Originally Posted by pgalore
The point is (which seems to have been largely missed) that people enjoy speaking in their native tongue, and it shows courtesy to try to speak the language rather than not even make the attempt.
pgalore, you do make some excellent points - for instance, it is very important to know some key local words to avoid getting ripped off and just as a common courtesy.
...but I'm not sure I agree with you 100%. Perhaps it's just me, but I've found in many cases that more people in France, Germany and Italy than any other country, won't even let me speak in the local language - despite that I usually do so quite well. When I try, they will respond in English. I find that to be extremely discourteous. In fact, I have had complete conversations with me speaking in German and the person responding in English. This doesn't happen with everyone, of course, but it seems to happen in these countries quite readily. Perhaps it's a cultural thing. Then again, I know hardly any Swedish or Dutch, but absolutely everyone who's got a reasonable education can speak English anyway.
It's not just the ugly American/British influence, however. Like it or not, English has become the language of commerce and the Internet. It's the most common second language there is. What language do you think the Japanese businessman/woman in Europe is going to be communicating in? Nine times out of ten, it will be English.