Survive Europe with only English

"Amber" wrote in message
om...
Hi,

I'm planning to travel to Europe. Most probably going to Holland,
France, Swiss and Italy. Is it possible to survive there if i don't
speak French or Italian? I've heard from friends that most of
Europeans don't speak English. Or they're very proud of their own
languages and refuse to speak to tourists in English. How true?
Appreciate if anybody can provide some tips.. thanks

I will tell you two stories that indicate that your friends are mistaken. I
walked into a shop in Prague and was greeted by a friendly "Hello". I asked
the shop keeper how he knew I was an English speaker. He laughed and said,
"70% of the people who walk through that door speakeEnglish. So we always
start with English and then negotiate a lanquage frome there."

When I was in Cesky Krumlov I struck up an aquaintence with a German from
Munich. We started drinking together and soon ran into a German friend of
his. They told me they had met the day before. They and their girlfriends
were eating at the same common table in a pub. They had asked each other in
English to pass the salt, and other things. They had actually gotten into a
short conversation in English. Only two hours later when they started to
leave and heard each other speaking to their girlfriends in German did they
realize that they were both German and born about 50 Kilometers away from
each other.

Neither my wife or I speak anything but English. We always try to learn the
basic curtesies in every country visit.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Samuel Johnson
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other
countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

Marc

Amber wrote:

Hi,

I'm planning to travel to Europe. Most probably going to Holland,
France, Swiss and Italy. Is it possible to survive there if i don't
speak French or Italian? I've heard from friends that most of
Europeans don't speak English. Or they're very proud of their own
languages and refuse to speak to tourists in English. How true?
Appreciate if anybody can provide some tips.. thanks

You CAN "get by" - but you'll have a much better time if you learn a few
phrases like "good morning" and "please" and "thank you", also "I'm
sorry, I don't speak ______, do you speak English?" (and don't overlook
the essentials like "where are the toilets?"). By all means invest in a
few phrase-books for the languages you expect to encounter. (I've found
that the mere fact of carrying a phrase-book/dictionary tends to result
in a more friendly reception than I might otherwise receive.)

Amber writes:

I'm planning to travel to Europe. Most probably going to Holland,
France, Swiss and Italy. Is it possible to survive there if i don't
speak French or Italian?

In Paris you'll have no major problems; in the French provinces it may
be hard to find someone who speaks good English in many situations.

I've heard from friends that most of Europeans don't speak
English. Or they're very proud of their own languages and
refuse to speak to tourists in English. How true?

Not true in France.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

Reid writes:

French people don't like to speak English.

That may have been true forty years ago; it isn't true now. French
people don't mind speaking English at all, although many of them are not
very fluent.

--
Transpose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 16:29:18 +0100, B wrote:

This reminds me of another hint. When taking a taxi or when buying
tickets at a train station, it is very helpful to have your
destination written out. (In Italy, use the Italian names for the
cities). For example, if you're taking a train from Rome to Florence
along with two friends, you could write:

My friend was once on the phone to Italian Railway information, and
everything was fine apart from the railway information folk not
understanding "Tropea" in her English accent - she passed the phone to
me and I said it, and the person got it immediately. To our ears they
were identical.

And we had enough italian to get the train times and to establish that
it wouldn't be quicker by another route that we knew had express
trains.

Jim.

"Reid" wrote in message
...
In my experience no taxi driver anywhere speaks other than his
own language!

Hmm, I dunno! I once carried on a conversation in Italian with a taxi driver
in Oviedo. He spoke no English, my Spanish is execrable, and he had worked
in Rome!

Alan Harrison

"Amber" wrote in message
om...
Hi,

I'm Norwegian and only speak English when travelling. I don't know a word in
Dutch, French, Spanish or Italian but have never had any problems when I've
been around in Europe.

I once checked in to a 3 star hotel in Paris and the receptionist only spoke
to me in perfect English the whole stay. When I was checking out, an
American couple walked in, laughing and talking really loud. While they were
waiting behind me, the girl started commenting to her boyfriend on how worn
down it looked and how small the reception was etc... When I was finished,
they asked for a room and suddenly the receptionist seemed to have forgotten
every word of English he knew a minute ago. He talked to them in French and
he had big trouble understanding phrases like "do you have a room?" and "how
much is it?" I guess he didn't like their attitude.

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 19:28:49 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote:

Reid writes:

French people don't like to speak English.

That may have been true forty years ago; it isn't true now. French
people don't mind speaking English at all, although many of them are not
very fluent.

Big difference between around Paris and the rest of the country though.

B , while facing east, summoned the courage to
declaim:

On 19 Jan 2004 21:56:35 -0800, (Amber) wrote:

Hi,

I'm planning to travel to Europe. Most probably going to Holland,
France, Swiss and Italy. Is it possible to survive there if i don't
speak French or Italian? I've heard from friends that most of
Europeans don't speak English. Or they're very proud of their own
languages and refuse to speak to tourists in English. How true?
Appreciate if anybody can provide some tips.. thanks

There is no problem in any of these countries, especially if you will
be visiting areas with a reasonable amount of tourism. Be sure that
you learn a few polite phrases in all of the languages. "Good
morning", "good evening", "please" and "thank you" are the essentials.
"I'm sorry, I I don't speak ..... very well" or "May I please speak
English?" are also very useful. If you greet people in their own
language and then ask whether you can speak English, you will get a
much better reception than if you just barge in with English.

Good advice as usual from Barbara. Also, don't be afraid of trying a
second, non-English language even if you aren't in that country. Once
in northern Italy the barkeeper and I conversed in German despite
neither of us being a native (or even fluent) speaker.

The only time I got into trouble was when I said "grazie" to an
Italian tourist in London after we had taken each other's snapshot.
She assumed I actually knew Italian and started going on and on in
Italian at about 200 mph.


--
For mad scientists who keep brains in jars, here's
a tip: why not add a slice of lemon to each jar, for
freshness? - Jack Handey

On 19 Jan 2004 21:56:35 -0800, (Amber) wrote:

Hi,

I'm planning to travel to Europe. Most probably going to Holland,
France, Swiss and Italy. Is it possible to survive there if i don't
speak French or Italian? I've heard from friends that most of
Europeans don't speak English. Or they're very proud of their own
languages and refuse to speak to tourists in English. How true?
Appreciate if anybody can provide some tips.. thanks

Others have given you some better info. I did encounter
a lot of people in Spain who didn't speak English, or were
unwilling to try, for whatever reason. I had enough Spanish
to get by, though.

A few more tips. Try to learn the words for "open", "closed",
and days of the week. If you look at a closed shop window, you'll
be able to figure out when to come back. Carry a pen and small
pocket notebook. Cashiers will often write a price, and sometimes
people can read or write English though their accents are
incomprehensible. You'll want to write down addresses, too.