language difficulties for euopean travelers

[AnarchistFish]

I'm fluent in English and French and I'm learning Portuguese at the moment, but if you're looking for a language to learn with Europe in mind, Russian would be very useful for travelling around the eastern side of Europe, an area which is potentially very interesting (I've not been there extensively myself but I'd like to).

Italian's a very nice language too and the country is a great place to go but there isn't really anywhere else that speaks it apart from Italy and a small part of Switzerland. Would certainly be easier to learn if you already know French and Spanish. So would Portuguese and that'd give you access to Brazil as well.

But I'd go Russian if you're interested in going to the East of Europe. That'd be extremely useful rather than learning a specialist language that is only spoken in one country.

id never really considered it practical for anywhere besides russia/ukraine,

I've been told by people from Eastern European countries (including Latvia, for example) that Russian is very widely spoken as a 2nd language.

 

[370999]

I'm studying in Maastricht at the moment and I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't speak English - I'd rule out dutch as something necessary to enjoy being here

Just wamt to echo that. When I was in Denmark I didn't have any language difficutly. Really friendly people too.

 

[The White Hunter]

you'll be able to use German in Germany, Switzerland, Austria

I would like to point out the dialect differences are so immense that there are different subtitles on DVD/BLU-RAYs between these areas, not to mention not all of Switzerland speaks English or even German.

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.

 

[capper42]

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.

 

[AnnaIME]

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).

 

[Mr.Squishy]

I'd say English, French, Spanish and German is plenty already, but if you want more, I'd say learn Swedish or Norwegian. The two, as well as Danish, are fairly similar, so just one of them will greatly help you all over Skandinavia. Then again, English will do the trick just as well.

This.
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.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Sometimes I think knowing English is a curse

You lose motivation to learn other languages

 

[Lopsided Weener]

but russian seems to be a reoccurring theme.. id never really considered it practical for anywhere besides russia/ukraine, but even then englsih/french would carry me pretty far.. any russian speakers with input? as in how much would you miss in russia/ukraine without russian?

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.

 

[Theminimanx]

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.

 

[Guffe]

Holy bananahammoch!!!
How the hell do you learn languages? You've got to be one smart fellow, I'd say the ones you've got now are good enough.
Swedish fro svandinavia... well 95% of everyone up here speak English so it isn't a must unless you want to.

 

[370999]

Sometimes I think knowing English is a curse

You lose motivation to learn other languages

I disagree. I think it's more to do with how poorly us Anglophone countries get taught foreign languages (and I am including my home country Ireland here) then it is with having the leg-up with English.

 

[AnarchistFish]

Sometimes I think knowing English is a curse

You lose motivation to learn other languages

I disagree. I think it's more to do with how poorly us Anglophone countries get taught foreign languages (and I am including my home country Ireland here) then it is with having the leg-up with English.

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]

Sometimes I think knowing English is a curse

You lose motivation to learn other languages

I disagree. I think it's more to do with how poorly us Anglophone countries get taught foreign languages (and I am including my home country Ireland here) then it is with having the leg-up with English.

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.

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?

Of course living in a country for an extended time does mean you should learn the lingo.

All IMHO of course

 

[Yopaz]

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.

 

[Gennadios]

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.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

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.

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).

 

[The White Hunter]

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.

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).

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.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

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?