yo, what’s cooking?”).
Not only was I able to eat well, but I also used the sentence structure and grammar to form conversations in other situations.
Photo: yomi955
3. Currying Favor
Every culture has their own “foreigner food test” – a seemingly disgusting food that’s actually kind of good once you get used to it.
In Japan there’s natto (fermented soy beans).
Durian (stinky fruit) in the test in Thailand. Australia has vegemite and we’ve got Dominos in America.
Although you may have no control over your gag relax when first trying these foods, finding the taste buds needed to enjoy them and telling the locals that they taste delicious will tear away cultural misconceptions.
4. Start With Delicious
The most valuable word to learn first in any foreign language is simply “delicious”. You might even find yourself muttering the word when no longer in the country, nor eating the same exotic foods:
“Délicieux! Oishi! Aroi mac! Que rico!”
Eventually you can move on to “sweet”, “sour”, “smooth”, and “Yes, I would like fries with that.”
5. Get To Know Your Neighbors
Photo: imorpheus
One of the advantages of being one of the few white faces in a country like Japan was being recognized at the local supermarket, yakitori stand, convenience store, and izakaya.
By visiting shops and restaurants frequently, most of the staff and waiters came to know me by name. Sometimes they would encourage me to try something new, which always involved me learning a new word and a new phrase to describe the food:
“Excuse me… what is this exactly?”
“ Ah yes, that pasta is topped with octopus and salmon roe covered in squid ink.”
…well, it was worth the experience anyway.
Do you know how to say “delicious” in any foreign language? If so, please tell us how by leaving a comment below!
Community Connection
To get jump started learning about food wherever you’re headed, check out these essential cookbooks for the culinary traveler.
For an exploration of how eating is a cultural experience, take a look at tasting place.
If you’re stuck on just where to begin, Japan expert Abram Plaut offers his tips on ramen joints in Tokyo, Contributing Editor Sarah Menkedick gives an overview of foods you can’t miss in Mexico and Matador Nights shares the best cities for late night snacks.
About the Author
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15 Comments... join the discussion!
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In German, the word for delicious is “Lecker!” (leh-kahr) You could also use “Ausgezeichnet!”, but that’s more like saying “Perfect!”
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It’s not delicious, but “Ema Sawachen Abou Tsaome” means “Chili Peppers Make My Asshole Burn” in Dzongkha (Bhutanese).
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Just a fountain of information, Tim.
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Excellent post, Turner. When I moved to Korea, the first vocabulary I learned was food-related. Delicious? It’s “mashisseoyo,” or just “mashitda” if you’re talking to friends.
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The French isn’t too wildly different — it’s “délicieux”.
Cool post, Turner!
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Could not agree more about the importance of food to culture and language. My first interactions with a place are always in tiny restaurants and markets. In China, I knew the vocabulary for three varieties of dumplings before I knew how to say where I was from. And in Mexico I think I know just about every variation on “que rico”:
“Esta bien rico, verdad?”
“Ay, esta riquisima!”
and so on and so on….
I learned “oishi” because I became addicted to the supermarket samples here in Japan and I had to ingratiate them into giving me more.
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More important that oishi in Japan is “itadakimasu!” which is polite to say before you partake of food or drink.
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Yeah, but I just love yelling “oishiyo!”
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Great post Turner!
In Hindi, the word for delicious is “swadisht”. And not all Indian food is teardrop-inducingly spicy.↵ -
And in Chile we’ve got Dominó (as opposed to Dominos in the US), where they serve a variety of hotdog plus mayo, avocado and tomatoes and variations thereon. It’s just what the cardiologist ordered, I’m sure. It’s called a completo. And don’t be afraid of the jugo de tuna, it’s not “tuna” juice, rather juice made of prickly pear cactus. And it’s delicious.
Great article. I like the part about using sample phrases to figure out the rest of the grammar. What can I say, I was born and continue to be a language geek.
Note: exquisito is yummy in Spanish and in neighboring Brazil it means strange, and not in a good way.
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In Okinawan dialect it’s “masan”- “iipei masan”=very delicious!
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In Hebrew, it is טעים — ta-eem. To say very delicious it’s ta-eem meh-ode!
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This article is so true! ‘Delicious’ was one of the first words I learned when I moved to Madagasar. In Malagasy it’s “matsiro” (maht-see-roo)
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In Dutch it is heerlijk (approximation: hear-luck) or (using the infamous dutch G) erg lekker (erkh leck-ur)
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