Language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, unless you already speak a slavic language, is difficult and you will encounter many instances where the person you are speaking to has limited or no English. Many will ask if you speak German instead, and so if you do, this can sometimes be a useful alternative.

Language in the country can also be considered contentiuos. This is why the question "what language do they speak in Bosnia and Herzegovina?" does not have a straightforward answer. Before the war, the main language of Yugoslavia was called Serbo-Croatian, though this is not a term that is used often anymore. Nowadays, in Serbia, the language is referred to as Serbian, in Croatia, the language is referred to as Croatian, and in Bosnia, it can be referred to as either Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian. Generally, people will refer to the language associated with their ethinicity (Serb, Croat, or Bosniak). In this way, it's not uncommon to be asked why you don't speak Serbian in one location and why you don't speak Croatian in another location, which can be confusing at first. There are very few differences between Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian, though some people might try to tell you there are (think of the differences between American and British English and you are close).

Making things more complicated, the language is represented by two alphabets. When you are in the Republika Srpska entity, the part of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a predominantly Serb population, many of the road signs and shop signs will be written in Cyrillic. In other parts of the country, the Latin alphabet it used. You might occassionally see road signs with both where one or the other has been blacked out with graffiti. The Bosnian alphabet has some sounds that we don't have in English and they are represented by letters that are not in the English alphabet and combinations of letters: ć, č, dž, đ, nj, š, and ž. You can read more about how to pronounce the Bosnian language here.