Just translate everything on your phone.
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I suppose you could ask if they speak English, but pointing at things on the menu is a pretty tried and true approach! Also helpful to read the reviews before you go so you don’t have to ask the server a bunch of questions.
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this story went an unexpected direction.
Ha for me too! If I wasn’t an idiot I would have foreseen the direction the story was heading a lot earlier…
You are at or at least near the pinnacle of living life to generate good stories at the expense of safety and comfort.
heh maybe back in the day. Not enough hookers and blow though
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I feel you. Feel like I’m missing stuff with money clip, but I’m not.
But at a certain point, those cease to add to your stories and start to become comfortable and safe.
Combo of our broken Italian phrases, their broken English phrases, and pointing.
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Also, we’ve been using the Free Now app to summon taxis. It’s like Uber which I understand is spotty here. It’s easy and works well.
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Lol this sounds like some light encouragement to normalize more hookers and blow into my lifestyle! 
hmmm…
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- First, be humble and don’t expect they speak fluent English.
- Second, can you learn “Do you speak English?”, “Thank you”, “Yes”, “No” in that language?
- Addendum to second step, if you have food allergies this would be a good time to learn how to communicate as much.
- Third, most people working in the service industry in a major tourist city can speak enough English to serve you food, even if that means a couple awkward exchanges.
- Fourth, a lot of service industry folk can spot the English speaker from a kilometer away and will provide you with an English menu.
- Fifth, in my experience, people that barely speak English love chatting with Americans just to practice their English.
- Sixth, as other folks have pointed out, point at items on the menu or a dish on a nearby table.
- Lastly, sit back and appreciate a local beverage of your choice and the fact you aren’t at a place that is runover by tourism.
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So far in Rome I’ve experienced:
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Italians who speak perfect English and give zero shits about my attempts to communicate via my shitty Italian phrases and just respond in English.
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Italians who speak perfect English but are amused by my attempts to communicate in Italian and are willing to play along.
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Italians who speak little English and are fine with us just communicating with each other however we can get it done.
All these interactions in restaurants FWIW.
My family and I miss our dogs so we all light up when we see Italians walking their dogs, but apparently paying attention to other peoples’ dogs is not a thing here? In one case somebody’s off-leash dog ran up to us, but other than that our smiles at peoples’ dogs have been met with glares.
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Just pointing at the menu and saying “thank you” in their language is sufficient in most cases. If you do need to communicate:
Knowing “I don’t speak [language]” and “Do you speak English?” goes a long way imo. The French in particular seemed to appreciate a “Parlez vous Anglais?” rather than just launching into English.
I don’t think I’ve told this story here before, I stayed at a hostel in Paris way back in 2006 and these young American women arrived looking pissed off. These girls were a walking stereotype of travelling clueless Americans, and it turned out they had got off the metro with all their luggage and accosted a random passer-by to ask directions. I wasn’t there, but given the way they approached situations where I was there I’m guessing they were like “HELLO PLEASE WHICH WAY TO HOSTEL, FOREIGN MAN”. This guy looked them up and down and pointed up to the Sacre Coeur, which is at the top of the hill in Montmartre, basically the highest point you can go at ground level in Paris. They carted all their luggage up there before realizing he had bullshitted them.
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We’ve been traveling pretty extensively with our Chihuahua, and he normally gets tons of attention. I have a theory now that we could plop ourselves down in any country and walk him for an hour in an area with foot traffic and have an almost perfectly accurate idea of how the locals will interact with strangers.
In Latin American, we can hardly move 20 meters without hearing something, and of course, those countries are among the warmest/most hospitable to foreigners, in general.
Spain/France: You might the odd comment, but very few reactions. It’s almost funny watching the faces. You can see little microreactions that they think he’s cute and then it’s like they’re wanting to maybe say something, but then they fight the urge b/c they think it’s inappropriate or something.
Istanbul: Probably the most pet friendly place on Earth. And in general, they are super friendly there, probably among the more welcoming locals.
Georgia: Somewhere in the middle. Georgia is kinda funky in that the customer service you’ll receive is among the coldest you’ll get anywhere, but Georgians are actually suuuper nice in many other scenarios.
And surely they went back home telling everyone who would listen how rude the French are.
This is purely anecdotal, but a pretty decent sample size:
We stayed 5 months in Puerto Vallarta’s Zona Romántica, near the city’s center and away from the hotel zone and most touristy areas (although ZR still has tons of tourists, just slightly more adventurous/cultured ones who will at least see a bit of the city instead of only staying at the hotels).
It’s a near even mix of locals and foreigners in ZR. I shit you not, any time we were out walking and there was a group of 3+ middle aged American women passing us, almost always I overheard them saying “I don’t like how…”, “I wish they didn’t x here…”, something to that effect. It was almost eerie. It felt like I passed 20 or so groups like that and at least 15 were always complaining about something. It’s like c’mon Karens, you’re in a gorgeous area with some of the best food in the world and all at probably 1/5th the price it’d cost in SoCal or somewhere and they can never stop complaining about some things that are a bit different from how they’d be in the USA.
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Nice one.
This is all good but seems a little FPSy to me. Just tell your phone what you want to say and what language you want to say it in. It will speak for you just fine. It can also translate speech back. Friends of mine did Japan/Korea this way a few years ago, not sure which app they used…probably multiple options. Apparently there are apps that can translate signs and menus from photos. Zero communication problems.
This sounds like a good idea, but does seem to betray a lack of curiosity that some may find off putting.
When I was in Italy, I sometimes had an easier time reading the Italian menu than the English one, because the English one would often have some weird translations, whether it’s translating words that don’t need to be translated or using unconventional terms, or what have you. There’s so much Italian food that we describe in Italian that it’s not hard to find something that you know and like (although I’d often pick something I didn’t know just to try).
Is the Italian beef sandwich (like you’d find in Chicago) a thing at all in Italy?