For me, with my newly acquired Swedish, it was a pretty specific barrier of four months’ learning. After that, people would continue in Swedish whereas before they’d seemingly relish the chance to practise their English.
A big part of this is that there casual traveller will typically primarily interact with people who work in hospitality - hotels, restaurants, bars - for whom dealing with foreigners is a major part of the job and who will accordingly be heavily biased towards using English to any foreign customer.
Saw a couple of good examples of this on holiday in Rome a few years back - one sensible, one bizarre: first a couple of Scandinavians on the table next to us in a restaurant, talking to their waiter in english, which made total sense. The bizarre one was a French group walking into another eatery and negotiating for a table of five with the maitre d using the English word "five", even though the word in French and Italian is basically the same!
I can attest to this. I've lived in German-speaking countries for twenty years and English is still my daily language. Germans just love speaking English, especially since they speak English better than most English-native speakers can operate in German.
I speak German when I'm out and about and nobody knows me, and I don't mind if the frustrated stranger laughs at my weird and obnoxious dialect. Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English.
It can be very frustrating, but it helps to unleash the German with strangers. You will very definitely see a strata to the folks who will and will not, willingly, put up with your Deunglish...
> Among friends though, they don't have the patience and just plow through the conversation in their excellent English.
That's kinda sad. I totally get the impulse to do so, and once I've started speaking English I might not even notice I'm doing it, but if I know someone is learning it is IMHO the decent thing to do to try let them practice if it doesn't matter to get to the point quickly.
Yes, I agree, it is frustrating, but on the other hand its also a matter of wanting to freely communicate and not wanting to have to keep correcting the other person. Most of the time, ze Germans think they are being kind and considerate by using their English. I see it from both sides, especially when the marbles start falling out of ones mouth .. and to be fair, once my German-speaking colleagues start with their Deunglish, I do switch to my Germlish in reflection.
That said, my crappy German is often a great source of mirth for my colleagues and friends, and this leads to me teaching my German friends some of the best, most finest and refined bollocksy English I can muster .. "weil, ohne Rache kann Mann nicht leben .."
