The language hasn’t really been an issue so far. In Spain you need to know that “vale” means is okay, and “si, si, si” means yes, yes, yes. Both of which are the most commonly used words in Spain. In addition, my Spanish vocabulary is fairly strong; it’s just stringing the words together to form a sentence that is the problem. But for the most part when speaking with someone, I can work out what is being said.
In France, more people seem to speak English than in Spain, so the only thing NOT to say is, ” qu’est-ce que c’est?” in French (which means, what is that?), or you’re likely to get an earful back in French, none of which you understand.
And in Morocco, it was odd, because their national language is Arabic and French, but the word I heard most while I was in Morocco was “ko-nee-chi-wa” which is hello in Japanese??