language difficulties for euopean travelers
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Not to mention that at least half of Switzerland speaks swiss-French as it's first language, the half of Switzerland I've been to. Brilliant place. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE spoke fluent english.Boris Goodenough said:
I'd say there isn't a whole lot of point in learning Dutch from a usefulness angle, I've never met someone from the Netherlands that doesn't speak English.
Obviously if you're interested in learning it, go for it, but for practicality I wouldn't say it was a good use of your time.
How long are you planning on going for by the way? Europe may not be the biggest continent, but there's a hell of a lot of interesting places crammed into a smallish area, and you want to make sure you have time to actually appreciate them instead of being on the move the whole time.
Obviously if you're interested in learning it, go for it, but for practicality I wouldn't say it was a good use of your time.
How long are you planning on going for by the way? Europe may not be the biggest continent, but there's a hell of a lot of interesting places crammed into a smallish area, and you want to make sure you have time to actually appreciate them instead of being on the move the whole time.
You really, really don't need to learn Swedish just for a holiday in Sweden. Most people under fifty speak English, and many over fifty do too.
My Czech friend who majored in Swedish at University of Prague says that you should learn Swedish to better appreciate the rich Swedish literary heritage (and to get rich as a business translator).
My Czech friend who majored in Swedish at University of Prague says that you should learn Swedish to better appreciate the rich Swedish literary heritage (and to get rich as a business translator).
This.excalipoor said:
As someone who's been to the entirety of Scandinavia, plus spain, france and the czech republic, I can say that the above quote is excellent advice.
I really wouldn't recommend Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus without at least some knowledge of Russian. Without it you will struggle, especially in areas outside of the two main Russian cities of St Petersburg and Moscow. Very little is going to be in English, and relatively few people are able to speak it other than the younger generations. Russian can also be used across a significant portion of Eastern Europe, and you'll be able to understand other Slavic languages like Serbian by just knowing Russian.Fluffythepoo said:
Whatever you do, do not learn Dutch. It's completely pointless. I'm having a hard time thinking of someone I know who doesn't speak English, and most of those are either grade schoolers, or old people. And those old people have a tendancy of knowing German instead.
There are some places where people will insist on speaking English to you though. Although if you've learnt English as a 2nd language I guess that's still a likely thing to happen.370999 said:
Ah, part of that though is due to how silly it is for me to speak Mandarian to someone in Hong Kong. Or to speak Spanish to my Catalan waiter. Language is a vehicle for communication and if English does that better then why not sue it?AnarchistFish said:
Of course living in a country for an extended time does mean you should learn the lingo.
All IMHO of course
From my trip to Germany I found that English was plenty to get by most of the time. In Poland and Czech English wasn't enough to order a meal, really stay away from that area of Europe unless you got a guide who speaks English. Judging from personal experience Italian will probably be useful.
I had no difficulty getting around or finding people to talk to or getting directions with just English.
Russian really helped in the slavic countries, even if the dialects are 80% different, alot of their words come from either Russian or English, so it's easy to cross-reference pronounciations for meaning.
Reading cyrillic, really helps. Slavic states are seldom tourist friendly, and it's tons easier making your way through the metro's if you can read. Not to mention it makes reading Greek somewhat easier.
Russian really helped in the slavic countries, even if the dialects are 80% different, alot of their words come from either Russian or English, so it's easy to cross-reference pronounciations for meaning.
Reading cyrillic, really helps. Slavic states are seldom tourist friendly, and it's tons easier making your way through the metro's if you can read. Not to mention it makes reading Greek somewhat easier.
Granted every Swiss I have met outside of Switzerland spoke English, the places I have been were in the country side where the military trained, the people there omly spoke Italian (or whatever dialect it was).SkarKrow said:
I was mostly in the western cities for a short while. The part near the Italian border is some hillbilly place where they refuse to speak anything else I was told by some locals in Geneva. I'd like to go to the German part of the country, but while I was there it was all english, and very good english, I tried to use french and they told me to just use english.Boris Goodenough said:
French, English, Spanish and German are probably enough, that'll work in most of Central Europe, and English is really all you need for Nordic countries (Scandinavia + Iceland + Finland).
Sure, you'll have to skip Italy and Slovakia or something, but who really cares about them anyway?
Sure, you'll have to skip Italy and Slovakia or something, but who really cares about them anyway?