I try to learn a few useful phrases before getting to a new country. The equivalent of Please, Thank you, I don’t speak XXX, where is XXX, and, most importantly, Do you Speak English. My experience is that English is widely spoken, albeit often with an accent, which of course is my problem. Typically, I ask a European if they speak English; they respond “a little”, and then proceed to speak it more correctly than most Americans. They learn their English in schools, so it is usually more formal and less slangy than what most Americans speak. Also, they often use different words: they speak of a money machine; we speak of an ATM. I recently wrote a prospective landlord in German to see what type of laundry facilities were available. I used the word laundromat, then thought that might be an Americanism, so I added coin laundry in parentheses; he used coin laundry in his response, so I think I guessed right. The only group I’ve found so far that doesn’t speak English are my distant relatives, hard-headed farmers from up in the Swiss mountains, but even then, there is usually someone standing around who is happy to translate.

It’s definitely helpful to know key phrases. You’ll likely find lots of people that speak English, but not necessarily everyone. It’s nice to start a conversation in the language because people appreciate when you try. In Italy, known the Italian names of the stops (aka: Firenze for Florence). Knowing how to ask “where is the bus stop?” or things like that would be useful.

I speak Italian, so I always just used Italian in my interactions in Italy and it’s really fun communicating in another language, if you can.

You can almost always get by with English, charades and pointing, but it’s always nice to learn a few key phrases. Just being able to say “thank you” generates good will.

Yeah it would be great to be fluent in all those languages, but as an American you’re kind of at an automatic disadvantage because our country doesn’t think it’s important to try to teach us foreign tongues until we’re in high school. The people over there know this though, so I’ve found that as long as you know enough to apologize in advance that you don’t know their language, most people are understanding and will try to help. That doesn’t mean everyone is fluent in English, but most will at least give it a shot.

It depends where you are too. If you’re way off the tourist path, you might have some trouble, but most places you’re likely to tread will know how to deal with foreigners who don’t know the local language. The only slight exception I’ve found so far is France; a few people in the transit industry I encountered there were flat out disgusted by the prospect of even trying to speak English. Still, the majority of people were pretty nice and helpful.

You would get around without big issues.
There is a good probability you’ll find people that could understand you, especially in the cities. From my experience, however, after living few years both in France in Italy, the percentage of people speaking English is much smaller compared to Scandinavia, for example, where everybody speaks a very good English.
If you could learn some French, this would be useful both in France and some areas in Switzerland. Try to practice the accent, IMO is important to speak less but with an accent good enough so that locals can understand you.

All best,
Radu

I always buy one of those little English-Italian (or other language) phrase books. Worst case scenario you can point to the phrase you’re trying to say. In most large cities people (especially young people) have a good understanding of Engish. In Holland everyone learns English in schools so their english is probably better than ours.

Ha yeah, true. It definitely does seem too that the further north you go (roughly) the more likely people are to speak English. Of course what holds true in the cities doesn’t always necessarily work out in the countryside; most Germans I’ve encountered speak pretty good English, but I stayed for a week last summer at a hostel in rural Hessen where neither of the proprietors had any English whatsoever. They were bend-over-backwards nice though, so it kind of made up for it I mean the owner let me borrow his fancy new bike for a freaking week rather than have me rent one every day from the rental place in town

Like everyone has said, learn the basics. REMEMBER TO SMILE AND BE PATIENT with people who are trying to help you. It’s AMAZING how much pointing and gesturing can actually communicate with other people who don’t share a similar language. Swiss is a bit different. I speak French & German and still can’t understand a damn thing they are speaking in Switzerland unless I ask them to speak Hoch Deutsch. However, I was in a small town. People will be patient with you if you are patient with them. You’ll be surprised at how you’ll remember a word you heard in a movie ten years ago and all of a sudden it will pop in your mind just as you need it in whatever language. Good luck and don’t worry about it. remember:SMILE!

Like always, I’m sure it depends where you are, what you’re doing, and most importantly, which individual persons you encounter at any given time. I can’t really understand Swiss German personally, but the handful of people I’ve encountered who might have been talking bad about me were like inbred hillbillies anyway… so I’m not really too concerned with their opinions haha

Oldlady, interesting we’ve had different experiences. Now I guess I was being a little sarcastic saying I didn’t understand anything , but their accents on everything just sound weird to me.

Feicht, I think I’ve run into a few of those people too haha.

hi! well English is helpful in almost every country you visit. Most of people in Europe get some English.
I know some french, I could give some words:

For instance: Bonjour, Je voudrais savoir les horaires du train…
Où est la Cathedrale ….?
Quelle rue je dois prendre pour aller á/aux…?

well, I hope that helps a little bit.

LOL well since marsolo didn’t tell you what those phrases mean, I will:

Bonjour, je voudrais savoir les horaires du train is Hello, I would like to know the train schedules…

Ou est la Cathedrale is where is the cathedral

Quelle rue je dois prendre pour aller a/aux is what street do I take to go to ______.

Just get a phrasebook and learn a few or go to the library and write some down. English is fine though just be polite.

On one hand, if you are far from touristy places, it’s less likely finding someone with good English. But on the other hand, in a place where they really rarely see a tourist, sometimes you’ll encounter an opposite extreme: they may tend to go out of their way to help you, even if they cannot speak English, because you are a rarity for them and many of them think something like “He’s traveled all this way to our hellhole, so let him have good memories of it”.

Very true! That’s pretty much what I was talking about in post #7

I totally agree with Papyr. For some people abroad, it’s a lot of fun to help tourists even if neither of you share a common language. If youspeak one or two languages (other than English), you’ll be fine. People will get that you are trying to make in effort in more than one language and will respond in kind.

Bumble-bee-tuna