crash course in French

Bob said (and the travel books I've read mentioned) that the French aren't as snobbish if you try to speak to them in their language. Once they see that you've at least tried, they would switch to English to help you along (and maybe so that you won't get to murder their language). So I am trying my best to learn as much French as I can within a week, since we're leaving for Paris on Saturday. Unfortunately, I am really bad with learning new languages. Really. I tried learning Mandarin when I first came to Singapore to no avail. On the other hand, Bob can order beer in like, 8 languages. Well he can say that plus other essentials like hello, good bye and where's the toilet.

Bob used this book when he was learning French:



But then it would take 6 weeks to finish the course so I decided to get a phrasebook to help me as well:



To be honest though, I don't think I would be confident enough to really converse in French so to lessen the stress, my game plan is to memorize the most essential phrases:

Bonjour Monsieur/ Madame! (Hello!)
Parlez-vous anglais? (Do you speak English?)

Should the answer be Oui (yes), then I am safe! I can switch to English.

If the answer happens to be Non (no), I'll say:

Merci, au revior! (Thank you, good bye!) Then off to find another person that would say Oui to my question. Hehehe!

Hope my plan works. Wish me luck! :)