Level 1 – You learn token phrases like “Hi my name is…” and this either charms/amuses people because you have at the least attempted their language although failing miserably at it (most countries), shock and delight people because a foreigner monkey speaks! (Japan), or stare at you with burning contempt because you are butchering their beautiful language (France).
Level 2 – You learn to say “Do you speak English?” and “I don’t know” really really well due to extreme use.
Level 3 – You learn words like “No”, “Bad” or “I don’t understand (as in you)” because you hear it so damn often.
Level 4 – You learn to cheat your way through life in a non English speaking country without actually having to learn annoying things like verb conjugation by using catch all phrases like “Ok” (as in I’m tired of trying to understand you so I’ll just going to say this now and sort it out later) or “Me too” (as in when the waiter asks you what you want to eat you point to a plate within view and say “Me too”).*
Level 5 – You learn all the dirty words and how to swear (this is coincidently when you start to make friends with the natives).
Level 6 – You either a. start to get really frustrated you can’t communicate beyond monkey gestures or b. start being embarrassed that you’ve been in the country that long and haven’t learned a damn thing so you start to learn things like vocabulary and verb conjugation. You get really excited at any opportunity to use what you have learned even if what you learn is useless and doesn’t communicate anything (like “this is a pen” or ‘there is a blue car”).
Level 5 – Those hours of studying pay off and you start to form the same sentences that toddlers can.
Learn 8 – You feel proud of yourself that you are “speaking” the language until you friend comes to visit you from the States and you realize that what you can communicate in the foreign language (I’d like a red wine please) they can communicate just as well using monkey gestures (points to red wine, makes drinking gesture).
Level 9 – You can watch a movie/show and understand parts of conversations but only the unimportant part like you understand “what are you doing here?” (useless) but you don’t understand the answer(useful).
Level 10 – Conversing like a normal adult and not hearing a. “Your [insert foreign language here] is good” in an encouraging way or b. excuses as to why they didn’t understand you the first three times (there’s a lot of noise in here) other than the fact that you suck.
Level 11 – The ability to get jokes and not be a humorless prick.
*** Levels 10 and 11 are guessed as I am only currently at level 9
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