Accepted a job offer

[rah]

At restaurants, when the pretend not to understand you, state clearly "I understand that in Europe tipping isn't the custom" and see if that elicits a response in English.

[Dauphin]

Oui, servis compris.

[Hauldren Collider]

All fairly moot since I don't know any foreign languages. I studied Latin as my high school language credit, and my last class was 6 years ago.

[Hauldren Collider]

Actually serious question though, when travelling in Europe how hard is it to get by with just English, and which countries are easiest to get around with in English (Other than the UK and Ireland obviously...)

[Jon Miller]

Actually serious question though, when travelling in Europe how hard is it to get by with just English, and which countries are easiest to get around with in English (Other than the UK and Ireland obviously...)

I bet more people in Sweden speak english than in the US. Might be true of Denmark and Holland too.

JM

[DaShi]

Actually serious question though, when travelling in Europe how hard is it to get by with just English, and which countries are easiest to get around with in English (Other than the UK and Ireland obviously...)

China, Japan, and South Korea are all easy for English speakers. They also don't mind when you screw up trying to pronounce their languages because they don't expect any better of you.

North Korea is also very easy for English speakers for obvious reasons.

[Hauldren Collider]

I bet more people in Sweden speak english than in the US. Might be true of Denmark and Holland too.

JM

That's hard to imagine since the US has something like 300 million more people

Though I figure you meant by proportion

[loinburger]

I was in Podunk, Italy for awhile where not many people spoke English (unlike e.g. Rome and Venice), and you can get by fairly well with a phrase book (I had two years of high school French and zero years of Italian): "excuse me," "thank you," "where is [landmark that you can probably pronounce well enough]," "I would like [food]," etc. You also want the phrase book for ordering off a menu so you don't accidentally get sheep's eyeballs or whatever.

This might not apply to non-Latin countries, e.g. China, where your pronunciation might be too mangled for anybody to understand you.

[onodera]

Actually serious question though, when travelling in Europe how hard is it to get by with just English, and which countries are easiest to get around with in English (Other than the UK and Ireland obviously...)

You'll be confined to more touristy places, basically.

[C0ckney]

I bet more people in Sweden speak english than in the US. Might be true of Denmark and Holland too.

JM

i think i've told this story before but when i was volunteering for the homeless world cup (google it) a few years ago, i was amazed that the teams from sweden and finland, guys who'd been living on the streets, could almost to man speak flawless english.

[C0ckney]

HC, i imagine (although i've never been to europe) that you will be fine and have no problems getting by, but you may not, as ondoera said, get the most out of the visit if you don't speak the language.

i will say as well that a little effort goes a long way and even a few simple words and phrases can make people more open to you.

[N35t0r]

You should try and learn some other languages though. (Not right now, of course)

But yeah, generally english level in Scandinavia is excellent, and pretty good in BeNeLux. France/Germany are a bit more sketchy, but the more touristy areas you shouldn't have much problems with. There was a marked change in Paris over the last 8 years in that respect, especially among younger people (as would be expected). Spain/Italy are a step behind those, but again, not that much of a problem in the more touristy areas. Also, in Italy it's perfectly reasonable (expected, even), when not being understood, to just repeat yourself more slowly and a bit louder. Repeat until you get to an understanding

[N35t0r]

There's lots of cellphone apps for translating nowadays, and if you have WiFi, then it's essentially a non-issue.

[Bereta_Eder]

In Italy everything that needs to be said can be said by hand gestures too

[regexcellent]

i think i've told this story before but when i was volunteering for the homeless world cup (google it) a few years ago, i was amazed that the teams from sweden and finland, guys who'd been living on the streets, could almost to man speak flawless english.

And on the flip side, I've always been amazed at how poor Japanese English is, despite it being a required topic for them in school. Every year at my high school we'd have about 100 students from some elite Japanese high school come over and attend our classes for a full month. Their English was universally terrible, despite the fact that they supposedly had to demonstrate proficiency to get into the program, in addition to having a high GPA and so forth. We're talking like, "Hi, how are you?" elicits a furious search through one of those electronic phrasebooks that they all carried around everywhere.