Based upon my personal experience, in the larger hotels and major tourist
venues in central and eastern Europe, there is at least a chance that
someone can communicate with you in English, to some extent. Don't count on
it, though. For Hungary, you should have a phrase book that will enable you
to read signs posted at the venues to enable you to learn which days and
hours they are open. There are amazingly few cognates between Magyar
(Hungarian) language words and the Romance and Germanic languages. You will
probably not be able to guess the meanings of words in Magyar.

Trying to learn to speak any Slavic language is much more challenging than
learning a Romance language or a Germanic language, in my opinion. The
grammar is quite different from what you are acquainted with. With a good
phrase book, however, you can learn to communicate to some extent.

Because of certain historical facts, such as the fact of the former
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the adjacency of German-speaking countries to
the countries you mentioned, learning some German would be very useful. I
recall that on one of my trips to Russia, I communicated another tourist,
who happened to be Hungarian, in German. It was a language that we shared.
I communicated in German when visiting Budapest and Gyor, both Hungarian
cities.

German-speaking persons travel and tour more than do other Europeans, in
general. Therefore, you can expect that German and English will serve you
better than English and any other single language.

Switzerland may be the most expensive country to travel in, so don't count
on any cheap touring there. Austria provides good value for your money.

If you read English, the Lonely Planet books are good to study before your
trip. I recommend the "Let's Go Europe" book, as well as their other "Let's
Go" books.


"forgotten field" wrote in message
om...
Hi, I am hoping to travel in the Eastern Europe, such as
Hungary,Slovakia and Poland. I speak English, but I am wondering if I
should learn another language to make my trip more memorable. What
language do you think I should learn? I also wonder if you have any
opinion on which country is good to travel in Europe. I don't have a
lot of money, so I would need to stay at the hostels most of the time
during the trip.
Thank you, and have a good day.