Second language for survival skill

[cryingfreeman]

English is the earth's unofficial "official" language so we're already at an advantage, almost no matter where we go.

I studied German for years and have visited Germany and Austria regularly (last time in November past) but no matter how much vocabulary and grammar you learn, it takes around 3 days before your ears get used to the rhythm of a foreign language being spoken natively and without being slowed down or dumbed down for you.

My wife is an ethnic Russian so I learned a bit of that too, and we speak it a little every day at home but English is our main language because I never had enough time to really immerse myself in Russian, or at least, not yet what with our two toddlers zipping around. We want the kids to be properly bilingual but it's not going to happen unless we move to a Russian-speaking land for a few years. Or get my mother-in-law (who speaks no English) to come and stay with us for a while.

Anyway, to the original question: if you're going to settle in a foreign country and live as a survivalist / prepper there, you simply cannot avoid the necessity of having to learn the language. If your destination of interest is, say, France, then you have the added issue of the French being exceptionally difficult towards non-fluent foreigners; they have a propensity to pretend they don't understand you if you speak with a non-French accent, as apparently mispronounced French really grates their ears. Mark Twain famously wrote of his vainglorious attempts at speaking French in Paris thusly: "I never did manage to make those idiots understand their own language".