>>8032277I think you replied to the wrong anon, I assume you were asking me (OP). I don't know spanish aside a few words, but I was able to do everything. The service industry either speaks english (hotels, rentals) or you don't have to communicate with words. I think my biggest issue was when I was filling the hog with gas, a CEPSA gas station had this weird rule where you pre-pay your fuel then you go fill up. harleys don't have fuel gauges so I don't know how much I needed to fill up. the lady would just raise her hands cause I couldn't tell her the concept is stupid, and she couldn't tell me I'm probably getting it wrong. went to the adjacent repsol to fill up instead, no problems
I started learning spanish with duolingo after I got back. I've been to Spain plenty of times, 3 times in Barcelona, 2 times at Costa Del Sol (Málaga and Fuengirola) and 3 times in Tenerife at the Canary Islands. They have a massive tourism industry so being able to speak english at least somewhat will directly net them more money, so whatever you want to do as a tourist, if someone can make money off of it, they will speak english. For speakers of English, the good thing about Spanish is a lot of the words are the same or very similar, so even if you don't know Spanish you won't have a hard time.
Spain is a great place to go. If you compare it to Italy or Greece which are both similar in climate, the difference is that in Spain, things mostly work. I didn't have to pay anything with cash, I put everything on my credit card and never had an issue. In Italy (2019) I had to carry cash because the barbarians there wouldn't take cards. Just don't try to rush through it since you can go to Barcelona and that city alone takes up 1 week easy. If you want to go to Andalusia, take a rental car and go see the places around. It is beautiful around there. Renting a car is easy and nobody gives you a hard time about anything. That's why I like to go to Spain so often.
