European Phrase Book

If you're travelling in Europe then save yourself the hassle of language courses: everything you need is in the table below. Remember: the more obscure the language you learn, and the more widespread your own native tongue, the more brownie points you get  WHY? .

The most important phrases

Imagine: you are in a bar, so you say Hi, a beer please to the waiter or barman. You drink the beer, life is good. Someone else buys you a drink, so you say thanks and they say you're welcome. You both say cheers and drink more beer.

Working out the correct pronunciation is left as an exercise for the reader, with the Greek and Irish phrases being the most challenging.

Note that if you are in a proper pub, then asking for 'a beer' is not nearly specific enough. Please try all of the locally-brewed beers, learn their names and pronunciations, and send these to us by e-mail, along with tasting notes.

I tried to get all the accented characters right in Unicode, so please let me know if any the accents are wrong or missing in your language. The numbers in the table's second column are the numbers of speakers, in millions (source).

Country-specific phrases

There are some phrases that only apply to a certain country or nationality:

• In the United Kingdom and Ireland 'Whose round is it?' is appropriate, because we buy rounds of drinks for each other in pubs.
• In Sweden you can usually have a free coffee refill so you need to know how to ask kan jag få en påtår tack?.
• In France you can ask où se trouve la section non-fumeurs, s'il vous plaît?, because restaurants are now legally obliged to set aside a proportion of seating for non-smokers.
• If you meet any Italians anywhere further north than Italy they will probably agree with you if you say Che freddo!, because it will always be too cold.

Peculiarities

For obscure linguistic reasons, some of the phrases don't translate easily into some languages:

• Irish and Cornish do not have single words for 'yes' and 'no'; you have to use a statement that includes a negated verb
• in Finnish you can say hölökyn kölökyn instead of 'cheers', despite it not meaning anything more than 'bla bla bla'.
• in Norwegian it is less polite to use the word for 'please' (takk) when asking for something; you should use a construction like 'may I...' instead.
• Romanian has different works for ‘hi’, depending on whether you’re speaking to a man or a woman.

Historical note: the antique European phrase book

A while ago I was looking through my grandmother's attic and found an old dusty copy of The Automobile Association Conversation Handbook for Tourists, published by l'Alliance Internationale de Tourisme, Genève. This old-fashioned phrasebook has the most bizarrely anglocentric phrases (I didn't make them up, so don't send me corrections), typified by the following.

• English. I would like to visit a tea-room.
• French. Je voudrais visiter un salon de thé.
• Dutch. Ik wil een theeschenkerij bezoeken.
• German. Ich möchte eine 'Teestube' besuchen.
• Italian. Io vorrei visitare in una sala da tè.
• Spanish. Quisiera visitar un salón de té.
• Swedish. Jag skulle vilja besöka ett te-rum.
• Portuguese. Eu queria visitar ao salão de chá.

Of course, if you’re English and visiting Continental friends, then you have an obligation to perpetuate certain stereotypes that are prevalent in Continental Europe, so these phrases might turn out to be useful after all.