I bought three travel English books and still didn’t open them on the plane

Buying books I thought would be my life raft

I remember walking into a large bookstore in Gwanak-gu about two weeks before my flight. I was feeling that familiar, low-level anxiety about being stranded in a country where I barely understood the nuances of airport signage. I grabbed three different travel English books off the shelf. One was titled something like ‘Survival English for the Anxious Traveler,’ and the others were similar, filled with phrases like ‘Could you please check the reservation?’ or ‘Is breakfast included in the room rate?’ They cost about 15,000 to 18,000 won each. I told myself that on the long-haul flight, I would methodically memorize the sections on hotel check-ins and dining etiquette. I even bought a highlighter to make it look serious. The truth is, once I sat in that cramped seat, the lighting was terrible, the movie selection on the screen was distracting, and I ended up just sleeping or staring at the flight map. The books stayed in my carry-on, tucked away under my sweater, completely untouched.

The reality of speaking when you are actually tired

When I finally landed and arrived at my hotel, all the neat phrases I had highlighted in my head vanished. I stood at the reception desk, and the receptionist spoke at a pace that felt twice as fast as the audio files I had listened to on my commute a month ago. I didn’t reach for the ‘hotel English’ chapter of my book. Instead, I just stammered, ‘Check-in, please,’ and fumbled with my passport. It was embarrassing, but it worked. I realize now that I spent so much time worrying about the ‘right’ way to ask for things, but in practice, half the time you just point at things or mumble keywords. It wasn’t the fluid conversation I had imagined, but the clerk was professional enough to handle my lack of vocabulary.

Trying the online class route afterward

Back when I was in Pyeongtaek, I had briefly considered signing up for a video-based English tutoring service. I looked at the pricing, which was around 120,000 won a month for a few sessions. I hesitated because the idea of staring at a camera after work felt like more school than I wanted. I ended up not doing it, and honestly, I’m still not sure if that was a mistake. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been less nervous if I had just practiced with a live person instead of hoarding travel guidebooks. There’s a specific kind of comfort in having a physical book in your bag, even if you never use it. It’s like a safety blanket that doesn’t actually offer much safety.

The strange gap between theory and actual travel

I’ve seen reports about language students going to places like Malta for two or three months to really immerse themselves. They spend thousands of dollars to get that level of comfort. My trip was much shorter, just about ten days, so I was trying to cheat the system with these books and maybe an app or two. There is this weird gap between the ‘useful English’ taught in government-sponsored lifetime learning centers or library programs and the actual, messy reality of being in a foreign city. You learn how to ask for directions, but you don’t learn how to handle the social anxiety of having a stranger misunderstand your accent. I’m still not convinced that any amount of preparation really fixes that.

Still left with these books on my desk

Now that I’m back, the books are sitting on my desk, collecting dust. One has a coffee stain on the back cover from the terminal where I waited for my connection. I keep meaning to put them on a shelf, but I just leave them there as a reminder that I was nervous. I suppose if I ever travel again, I’ll probably buy another book, tell myself I’m going to study it properly, and then ignore it again. It’s a strange cycle, really. I’m not sure if I actually learned anything that would help me next time, or if I just learned that I have a tendency to over-prepare for things I end up navigating by pure intuition anyway.