EU holidays - language barrier

[Jjjdd]

Do you find that you ever have an issue or can you make do with English?

I guess most have done french and german at school. Maybe a bit of Spanish. But what about when you go elsewhere?

Everyone in anywhere vaguely touristy speaks English. Even if you speak in the local language (admittedly badly) they reply in English

Last time I was in Paris, I checked into the hotel in French & the receptionist spoke French back - but I only understood about half of it & would have felt far too embarrassed admitting it!

I managed to ask & understand directions though, so that was good.

I try to learn the most common phrases like

Good morning/evening
Please
Thank you
Goodbye

We go most often to Greece. I had learn how to transliterate Ancient Greek, so I can read place names on road signs - the most useful thing for us, as we always hire a car.

Greek is supposed to be one of the more difficult languages to learn; but we find most of the people we come across in hospitality can speak enough English for us. It’s not a problem to us, when we spend most of the day birdwatching - the local farmers clearly think birdwatchers are bonkers!

We’ve rarely had a problem anywhere in Europe. People in hospitality (hotels, cafes, taxis) generally seem to speak English well enough to communicate with people whose first language isn’t English, as it’s the lingua franca.
The only exception is some Francophones - we noticed a bit of a difference in Geneva vs the non-French cantons of Switzerland for instance. Their attitude is perhaps more similar like English speakers tbh, more likely to expect other people to have some French.