Pretty much exactly as I said; the pleasantries and some basic nouns, which comprise most of your list, are good to know. Asking "where is" something that might involve more than a pointing of the hand/finger, can readily devolve into "Turn right at the hallway and then second door on your left," leaving you back at square one.

Absolutely -- and native speakers on FT can be a good resource for this! I have a bell pepper sensitivity that stresses me out when traveling. We're heading to Barcelona later this year, and if you know anything about Spanish and Catalan cooking, you know that bell peppers are common in many dishes. I was able to get help from a few FTers who are native Spanish speakers and helped translate my allergy concerns so I can explain my allergy to servers.

Shout, and if they don't understand, shout louder....

Another option is to walk around in an American flag t-shirt and shorts, and just speak English louder and with more slang if someone doesn't understand you the first time.

"What? aint none of y'all heard of Coors 'round here?"

pointing
 

for food i just point and nod.

for directions i figure it out myself.

if staying for a long time, i study what i can so i can speak some basic words to get by.


most people are helpful even when there is a language barrier.

We moved to Taiwan without speaking one word in Chinese. Moved to a secondary smaller city.

Second day there, we wanted to buy eggs. I went to the open market and went to the lady that looked like the stall owner. I squatted and squawked like a chicken. Laid an imaginary egg, picked up imaginary egg, then cracked it on an imaginary frying pan.

Everybody around me understood it perfectly, everybody was laughing.

I was able to purchase 6 eggs.

I found that if you have a sense of humor and laugh, people are really willing to help. In fact, as we learned the language, the people in the open market really became friendly. A few of them became our friends.

Don't take yourself seriously. Use a lot of sign language. Smile. It's amazing how you can communicate.

My wise wife figured out that a very gracious thing to do is to learn how to say "I'm sorry, I don't speak X" in the local language. Beginning any exchange with that, followed by an attempt, however pitiful, to use a few local words will truly endear you to locals.

You can also get cards made for you in lots of languages (including Catalan)...

https://www.selectwisely.com/product...able_Allergies

Second this. When there is a language barrier use as few words as possible. Less to get wrong, you can't break the grammar and the person you are talking to will probably realize your understanding will be minimal and will try to do things like point rather than speak.

When a conversation in Swedish is turning out to be too complicated for me to handle, I always then say "I'm sorry, but I have to speak English now."

Exactly. I might learn to ask in weakly passable Cantonese (or any Asian language) to ask "Where is the train station?" but what does it help, if the answer is "Go down this road until Grandma Wu's old house then turn towards the market. Now if you can see the new library building, you went to far, you'll need to backtrack 300 meters" :rolleyes:

I think in 2017 when you can have Google Maps, Here and Maps.me - three different and free mapping/navigation products which work offline and use different data sources - should not cause anyone standing in middle of the (whatever) and asking where train station is.

So the question basically boils down how to order food/things, how much things are and where to find doctor/toilet.

This is my strategy, also. I've actually squawked like a chicken in more than one country. Admittedly, I've pantomimed a little squat, imaginary lever pull, and swwooosh sound when looking for the loo. Everybody laughs and I find a toilet. Might I mention that my embarrassment threshold is fairly high. It's better than the alternative, right?

Universal language includes a smile, a thumbs up or thumbs down, a shrug, they all work wonders. Really, it's all easier than you'd ever think.

Sure, if the answer's really complicated, knowing only common phrases is not going to help. But A) a lot can be communicated with hand signals. And B) nowadays cell phone data service is darn near ubiquitous so a well prepared traveler can access maps on the go to locate landmarks (as invisible already noted above). Really the purpose of knowing how to ask about the train station is to tell a taxi driver, "Please take me to the train station" when it's too far to walk. ...And the growing prevalence of online ride hailing services is making even that conversation less important!