My wife speaks pretty decent French, which leads to amusing scenarios in Paris where she speaks in French to a person who insists in replying in (sometimes poor) English. Often they both persevere in the opposite languages to their own, leading to a weird inversion of what you would imagine would be the most efficient communications strategy!
I would guess there might be a few motivations for people to do this though, not necessarily just rudeness. Misplaced helpfulness, wanting to save face by not switching languages back, practicing English, who knows?
(What's really funny is when they finally give up and revert to French and then address a question to me - only for me to shrug with embarrassment and tell them I don't speak French.)
I would guess there might be a few motivations for people to do this though, not necessarily just rudeness. Misplaced helpfulness, wanting to save face by not switching languages back, practicing English, who knows?
(What's really funny is when they finally give up and revert to French and then address a question to me - only for me to shrug with embarrassment and tell them I don't speak French.)