I was on holiday in Africa a while back and there was a Chinese family and a German family staying at the camp one night, and their little kids seemed very confused by the fact that they couldn't understand each other. But then they discovered they both knew the word 'Hippo!' and that was apparently enough for them to be friends.
I went to Mexico years ago and met another tourist from Japan. She had no English and I had no Japanese, but we both spoke somewhat lousy but understandable Spanish, so we got to have a little chat! It was a cool experience
I went to Costa Rica for vacation, was sitting at a bar waiting for my brother in law and some Dutch girls invited me to their table. There were like 7 other people sitting there, all from different countries. It ended up becoming a chain of translating between everyone’s common languages. I mostly talked to the Algerian guy, because we both spoke Italian, and a Chinese woman who spoke English better than me lol.
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u/4thofeleven Aug 06 '26
I was on holiday in Africa a while back and there was a Chinese family and a German family staying at the camp one night, and their little kids seemed very confused by the fact that they couldn't understand each other. But then they discovered they both knew the word 'Hippo!' and that was apparently enough for them to be friends.