I’ve been here long enough that I should probably be embarrassed about how little Montenegrin I speak. I can order food, ask for the bill, say a handful of pleasantries, and butcher a few phrases that make people laugh. That’s about it.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: it’s mostly been fine.

English gets you further here than it has any right to. Younger people speak it well, often better than they give themselves credit for. Waiters, landlords, the guy at the mobile phone shop, the pharmacist - a huge number of daily interactions just work in English, especially anywhere near the coast. There’s real tourist infrastructure built around this, and after living in a couple of places where not speaking the language meant genuine daily friction, that came as a relief. Maybe too much of one.

Because the flip side is that English became a crutch I never had a real reason to put down. Every time I’ve tried to seriously learn Montenegrin, I hit the same wall: the moment I stumble on a word, whoever I’m talking to just switches to English to keep things moving. It’s not unkind, it’s the opposite actually: people are being helpful, and often a little impatient with how slowly I’m getting to the point. But it means the language never had to become necessary. It stayed optional, and optional things are the first things I put off.

Where it actually catches up with me is in the places English doesn’t reach. Anything bureaucratic - permits, contracts, notaries, the inspector who comes to check something in the apartment - happens in Montenegrin, full stop, and that’s where I feel the gap the most. Not because I can’t get through it (there’s always someone to translate or a form filled out on your behalf) but because I’m always one step removed from what’s actually being said about my own life. I’m nodding along to a conversation about my residency status that I’m not really part of.

And there’s a deeper cost that’s harder to put a number on. The kind of texture you only get from a language - the jokes, the way older people talk, what gets said at a kafana when nobody’s translating for the foreigner at the table - I don’t have access to any of that. I get the edited-for-English version of this country. Friendly, functional, and permanently on the surface.

I keep telling myself I’ll get more serious about it. I’ve started and stopped twice. Some of that is laziness, I won’t pretend otherwise. But some of it is just that comfort is a hard thing to argue yourself out of, especially when everyone around you keeps making it so easy to stay comfortable.

Maybe the honest version of this post isn’t “learn the language, it’s worth it,” which is the thing every guide tells you. It’s this: if the place you move to lets you get away with not learning it, you probably will.

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