Useful starting phrases include hello; please and thank you; yes and no; the numbers one to ten, plus one hundred and one thousand; How much?; Where is it?; and No problem! Additional useful words to learn are those for hotel, bus station, restaurant, toilet, good, bad, and beer. Any local idioms and slang you can pick up will delight the locals (so long as you aren’t learning something profane or offensive). And, of course, improvised sign language and face pulling can go a long way toward getting your point across.
