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Condom Negotiation on Seven Continents

Wherever you travel it’s always useful to know a few words in the local language. Hello, goodbye, please and thank you are always a good start. How to ask your smoldering Greek tour guide to wear a condom isn’t something a lot of people plan for. Whether or not you intend to find romance abroad, the summer fling has certainly been known to happen. Here is our pocket travel guide to condom negotiation on seven continents.If you’re an English speaker, travelling in North America is a cinch. The majority of the population are either native speakers or have fluent ESL skills. But, always better to be safe than sorry!

If you find yourself tramping through rural Quebec you might ask:Est-ce que tu as un preservative? (pronounced ehs-kuh tueh ah uh prey-zerh-vah-teef)

If you’re going a little more exotic and trekking through South America, be armed to ask if the other person has a condom in Spanish or Portuguese: SpanishTienes un condon? (pronounced Tyeh-nehs oon kohn-dohn)PortugueseTens um preservativo? (pronounced Tengsh oong pre-zer-va-tee-vo)

Australia is a no-brainer for those English speakers again. May we suggest adding a ‘mate’ to the end of you sentence? As in…‘do you have a condom, mate?’

A trek across Europe poses a challenge. With dozens of languages only a day’s travel apart you might have to do some research ahead of time. To start you off, here’s Italian and German:

Italian: I have only safe sexFaccio solo sesso sicruo (pronounced Fah-choh sho-loh sehs-soh see-koo-roh)

German: Let’s use a condom Lass uns ein Kondom

benutzenAsia, the backpackers haven, poses a similar challenge to Europe. Occupying a broad swath of the globe, languages run the gamut from Mandarin to Punjabi to Tamil. Get started with some phonetic versions of Thai and Tagalog:

Thai: Let’s use a condomChai tung yahng gan teut

Tagalog: Do you have a condom?May kondom ka ba?

We never said it would be easy, and Africa poses another challenge. The local dialect isn’t something that you can find in a traveler’s guide. French is widely spoken throughout the continent and is a good safe bet. You can also prepare yourself with some Modern Standard Arabic in case you find yourself in Northern Africa.Phonetically, the word for condom in Arabic is Al-waa kee. To ask someone if they have something you would say Hal la-day-ku-mu. String it together and you’ve got “do you have a condom?

Finally, we are left with Antarctica. With no permanent residents, if you are visiting Antarctica you will likely find yourself in a population of cold, lonely research scientists who could be from anywhere across the globe. If you’re struggling to communicate with the lonely scientist of your choice, we suggest that you fall back on the ancient art of pantomime when things starting heating up.

There’s nothing as safe as being prepared and being ready to take your sexual health into your own hands.

Happy Trails!

Taken from the A Word.