Doing laundry when you travel abroad can be a little tricky. Not because you have limited resources to do laundry, but because it’s out of your normal routine and the language can be a barrier sometimes. As a result, most travellers choose to hand wash their clothes in the sink, but there are still few who would prefer to have it laundered.

When a foreign language does become a barrier, it can be difficult to specify how you want your clothes cleaned and what you want done to them, like iron or folded etc.

We’ve based this post on European languages: French, Spanish and Italian, as these are the most commonly visited places in Europe.

So let’s say you want to do your laundry in a laundromat in Spain, France or Italy. What words can you use? What phrases can you say? Let’s take a look:

 

Bonus for if you want to add ‘please’ and ‘thank you’:

French: ‘S’il vous plaît’ and ‘Merci’

Spanish: ‘Por favor’ and ‘Gracias’

Italian: ‘Per favore’ and ‘Grazie’

Although you might not get a 24 hour dry cleaning and laundry collection service, at least you’ve got somewhat useful words and phrases to break the language barrier when you want to use a laundromat in those countries.

Let us know in the comment section if you would like to see more laundry talk in different languages and we’ll give you a part 2, or share some useful laundry phrases in your language with us! 🙂