What are the most useful/influential languages in europe?

English is the obvious one. French, Spanish and German are the three main ones.

Aside from when I was in Germany I never actually met anyone speaking German, but I read somewhere a few weeks ago that it is the most widely spoken native language in Europe, and obviously a ton of countries have it as their official language: Germany, Austria, a part of Italy, Belgium, Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg. So it's probably handy?

I always find French to be a language commonly known, even by English speakers. If you choose to move to France then definitely learn it, it'll make life 100 times easier. If you've learnt a Romance language before then learning French won't be too difficult.

I don't know any form of Spanish, nor have I been to Spain, but in the rest of Europe there are always a lot of Spanish-speaking tourists. I don't know whether it's a common language amongst locals outside of Spain.

I have never spoken a word of Italian whist in Europe - I have never been to Italy keep in mind. It's really not useful unless you're planning on spending an extended amount of time in Italy. I found it a lot easier to learn than French though...

So I'd say that unfortunately English is going to be the most important as it's universal, but after that then I'd say the language of the country you're planning on living in, and then...

1. French

2. Spanish

3. German

I say unfortunately because I absolutely hate going to a European country knowing that I don't need to learn their language at all because they're likely to understand my English. It just feels so pretentious.

In the EU

1. English

2. German

3. French

all the other languages are uninfluential

outside the EU

Russian

Well, if you are going to live in Spain, Italy, France or Germany the first language you should learn is Spanish, Italian, French or German.

I'm Italian, if you move to my country it's very impolite of you to speak another language with us, it doesn't matter if other languages are more important than Italian all over the world, this is our one. If you're a tourist we don't want you to speak a perfect Italian, if you live here, please respect us.

English and French. Everyone in Europe speaks one or both. German is important too. Germany is one of the leading countries in Europe. It is also spoken in Austria, Holland, etc. All other European languages are sort of niche languages. They are only spoken in their own countries.

The only language you'll ever need is English.

german, french and english (and soon arab if the tree huggers get their way)