Originally Posted by
Doug64
... I suspect that most people you meet will know some English. My perception is that English is like the universal language.
...
A couple years ago I was reading an article in a financial news site that was suggesting that English has become a universal language. I recall an example was the number of charities that taught in schools in Africa, thus a lot of people in Africa could understand English. Thus, two Africans from different tribes that spoke in different dialects that had never been more than a couple hundred km from their home often could communicate in English.
My bike trips in continental Europe were only a week long, I did not take time to learn languages there, one of those trips would have been two languages, one trip three languages. But I found that rural areas were the only areas where I could not communicate. Urban areas, the people I met if they did not know English, I could point at the photo of the meal I wanted, etc.
My month in Iceland, there were a couple of visitors from continental Europe that I met in campgrounds that I had trouble communicating with, but almost everyone else that I met, whether it was Icelanders or tourists had passable English.