Thanks everyone. I know this is an area many travellers face as most of us have not time and/or have the ability to learn several languages.
At home, I have a collection of videos taped from the BBC open learning on TV, usually on Tuesday mornings between 1-6am. I have two for Italian, one for Mandarin, One for Portuguese, one for Greek, One for Japanese and three for Spanish (that included some GCSE stuff). I used the Spanish ones as exam revision when I was bored with books.
I haven't got time to do lots of classes, but I will try to watch the videos for Italian and Mandarin, and check out web courses for the basics, like Travelang and the BBC website, as they have free online courses. My library has a good selection of Italian phrasebooks with tape/CD, so I will borrow a few different ones to find one I like and one I find easy to learn from. I am not trying to be fluent, just the basic survival stuff you need to get around, eat, sleep and emergency use.
The memory card game sounds fun.
Baz Faz - great one! With all of those, you could be among the worlds greatest linguists if you had mastered them!
Also for a start, a smile also goes a long way.
I will always remember my trek in Turkey, passing this elderly man who looked like a shepherd. I was with a walking group and nobody who passed by him said anything. Until I smiled and said merhaba whilst walking past did his stern looking face suddenly light up. It was so heartwarming (and then he started saying Merhaba to everyone else following!)
On the note about CDs, tapes, classes and phrase books, I have tried to learn French, Spanish in the past and now trying a hand at Turkish. The problem with many of them I find (esp phrase books), is that that, should I say, are too formal and polite? For example, I was always taught to used "Je voudrais" in French. Problem is, not many people use these sort of phrases in France and are a dead giveaway that you are a tourist. I learnt very early on during my first trip to Paris to ditch it.
All these tapes and CDs, you never really know what you are actually saying and most phrases sound quite absurd when used within the actual country.
OP's example is of widely dispersed coners of the world. Its much easier to travel between adjacent countries.
I always take a phrase book, and try to speak the local language wherever possibe, even if its only a few sentences. For example, I speak reasonable Russian and basic Polish. Thanks to common features of Slav lanaugages, thats a head start for many parts of central europe. A few years ago I travelled overland from Prague through Czech, Slovakia, Ukraine and into Russia. I found that langauges changed gradually, a phrase understood in one place is still underswtood 100km to the east or west, but not 500 km away. So I picked up phrases as I went along. This was enormous fun and absolutely fascinating. Although I got a few blank looks, and no doubt used some words in not quite the right way, I found my efforts on the lanauges were amply rewarded.
It all goes horribly wrong if you jet around and jump from one language family to another. My plan would also have fallen apart if I'd strayed into Hungary. But overall, if you're worried about diffiuclt lanauges, stay within an area of one lanague family because its a lot easier.
#12 - you sound like a linguist first and a traveller second, where language dictates the itinerary! I can relate to that...
On a different tack here, I know that I wish I had more command of more languages when I travel, and of the history, geography and every other aspect that enriches the experience. But I also try to remember that one of the greatest gifts I offer is my ignorance so that others can experience the joy of helping another fellow human. One of the finest re-re-re-discoveries is the generosity of the human spirit, right, fellow travellers? So yes, prepare. But also don't beat yourself up to much on this, OP. One of the greatest joys of travel is making new friends, and one of the finest ways of finding those great people is when you open yourself to the experience by asking for help. Thus endeth the lesson for today. ;-)
As for India, a lot of Indians speak English, some very fluently, although it tends to be the Indian variety of English! If you planned to travel in both north and south you would need to learn a ridiculous number of languages anyway- not only Hindi for Delhi but Marathi for Mumbai, Konkani for Goa, Bengali for Calcutta, Kannada for Bangalore and Mysore, Tamil for Chennai, Malayalam for Kerala... English will get you around India fine.
There are other ways to communicate anyway. The two old ladies running a guest house in Macau and I had no language in common but we did fine with gestures and smiles and pointing at calendars and calculators. I didn't feel I missed out on connecting with people because I couldn't speak Cantonese while I was staying with them.
in countries where i really don;t speak the language i always have a phrasebook and a pen handy. the pen is useful when booking train tickets etc- this can all be done without speaking a single word by writing down destination, time, train number, etc. you get very creative when you are forced to communicate without a real common language.
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