That certainly was a miserable experience for you and family. I've read other posts about thefts in Spain (especially Barcelona) and I don't particularly want to go there, although I'm sure Spain is beautiful. I got back recently from 2 weeks in France, driving around solo, and found people in general to be extremely helpful and nice. They speak excellent English in most hotels, but I try to use my limited French as much as possible. If I were going to Spain, I think I would try to learn as much Spanish as possible to get by. (I live in Miami, where English is not necessary! - but Spanish would be very helpful).

On another note, the only rudeness I encountered on that trip was at Kennedy Airport, and I was speaking English to them, and they to me!

It is not arrogant to acknowledge that English is the most widely spoken language on Earth. When those that speak English as a native language are combined with those that speak English as a subsidiary language, there are more English speakers on Earth than Chinese speakers (and "Chinese" only qualifies as a single monolithic language in the written).

When the Pope traveled to the Middle East, he didn't speak to the crowds in Latin, Hebrew, Arabic or Polish, he spoke to them in English.

English is the official language of the Asian trade group ASEAN, and of the European Central Bank, even though the bank is located in Frankfurt and Britain is not a member of the European Monetary Union.

Many German-speaking Swiss parents want their children to learn English as a second language, rather than French, despite the fact that French is an official language of Switzerland.

When people protest throughout the world, whether it is the Middle East, Indonesia, Colombia, etc., at least half of their signs always seem to be written in English.

When I was a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo, our Egyptian graduate student didn't speak to our Iranian graduate student in Arabic, Farsi or Japanese, they spoke to each other in English.

These are just a few examples that I can think of off the top of my head, with a little research, this list could grow indefinitely.

People in the tourist industry should not learn English solely for the sake of appeasing Americans and Brits (such an assertion would be arrogant). They should learn English because it is the most effective language with which to communicate with the greatest number of people of all nationalities. Many countries have discovered that an effective way to increase international tourism is to promote the use of English by those on the front lines of the tourist industry.

Some people apparently feel that Americans and Brits don't exhibit sufficient deference when discussing the relevance of English in the world, but the blunt fact is that all languages are not created equal, nor are all languages equally useful. We do not have a cocky and arrogant attitude toward our native language, we simply recognize its utility.

next time maybe you wanna stick to english-speaking countries?
and "i am anonymous" beat me to it..people are asian, not oriental.
actually, maybe you should just stick to the u.s.

I am truly sorry this happened to you and your daughter! I lived and studied in Spain during the '92 Olympics. My group was warned about "gypsy problems." At the time, I recall accusing the professor of being racist. When in Barcelona, small Gypsy girls were running about my legs with empty 2-litre bottles, giggling, I thought they were cute. My mind changed when I felt a tiny hand in my pocket. I grabbed a girl's arm (no more than 5 years old) and lifted it along with her entire body into the air. Gripped in her tight fingers was my Visa card, which I hadn't had time to put in my money belt after a purchase a few minutes before. That's the worst thing that ever happened to me in Europe. I learned a valuable lesson about being vigilent and common sensical. Use a money belt, don't trust anyone who approaches or touches you without consent, and learn common phrases in the language native to the destination country. Better luck next time.

Disappointed wasn't at an ASEAN or other international conference; he isn't the Pope; he didn't visit Switzerland where many Swiss have always learned English as a second language; he wasn't involved in discussions with graduate students - he was simply a tourist visiting the city of Barcelona, where the natives speak Catalan and there is probably no particular incentive to make sure that all transit authority or police or other personnel who might come into contact with tourists speak English.

If the city of Barcelona, or any other European city for that matter, had to hire only people with fluency in English, it might just be impossible - given that there are undoubtedly other requirements for any job.

Do you think that all European police and firefighters should speak English? Should that be a more important criterion that their ability to put out fires or stop crime? Nonsense! Museum personnel and train station attendants are typically lower-level hires - who could possibly assure they'd be able to fill those positions with English-speaking people? And why should they? Police and firefighters and train personnel and museum staff aren't there to cater to English speakers - they're there to cater to the local populus as well as whatever tourists who need them.

It IS arrogance to assume that anyone you encounter in a foreign country will speak English. And it's YOUR responsiblity as a traveler to figure out how you will deal with YOUR lack of language skills, if you have one.

English may be the language of most utility around the world, but to expect that no matter where you are, no matter what the circumstance, you will be essentially provided with a personal translator in all situations is completely ridiculous.

And of course people never complain until something bad happens, and then it's not only something bad happened, but OMG! no one spoke English to help me out, either!

I have little sympathy with these complaints.

I don't expect everyone I meet in Europe to speak English. I've learned from experience that this is not the case. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I believed this, since I don't recall saying it.

My point is that organizations such as ASEAN and the European Central Bank, and individuals who need to communicate with a diverse audience, such as the Pope, recognize the utility of English.

Many American cities train their police forces in foreign languages when a significant number of the people that they serve do not speak English. I think that this is a prudent thing to do.

I do think it would be wise for European cities to post at least a few English-speaking police, etc. in heavily touristed areas. Not just for the Americans and Brits, but also for the Japanese, Canadians, Russians, and so on.

I've encountered plenty of train personnel, museum workers, and so on throughout continental Europe that could speak English comfortably. In Belgium, I ran into a man tearing up pavement with a backhoe that spoke excellent English.

You seem to have a lot of anger on this subject. A language is a silly thing to feel threatened by.

My sympathies with your plight. Bad things happen to good people. That said, we all have to assume responsibility for the role we play in the problem (why such impt items in back pack/back pack unattended etc). I know...I got my purse with everything-plane tickets, $$, trav. checks, passport- stolen in France years ago. Okay, I admit I left it "hidden" under my car seat. I'm not going to complain about the French or the gendarmes--most people I encounter are wonderful. I'm leaving in 4 weeks to enjoy their country again, just a lot wiser now is all

Quit griping and get on with life.

Ps- My brother just had his camera swiped in D.C. at the Smithsonian. Bad people are everywhere. Thankfully, there's more good people everywhere too.

*NO* English is not the "most widely spoken language on earth"...

Here are the top 10 most common languages of the world:
Mandarin Chinese 885,000,000
Spanish 332,000,000
English 322,000,000
Bengali 189,000,000
Hindi 182,000,000
Portuguese 170,000,000
Russian 170,000,000
Japanese 125,000,000
German 98,000,000
Wu Chinese 77,000,000
(Ethnologue, 13th Edition, Barbara F. Grimes)

The list above seems flawed, since there are more than 322 million native speakers of English, and this does not include those that speak English as a second or third language. The US alone has more than 280 million people, most of whom are native speakers of English. Add to that the populations of the UK, Australia, South Africa, the English-speaking portion of Canada, and the number would likley exceed 322 million.

Now think about all the Europeans that speak English - for example, it is estimated that 77% of Danish adults and 75% of Swedish adults speak English. Also think about the high percentage of educated people throughout the world that speak English as a second or third language.

I have read that it is estimated that the number of people that speak English as a subsidiary language is twice the number of people that speak English as a native language. I believe that the source of this was a book I perused (but didn't buy - so I don't have it on hand) in the bookstore titled "English as a Global Language." I don't remember the author's name and I'm not certain that this is where I read this estimate.

The list presented in the previous post probably summarizes the number of native speakers of a language. I don't claim that English has the greatest number of native speakers, that title would go to the Chinese family of languages.

Anyway, does anyone seriously doubt that English is the most common language (native or otherwise) that is spoken by international travelers?

I don't have any anger about the topic of English as a tourist language - I just think your assumptions are totally bogus.
Let's assume that English is the language spoken by the most international travelers - does that mean the train staff and museum staff in Barcelona should speak English? How presumptuous of you!

If we were discussing the global significance of Esperante, rather than English, your tone might be different.

On the subject of whether or not English is the most widely spoken language in the world, I did a little internet research and confirmed that the book I mentioned above, and got my facts from, was "English as a Global Language." The author is David Crystal and he states that more than one-quarter of the global population is capable of speaking English.

If anyone wants to investigate further an interesting on-line chat with him is archived at
http://www.wordsmith.org/chat/dc.html

Marty and Jody, where do you live in the US where people only know and speak English? Here in Los Angeles many if not most people know English as a second language, behind Spanish, Asian languages, etc.
In my neighboring towns you find people in banks, restaurants, theatres, travel agencies all speaking their native tongues to each other and English to the rest of us. They learned English to become successful in their businesses, which may include travel.

If we are to judge the deed, not the person, we might want to consider that deeds aren't "arrogant" or "racist", for these adjectives are personal.

The poster tried to finger the felons in the only way he/she knew how: by describing what she believes to be distinctive identifying features(clothes, race). She describes one of them as Oriental/Asian on the assumption that Asians are not native to Barcelona, and thus such a racial background would be distinctive. Even if her assumption is incorrect, it would be more helpful to indicate how else she might have described the suspects, rather than impugn her motives and character for how she did, in fact, describe them. It would also be more helpful to indicate how the traveling public might deal with the prospect of losing cameras, exposed film, and jackets, given that these things are likely to be on their person when in transit, but will not likely fit into a money belt, as would a passport or money.

The poster also describes how she had her complaint translated into what the local tourist information understood to be the local language. The response from the police needed no translation, so the issue of language was clearly moot. He/she was in effect told "you aren't going to recover your lost goods, in our opinion." Back home, the police would have said "We'll take care of it" which means the same thing, but their tone of voice and sympathetic nod would have conveyed the most important information. Compassion is multilingual; it also is unconditional. "I'm sorry but....." does not convey sympathy, but an attempt to excuse what follows the "but".

I am very sorry that this happened to your daughter. I have travelled a lot, and the only place we where ever robbed was in the metro in Barcelona. While it's true that most people in Europe speak some English, Spain is the one country that is an exception to this (in my experience). It is not at all unusual for a train station worker to speak only spanish; the vast majority of his customers are spanish.

SMueller is certainly worse in her/his assumptions and arrogance than Disappointed insofar as at least Disappointed was reacting to a very unpleasant circumstance and may be forgiven for losing perspective a bit. And it isn't a matter of being "angry" about language but rather appalled at attitude.

Personally, I like Barcelona a great deal despite its well-deserved reputation for being almost complicit in the criminal predation on tourists. (There is, however, a fair irony in the casualness, shall we say, of Disappointed's own English.)

But no amount of throwing statistics and citations around (I mean, a QUARTER of the world's population is "capable of" speaking English!!?? Are you serious? That can only be even close to true if you include all those who can say "Coca-Cola" and "OK," which is hardly the Pope's diplomatic English) can change the fact that there's a basic and indeed arrogant presumption here that it's up to others to accommodate, not the traveler -- and here I'm not talking so much about the kind of unfortunate crisis Disappointed had as about the general mindset.

Maybe it's just me, but part of the reason I travel is to challenge myself to experience the place I'm visiting, language included wherever possible. The appalling attitude of entitlement ("I'm an English-speaker and this sort of thing should therefore not happen to me!") is antithetical to the philosophy of tourism, as prevalent as it may be.

It certainly makes my life easier when I don't have to try to use my very rudimentary knowledge of another language, but that doesn't mean that the infrastructure of the host country is obligated to use English.

Well,

I'm sure that we have all had a lot of fun being politically correct, not politically correct, bashing each other about arrogance, etc.

Let's look at the post. The one and only from "disappointed".

The backpack was stolen in Barcelona. The perp had 15 min to flee before the discovery of the theft. Apparently the two bonus police kept "disappointed" busy for almost the whole time.

The poor man who had been robbed spoke English, yet "disappointed" who had no (or very little) Spanish decided to act on this strnger's behalf instead of just saying, "Go report it to those two cops?.

"Disappointed" then went to Milan to get a passport, instead of to the US consulate in Barcelona.

Instead of just going on to CT and then to Milan (since apparently daughter didn't need a passport) they spent time reporting the incident to the police who, as has been noted, could do nothing but file a report.

We either have a troll - who has done a really good job of getting a bunch of folks all heated up - or an incredibly naive group worthy of inclusion in Twain's "Innocents Abroad".

I've been keeping silent on this because I see the initial post the way Ira does. I'm glad he came out and said it.

Nevertheless the thread did bring out some interesting comments.

PS,

Why were they taking the 08:45 train? On arrives in La Spezia at 01:08 and the other at 02:06?

The night train, at 20:38 gets to La Spezia at 12:01.

I agree with Ira. I believe the initial post is a troll. Besides what Ira points out, one has to wonder why someone postd a complaint but never responds anymore. Not once did this poster respond to any of the replies.

Instead what's going on is the ones who have responded are getting irritated at each other.

Did anyone else notice that this is the only post that "disappointed" has posted? Unless this person registers as someone different each time he/she wants to stir things up.

Whether this is a troll or not, there are lessons to be learned. Make a copy of your passport. Important items in a pouch under your clothes. Keep an eye on your belongings. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.