sallyjane3

How much difficulty will I encounter since I do not speak ANY of the respective languages?

jules4je7

English is more likely to be spoken when you start with "hello" in the foreign language, and all they need to hear is your accent and suddenly they realize any English they have is better than you Czech/German.

I suggest taking a phrasebook for the two languages. Familiarize yourself with the essentials (please, thank you, where is...) and point when necessary at the phrase you're asking in the book.

We found the French particularly accommodating to us once they heard me say "bonjour".

To be honest, being friendly and trying to just say "please" or "thank you" or "good day" gets you a lot of points.

Sign language is international, and can also lend a good laugh when needed, as we discovered in Turkey. My husband found that out when we went to a pharmacy when I had a cold, and he pointed at me, started coughing, and the pharmacist knew exactly what I needed.

Jules

cupid1

I agree with Jules. I can get by in Italian and Spanish, but when we were on St. Martin and needed burn cream at the pharmacy on the French side that's all they speak. And I don't! But knowing "please", "hello" and "thank-you" and then smiling and trying pantomime usually works. Sometimes you'll get lucky and someone who knows both languages will be nearby and will step in to help.

Have fun, don't worry, and if you need some help with the basic phrases, try an easy beginner Pimsleur course. It's really easy--my language-learning husband painlessly learned enough Italian to fend for himself in just a few hours for about $19.

isabel

Totally agree wtih jules. Really, just learn hello, please and thank-you - at least for Prague. I don't think I encountered anyone there who didn't speak English. Don't know about Vienna and Frankfurt but in general northern Europeans seem to speak much more English than southern Europeans do.

And also as the others said, even if you do find yourself somewhere where they don't speak English, you do somehow manage to get by. People really try to help as long as your attitude is good. Interestingly, I too have a pharmacy story. In Spain my sister in law spained her ankle and I went to a pharmacy to get an ace bandage and crutch and had to pantomine what I was trying to say - worked like a charm.

LucieV

You will be fine where you're going. Absolutely, totally fine.

lucy_d

Most everyone you will encounter in these cities will speak English. No worries. It would be nice, as mentioned, to learn a few phrases, but certainly not required. You'll be fine, I promise.

You'll have a great trip. Prague and Vienna are wonderful cities. Can't speak of Frankfurt other than the airport.

ferdun

If you stick to the well-traveled tourist areas, somebody will always speak a little english.
It is a matter of common courtesy in Europe to greet everyone in the shops with the equivalent of hello, good day and be able to say 'thank you'.
It's just a few phrases- get a european phrase book and learn those. That plus a smile will get you what you want.
It might help you to carry a little pounds to kilos conversion chart (down to ounces) so you can pick up snacks and candies.

Pegontheroad

If you want to give the locals a good laugh, take out your Rick Steves "Eastern Europe" while in the Berlin airport as you wait for your flight to Krakow and practice pronouncing the Polish words which are spelled out phonetically. I was doing this quite quietly (but apparently not quietly enough) when I looked up to see huge smiles on the faces of my (apparently Polish) fellow passengers.

zobtraffic

i learned quite a bit of german (and i'm as dumb as they come) through pimsleur. i just ordered them through my library and burned them to my computer. then i put them on my mp3 player and listen to them when i'm not working. they come in all sorts of languages. i found that i actually became addictive. now i'm trying italian as well. couldnt reccomend this course enough.

cupid1

whoops, my bad. I meant to indicate my husband is TERRIBLE at learning languages. He still can't even passably do a southern accent, for goodness sake! But he got the hang of Italian very quickly using the Pimsleur discs.

So glad to hear it worked well for others, and with German and Italian especially, the more you get into it and have some fun chewing up the words, the better it sounds.

More than "needing" it or simply wishing to be polite when you travel, it's just plain fun to use new words.

sallyjane3

Thank you all for the encouraging news! I'll follow all the advice.

nytraveler

Basic English is almost universally spoken in Germany. (We parked our car on the street in Munich and weren't sure we were reding the parking rule sign correctly so stopped a mailman to ask. His English was excellent - just a little accent - and assured us we were fine).

Engliah is also very widely spoken in Vienna and almost as widely spoken in Prague. Agree to learn a few basics (greetings, translations for rest rooms etc) but you should have no trouble at all.

ronin

English and a pleasant, sincere and unpatronizing attitude will get you almost all the way there! ;-) It's almost laughable to say that I've "learned" any new languages since being a toddler - and I lived in Puerto Rico for several years speaking Spanish as a youth and studied French for 7 years in school.

It's true - a few greetings, please/thank-you's, and directions would be very helpful in all of the destination languages. And you can drill those few phrases using flash-cards, audio reinforcement, etc. I've said it here before, learning the word "sliced" in Italian would've been more valuable that all the counting/days-of-the-week/weather phrases combined - all of which I'd now have problems using properly without review.

Whenever the topic of learning difficult new languages comes up I wonder: am I the only one who pictures the woman in the film "Better Off Dead" working the mouth of the French foreign exchange student with her hand while she tries to get her to pronounce 'Christmas' in English? ... 'Ka-riss-muss' Hilarious! ;-)

suze

My approach is that I do not expect people to speak English, well excepting maybe the train stations and hotel front desk or a restaurant that attracs tourists.

So I try to have things planned so it's not necessary to be asking help from strangers on the street.

Some people seem to get the hang of this more easily than others. One example was a lady just freaked out in a Spanish-speaking grocery store. She asked for my help & I explained how things worked... which was basically just like at home. Just that the she clearly had let herself get upset and was unable to see how straight-forward it was.

Point I'm trying to make, if you are in a situation you don't understand, try to stay calm and see the humor of it!