In some very small villages in Switzerland, I found it useful to speak German. Travelling by myself in Europe, the only place I have been where I was unable to rely on English/French/German/Italian/Spanish ro a mixture of some of the above was in Hungary. Even reading Hungarian signs was incredibly difficult as it has no relation to any Western European language other than Finnish. Traveling on a bus in the suburbs of Budapest, I had to rely on sign language, pointing at the name of my destination in a guidebook and a helpful push from the locals to know when to get off for my stop.
That being said, I did find the often people in Hungary and Slovakia spoke German, not English, as a second language, so my German skills came in handy.

I don't have a European language story yet, but I do have one I thought was amusing here in Chicago. I was at a local Italian restaurant, and a waitress was trying, in English, to explain Italian food to a family that only spoke Spanish.

Well, I´ve been in all European countries except Norway and as it´s always good to know some phrases in the local language, you can do fine with English anywhere, incl Eastern Europe.

In Spain it was really helpful to know a bit of the language, especially in the smaller towns and when trying to use public transit. Except for one bus driver everyone was very nice and patient with my basic spanish. Opposite experience in Portugal (but I was in Lisbon, big city), everyone spoke english and thank goodness b/c although I could read Portugese (similar enought to spanish) I definitely couldn't pronounce it to save my life!

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Author: flamingomonkey
Date: 12/20/2004, 08:41 pm
Message: I don't have a European language story yet, but I do have one I thought was amusing here in Chicago. I was at a local Italian restaurant, and a waitress was trying, in English, to explain Italian food to a family that only spoke Spanish.
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I'm waiting for the punchline. Did someone get bonked on the head with a mozarella stick?

I went to boarding school in Europe and took French. It was pretty standard high school-level, but our practical exam was always conducted near the end of the year, in France. One year I had to purchase a six month supply of vitamins from a list I'd been provided, talk to someone at the marina about buying an outboard motor, and accompany a child to the doctor (with a staff member, of course). This took place in the small medieval town of St. Malo. The outboard motor conversation was hilarious. You really find out how much you DON'T know when trying to accomplish "activities of daily living."

We live near Bonn, Germany and nearly everybody speaks English - especially anyone aged 30 and under.

Sarah

For me, almost anywhere in France that was outside of Paris. I would attempt some french and be relieved when many Parisians responded in english.

Sesamee

My high school Latin and college French, plus English, were all we needed to get through most of northern Italy on a marvelous one-month tour, and it was a wonderful experience to communicate with people who for the most part patiently responded in Italian to my pidgin imitations. The only times we had problems (as we had in France with postal and parking fine accountants) were with government employees, which in the case I am about to recount, included Italian railway officials. It was our first experience in touring a country by public transport, and on one critical occasion we found ourselves in a railway station trying to find the train for Ravenna early in the morning, and none of the message boards showed the train we were looking for. While my wife stood in line at the information kiosk, I moved from one platform to another trying to find the proper sign. In desperation I accosted a railway official in suit and tie who had a mammoth train schedule hanging from his belt and tried to ask where our train could be found. We spent minutes in fruitless gabble while he insisted that there was no such train, and he kept trying to walk away when finally light dawned on his face and he said "HraVAYnnuh!" and angrily upbraided me for my pronunciation of "RaVENah." He poked through his book, pointed to the platform where the train was already standing and, with minutes to spare, we made our train.

Before going to The Netherlands, I taught myself to say "Do you speak English?" in Dutch. When I would ask this, the Dutch speaker would inevitably reply, "A little" before launching into a conversation in flawless British English that put my English vocabulary to shame.

Sicily is another story. My husband is conversational in Italian but the Sicilian dialect is such that he sometimes had a hard time understanding. Even in Palermo, no one spoke English to us aside from a Tunisian waiter who wanted to practice his English.

Some of our friends who don't speak any Italian visited Sicily a year before us and they got around fine, but I was glad to have an Italian speaker with me.

Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Nice, Barcelona - no language problems at all.
HOWEVER, I always carry around an English/whatever dictionary and try some words but the people I've encountered just laughed and started speaking broken English. Had no problem in France as I though I would. Just don't be the Ugly American and you should be fine.
And I imagine the larger cities are easier than smaller, hence the dictionary.

Main tourist spots anywhere in Europe, people will speak English. It would be possible to get by without speaking any of the local language. BUT (let's get controversial) assuming the whole point of travel is to experience life in other countries, if you make no effort to learn even a few basic phrases of the local language why do you bother to travel? Language is not just words, it can give a whole new insight into how people think. Example from my own homeland - the Spaniards are famous for the laid back, "manana" attitude. The Gaelic language has no word conveying the same sense of urgency. (Ok, that's a cliched example, but you know what I mean).
How many weeks' wages do you spend on a two week foreign trip? Is it too much to ask that you spend a few nights before you go (or even when you get there) learning the basic courtesies in their language? Aside from the moral / ethical reasons, even if the people you meet in shops, hotels and restaurants speak good English, a few words in their mother tongue will brighten up their day at no cost to yourself. Sometimes unintentionally. My Italian once deserted me and I said "good night" instead of "good morning" to a chamber maid. She was still laughing ten minutes later.
Their English is probably ten times better than your French, Spanish or whatever. That's not the point. If you make the effort to speak their language they will appreciate it. It will leave them a more positive memory of visitors from your country. It's your patriotic duty to learn a foreign language!?

I've had some interesting experiences with this! I am really only fluent in English. I was almost fluent in French at school but have forgotten almost everything I learned over the fifteen years since, because I have little cause to use it. Irish I am not even counting as a useful language for travelling, because frankly it isn't useful even in Ireland.

FRANCE
Bordeaux: here I discovered the use of alcohol as an aid to communication. After spending a couple of hours in a small bar with no English speakers, my only recollection now is of eating French bread, drinking large amounts of some firey spirit, and arm-wrestling a rather butch girl called Stéphanie. I'm pretty sure that the alcohol made me forget my inhibitions and fear of mispronouncing something, and I just went for it! But that night was a lot of fun and the language barrier turned out to more of a speed bump.

Paris: I had just over an hour to get myself from the centre of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport. It was very early in the morning, I didn't have enough money for a taxi, and had no idea where a bus or train could be got. I accosted a middle-aged man who very patiently listened as I asked my questions in French, before answering in perfect English that he understood me but did not know where I should go. After that, I tried several other people, but they couldn't understand me or couldn't help me. Luckily, at the last possible moment, I found an old woman scrubbing some steps and was able to communicate in French with her, and she was obviously a local and was able to point me to where I needed to go. If I hadn't had any French at all, I'd probably be there still.


CZECH REPUBLIC
In Prague, in the tourist areas, just about everyone has some level of English, and being understood was no problem. In the suburbs of Prague, and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, I would have been really glad to be able to speak some of their language, but try as I might, I just couldn't grasp it :( Even asking for a bottle of water in the supermarket meant making drinking gestures and smiling hopefully until someone led me to the right section.
Some locals did try to teach me a few words, but the language is so different from everything else I know, it just didn't stick in my head. "Pivo, prosim" [beer, please] is the only phrase I learned. I'm planning to go back in the next year or so, and I am going to make a real effort to learn at least a few phrases before I go.


POLAND
English seemed scarcely known on my travels in southern Poland. I was with a group of ten or so people (without a word of Polish or even a phrase book between us), and at one point we made a mistake and got off the train at the wrong station. Instead of the large interchange we had expected, we were at a station with a similar name, in the suburbs of an industrial town. The only person in the train station was an old woman who spoke no English whatsoever. I had an interesting time trying to communicate to her that I needed to find out when the next train to the place I was actually going would come along. But we muddled along with hand gestures and pointing at words on her timetable, and by pointing at the clock and then using her fingers, I found out there was a train in a few minutes.

Of course, once we got to the main station -- where, again, nobody seemed to speak English -- I had to reserve and pay for a new set of tickets for everyone, since we had missed our connection and now needed to upgrade to a more expensive service. Again, having a printed timetable to point at was invaluable. The girl behind the counter was very amused by the whole process, but she knew I was trying my best and not just rudely shouting at her louder and louder in English. So we got there in the end!


SPAIN
I have only been in Barcelona in the tourist areas, and English was usually no problem there. But I did have a fun time trying to buy a pair of tights in a large department store! The young girl there spoke no English, and at the time I spoke no Spanish (I'm learning it now, before my next trip). We had an entire conversation about a particular packet of tights, with her speaking only Catalan or whatever it was she was speaking, me speaking only English, and yet the conversation flowed as if we understood each other perfectly! With much gesticulation, she was able to tell me the sizes they came in, and with much puffing out of my cheeks and making myself look as "fat" as I could, I was able to tell her I thought they might be a bit small on me, and did they sell anything larger? :)

ROMANIA
The young people I met in Bucharest took great pride in speaking English. It was part of the great desire they seemed to have for all things associated with America -- McDonald's, Coke, Levi's, etc. With the older people, I had to get by with a smile and a lot of pointing. Again, I felt very rude because I didn't even know the words for please and thank you.



So, what have I learned from these experiences?
1. At a bare minimum, learn the words for please and thank you in the host language. "I'm sorry, I only speak English" would be another useful phrase.

2. Don't be afraid to look silly if you need to point or gesture

3. Don't be afraid to SOUND silly if you do know a little of the host language but aren't sure of yourself in it

4. Pack a phrase book or dictionary!!

Just found this oldie but goodie thread and really enjoyed it. Surely, someone has another 2005 story to post! Keep 'em coming.

Our best (worst) experience was in Portugal when we driving towards the North (Porto). We stayed in Viseu and in Oporto. On our way we encountered several areas where no-one (of the 30 or 40 people we stopped to ask directions) seemed to know English. We said goodbye and thankyou in Portuguese very graciously but generally didn't understand a word of their directions. I have to say it added a little to our experience. When we drove away with thankyous and waves we would turn to each other and ask " Did you understand any of that" After a shake of agreement that we did not we would smile and try again. The people were lovely and to the best of their ability the most helpful they could be. As travelers what more could we ask.

When visiting paris 1 year ago, I used exclusively english for my communication and never had any serious problem with that. The one tiny problem that occured to me, was at the baker shops, when I was trying to order a croissant; I was saying "one croissant please" and they always put in the bag three! Later I discovered that the english "one" sounds similar with the french "three" (trois or something like that!)

We got along everywhere we've been in Europe--Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Czech Republic. But there is a misconception that most Europeans speak English--this is not so. They might know a few words in English, but that's a far cry from speaking English.

Logically enought, many Europeans in areas frequented by tourists speak English well enough to get by. But outside of those areas, English speaking abilities tend to sink rather quickly. You can often find someone who can speak enough English to help, but certainly not everyone (or most people) speaks English.

On our trip to Germany two years ago, my high school and college German came in handy as we did get off the beaten path a good deal. It came in very handy in museums where explanatory placards and brochures were only in German. Sometimes they'd have a little two-page brochure in English and a couple of other languages (usually Japanese and French) while the German version would be several pages long.

If you're visiting Rothenburg o.d. Tauber, then everyone speaks English. If you're stopping for lunch in some town between Bamberg and Colmberg that sees one tourist a month, then have your English-German dictionary handy.

Never. France. England.

When trying to use public transportation in Athens, knowledge of Greek letters was very helpful. Neither my husband nor myself know any Greek, but having been math majors, we knew all the letters, both upper and lower case. So, with time, we could sound out the names. Of course, sometimes the bus had already left by the time we figured out its destination...

Three years ago we were in Lausanne Switzerland, right outside the rail station but not in the main section. We went to a pharmacy to get Vitamin C (I felt a cold coming on). Neither young saleswoman understood English and we have zilch knowledge of French. There were no vitamin bottles on display, so my husband cleverly found some cosmetic that had vitamin C in it. He showed it to them and I gestured popping a pill in my mouth and swallowing. They got it! We all laughed and were very happy when the communication finally went through successfully. It was probably a better experience than if we had known the language!