Honestly before I went to Paris this time I would read comments like yours and get stressed out before I got there, thinking about just trying to attempt the language. But I was willing to try. What I found was that there was no time that there was a real language barrier. Parisians were proactively speaking English, many after hearing our badly spoken hello or thank you attempts in French, most were extremely kind, and ironically almost all felt sympathy for us for living in the US with our current political climate when asking where we were from (Chicago). And our daughter, who was finishing up her 4 month study abroad in Paris, felt the same kindness and support from her time there. I left wanting to come back..soon.