There is an ongoing conversation online — some of it fond, much of it exasperated — about how visitors behave when they arrive somewhere that is, for other people, simply home. Anyone who has worked in hospitality or guiding has a collection of stories, and the striking thing is how rarely they involve genuine villains. The difficult traveller is almost always an ordinary, pleasant person operating on autopilot in a place whose rules she has not yet noticed. Which is encouraging, because autopilot is fixable.
Learn the six words, not the language
You do not need to be able to discuss the weather in Portuguese. You need hello, please, thank you, excuse me, sorry and goodbye, pronounced badly and offered sincerely. The effect is wildly out of proportion to the effort. It signals that you understand you are the guest, and in many cultures the opening greeting is not optional politeness but the thing that makes a transaction human rather than extractive.
Pair this with the habit of greeting before asking. Walking into a bakery and leading with a question in English — however courteously — reads as abrupt in a great many places. Lead with the local hello, then ask whether English is all right. Most people will meet you more than halfway.
