Just got back from Paris myself. I had 10 years of grade school french about 30 years ago. So I know a bunch of french but it is rusty. I used the french quite a bit in Paris. I stayed at a US chain hotel - higher end - the staff both both French and English perfectly they were very happy I spoke French but also very happy to switch to English when the discussion got complicated. I took a taxi to Orly one morning and the driver was originally from Portugal he knew almost no English we had a very nice conversation in French about our pets and so forth during the 30 minute ride. He lost his dog recently but has two canaries and I told him about my dog. He probably could understand you want to go to the airport in English but he probably would not talk to you after that if you only know English. I have been to Barcelona for a few days last year stayed at a 3* hotel in the city they spoke some English but I talked to them mainly in spanish my spanish is much worse than my french about 1 year of high school spanish although I hear it a lot more in LA than I hear French. I have spent a month in Madrid where I got to practice but that was a while ago. I know enough to ask for basic things in spanish and this was useful in Barcelona. While in Madrid - that trip was around 10-15 years ago - I definitely used the spanish i remember being there with some French colleagues and they could not order food in the restaurant they asked me to order in spanish for them. I remember not a lot of people speaking English well in Madrid and making definite use of my bad spanish there.

In Italy I know almost no Italian but I also find many more people in the big cities like Rome know a language other than Italian. Also they wave their hands around and I am very good at waving my hands I had no problems communicating in Rome without knowing any Italian. I ate a bunch of times at a small neighborhood restauarant the waiter spoke 3-4 languages and would come and chat with me in English when I was eating alone. Also knowing a bit of spanish does help with italian they are not the same language but people may understand enough of the spanish to communicate. The Italian culture strikes me as one where they are happy and willing to try to communicate using many different methods all at once.

I have been to the Netherlands you need not know Dutch at all everybody speaks English. My last trip to Amsterdam I got in the taxi with a couple of friends and the taxi driver looks at us and asks us in English if we are German and we said no American and he said good.

The place I have the hardest time is Germany. In the big cities they speak English but less so in the Countryside and I know no German other than counting to ten and a few other random words. And they typically do not know the romance languages that I know.