You beat me to it! This is the classic HN reply. Even in Paris or Milan, as soon as you leave the central areas, most people will speak little English and are happy to allow you to practice your poor French/Italian with them!

I'm constantly amazed at how far I can get in Portugal or Italy speaking only Spanish. They're different languages but you can make it work well enough in pretty much every situation I've been in.

I recall reading an autobiography by US Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor. She used to represent Fendi, the Italian fashion brand, when there were suing for copyright infringement (counterfeit goods). She would speak Spanish and the Fendi senior execs would speak Italian and they understood each other well enough. That was a real a-ha moment for me!

My grandmother had this experience when she was still alive. While waiting for us to shop for stuff at the mall, she struck up a conversation with an older Italian lady. She only knew Italian; my grandmother only knew Spanish. They made it work!

To butcher a old quote about English: Spanish is just badly pronounced Italian, after all ;)

I agree not everyone, but it has changed dramatically in at least France as well in the last 30 years. First time I went to France, most people would not switch to English even in the middle of Paris, often even if they knew English unless they saw no other way out.

More recently, with much better French, I've had people impatiently switching to English the moment I was struggled to find the right word.

There certainly is a shift, though, when you get outside the tourist areas.

E.g. in Nice, you can pinpoint it almost by street. Cross under the railway in the city centre and move into Liberation, for example, and you will immediately find some staff that are unable or unwilling to speak English, and many who at least won't switch unless you ask. But it's also not surprising given how abrupt the number of tourists fall off...