Basic greetings and how to order, but learning an entire language for a 1-2 week trip? That's kind of excessive.

You should know some basics to demonstrate respect for them. Foreigners don't expect you to be fluent, but they (even a handful of Frenchies) respect you for trying. I've used what little French I know when i've visited Paris. Enchante.

only if you are American not, they think everyone has to speak to them in English

Remeber the time when we still needed travel guides to plan our trip and learn useful phrases in that local language.

In my experience, if you try to speak some Duolingo phrases to someone in Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, they will look at you kinda funny, and then immediately switch to perfect English.

Been in+100 countries never had a real problem.

In Munich now, American guy at the bar last night tells the bartender “uno mas”, I looked over , comically said “you know he isn’t Spanish” his response “ when I am in a foreign country I just speak the little bit of a foreign language that I can” , well that’s one approach. Offered to tell him how to say it in German , not interested . I got a chuckle out of it .

Or at least not expect the locals to speak perfect English and mock them or get annoyed when they don't. You don't speak their language either, so even if all they can say is yes and no they're already doing better than you.

Now I use Google Translate when I travel to a non-English speaking country. The best part is that it allows me to take a picture of the menu and it then translates the foreign text on the menu to English. I don't need to ask for an English menu!

Don’t bother: we Dutch realize you won’t learn our language. And we don’t care because we speak yours. Our education is based on that premises; we include English as a mandatory language and we teach French and German as well as options, but in high school for at least one year.