How do non-English speakers navigate through international airports (specific question about Amsterdam)

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I've travelled quite a bit in countries where I can't even read the script (Russia, the 'stans, Japan). At least I can read English, and sometimes they have English counter-signs. Of course, if you can't read it at all, then you start instinctively looking for other clues.

Firstly, you may have noticed most airports use both words and pictograms. Little images like a plane going up for departures, or down for arrivals. Toilets (men and women figures). Knife and fork for food. It's surprisingly easy to just look for those.

Secondly, you'll find it's actually pretty difficult to go the wrong way in an airport. You get off the plane and just follow your fellow passengers, and keep an eye out for signs.

Eventually you get to either immigration, or luggage, or immigration then luggage. Your flight number is on a board above the carousel, usually. Not a word has needed to be spoken, except perhaps to immigration, and even then they can get a translator if they really need to ask you something critical.

Millions of people pass through airports every year, so they're designed (believe it or not) to be easy to use without a local language. And if they really need help, they could pre-print a piece of paper saying 'I don't speak English or Dutch - I speak x - can you help me?'. Or possibly pre-prepare words like 'arrivals', 'baggage', 'visiting my relative' and 'help, I need a bathroom!'.

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Also you could arrange "special assistance" upfront with the airline, this is usually for handicapped or elderly people and they will wait with a wheelchair at the gate for her but they will guide her through everything.

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I started writing a comment, but it became a bit much. And it contained several suggestions that fit as an answer.

If your guest owns a phone, she can call you as soon as she lands, and you can guide her through the whole procedure of getting out of arrivals. Sure, she needs a phone contract that allows for roaming.

Can she read Latin script? If so, either of you, on the phone, can spell out signs.

Is your guest not blind? She can carry, on paper, a few notes on what signs to follow. An arrow should be recognizable whatever language she speaks, so all she needs is a note that reads 'Arrivals' and 'Passport control'. Related to this, the pictogram of a piece of luggage is widely used to direct arriving passengers.

She's arriving in a plane from her country, so the airline staff can be expected to speak a language she also speaks. She can tell the staff she does not know what to do when disembarking, and it is likely that staff will ask for some kind of assistance for her once off the plane.

You could of course also game the system by requesting the need of a wheelchair. I would be surprised if not someone would be with her all the way through picking up her luggage.

(And, as was also pointed out in the comments, whenever I fly to an obscure destination in some obscure country, following the crowds is pretty much always the surest bet.)

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