Can you get by living in Buenos Aires not speaking Spanish and only English?

[Jenn]

I can't speak any Spanish at all. When I go to Mexico I just use Google Translate and can get by. Many of the cities are very touristy like Cancun and Cabo. Can I easily get by speaking no Spanish at all in a city like Buenos Aires? I am sure most tourists don't speak Spanish from the USA but how is it living there and not speaking any Spanish?

Will I struggle?

 

[Jackson]

I can't speak any Spanish at all. When I go to Mexico I just use Google Translate and can get by. Many of the cities are very touristy like Cancun and Cabo. Can I easily get by speaking no Spanish at all in a city like Buenos Aires? I am sure most tourists don't speak Spanish from the USA but how is it living there and not speaking any Spanish?

Will I struggle?

Nah you can get by here without speaking Spanish. I met up with several tourists and none of them could speak a word of Spanish and all manage to get by. Uber works well and many restaurants in Palermo staff speaks English or even if they don't you can get by and many have English menus or you can use Google lens to translate menus. Not an issue at all. Very safe here.

 

[StatusNomadicus]

i have the opposite opinion of Jackson. i very rarely hear English, and Argentines actually get frustrated 90% of the time if they find out you aren't a native speaker. like, they just give up. i was at a brewery last night and a 10-year-old kid rolled his bike in and said something to me, but there was a music speaker nearby, so i said "otra vez?" and he looked at me, and said, esta bien (nevermind)! this is almost always the case with Argentine people in BsAs who have zero English, can't manage to speak International Spanish to tourists at their business, and i suspect they have never traveled very far.

i would highly recommend if you're putting so many hours into learning the dog poop scene, that you get on DuoLingo and do 30 mins a day, and learn basics. every city i go to i try to learn the basics of bathroom, sorry, please, thank you, beer, food, help, etc.

you're in for a rough time if you think BsAs folks speak English, the older people do, but anyone under 40 i haven't seen it at all. like 95% Spanish-only. of course if you go to the Hilton and sit in their lobby and go to the nearest restaurant, you'll have educated folks in the tourism industry. but i don't travel that way, and find it a very sanitized, Instagram way of "traveling" that is vapid and unfulfilling.

 

[Jackson]

i have the opposite opinion of Jackson. i very rarely hear English, and Argentines actually get frustrated 90% of the time if they find out you aren't a native speaker. like, they just give up. i was at a brewery last night and a 10-year-old kid rolled his bike in and said something to me, but there was a music speaker nearby, so i said "otra vez?" and he looked at me, and said, esta bien (nevermind)! this is almost always the case with Argentine people in BsAs who have zero English, can't manage to speak International Spanish to tourists at their business, and i suspect they have never traveled very far.

i would highly recommend if you're putting so many hours into learning the dog poop scene, that you get on DuoLingo and do 30 mins a day, and learn basics. every city i go to i try to learn the basics of bathroom, sorry, please, thank you, beer, food, help, etc.

you're in for a rough time if you think BsAs folks speak English, the older people do, but anyone under 40 i haven't seen it at all. like 95% Spanish-only. of course if you go to the Hilton and sit in their lobby and go to the nearest restaurant, you'll have educated folks in the tourism industry. but i don't travel that way, and find it a very sanitized, Instagram way of "traveling" that is vapid and unfulfilling.

Sure I have ran into more people that don't speak English than do. What I mean is you can easily navigate around and get by around town, order in restaurants. Definitely your quality of the trip will be better if you can learn some Spanish but I meant that you can easily get by. Just my opinion but I met a lot of expats here that did not speak any Spanish.

 

[GraceHill]

We only speak a very little bit of Spanish and could get by. No back and forth conversations but many of the restaurants we ate in someone always spoke English. We ate at nicer restaurants and in those places our server always spoke English. In Ubers not so much but we never had any issues at all during our stay. One can get around without speaking Spanish here.

 

[Darksider415]

I’m more aligned with @StatusNomadicus’s opinion, myself. I haven’t necessarily run into the issue with people giving up when they hear I’m not a native speaker, but I also tend to go “repita, por favor” and cup my ear like I’m having trouble hearing, and that tends to get the desired result.

Either way, you will have an easier time if you speak at least some Castellano.

 

[Flamingo]

I’m more aligned with @StatusNomadicus’s opinion, myself. I haven’t necessarily run into the issue with people giving up when they hear I’m not a native speaker, but I also tend to go “repita, por favor” and cup my ear like I’m having trouble hearing, and that tends to get the desired result.

Either way, you will have an easier time if you speak at least some Castellano.

I agree with this. I speak Spanish but my friends coming to visit me don't. They still can get around with Google Translate.

 

[Wally]

Definitely majority of people here don't speak English. But that is ok as I don't expect them to but I agree that more older that I know speak it vs. younger which surprises some people as intuition would make one believe younger would speak English. Still you can get by here without speaking but it's better if you speak some.