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I'm planning on travelling to Mongolia for two weeks in about six months' time. I plan to hire a guide, but I want to learn some Mongolian for two reasons. One is in case I lose my guide (or haven't met up with them, etc) and the other is to "break the ice" to an extent, even if it's just expressions like "isn't that so" or "amazing!".

I will learn how to read, write, and pronounce Mongolian Cyrillic.

When learning a language for travel, a lot less time will be dedicated to it than if I was learning it in order to be fluent. Does this mean certain parts of language learning are prioritised, and other parts de-prioritised?

SMS von der Tann
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Golden Cuy
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  • @SMSvonderTann It's normal to have titles that are not complete sentences. http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10647/how-do-i-write-a-good-title – Golden Cuy Apr 06 '16 at 22:39
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    Ah, I am used to Aviation's own policy/habit of having complete sentences for the title. – SMS von der Tann Apr 06 '16 at 22:56
  • This topic is at the core of what language learning is about - the aims of what you are trying to get out of it. This is a key aspect in that regard and addresses what are crucial differences between learning a language for complete fluency and learning a language to get by woke traveling. If we exclude this class of questions, there is not much left... – callyalater Apr 07 '16 at 01:13
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    @callyatar: The problem with this question is that there is no definition, beyond one's personal definition. It is at the core of language learning, yes. But that doesn't mean anyone else can answer it for you. – Flimzy Apr 07 '16 at 06:23

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For fluency for travel, most people would try to learn some of the basic sentences and greetings such as "Hi!" and "Good bye!" so the locals would somewhat understand them and what they want. Using hand movements plus some basic knowledge of the language would allow most tourists to communicate with locals at the most basic level. What people actually do learn will depend on themselves as this is a broad subject.

For fluency as in knowing the language, people would put their time into learning the whole language, not just some basic phrases. Basically, these types of people would like to know and learn the entire language and it's contents such as vocab, slang, grammar, proper usage, etc.

Anthony Pham
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