[_delirium]

> they will be too polite to make explicitly clear

Hah, in Denmark this does not apply. If you start in a few words of Danish and then it becomes clear you can't really converse in Danish, (some) people will directly complain that you wasted their time and ask why you didn't just speak English, since everyone can speak it and you obviously can't actually speak Danish. While in other countries it's different, e.g. in France many people prefer if you attempt to start in French even if you can't really speak it, instead of directly launching into English.

[nerfhammer]

This has been my experience as well. Some places they're thrilled at any attempt to speak their languages, other places they find it annoying if they know you speak English. Unless you can speak it well enough that you're not totally struggling and they think your accent sounds cool.

[gech]

I guess Americans are different - I make effort to try to understand immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asian countries as form of bridging the cultural divide and attempting more harmony with others regardless their origin. I guess Danes are too lazy or boorish for this.

[_delirium]

Don't Americans mostly have no choice, because most aren't bilingual? If an immigrant from China speaks poor English, it's not like the average American has the option of just switching to Mandarin instead, so the conversation stays in English just due to the lack of any other option, not because the patient American has restrained themselves from switching to Mandarin. (And those few who do speak fluent Mandarin often will switch.) In Denmark most people speak both English and Danish fluently, and most foreigners speak better English than they speak Danish, so English is usually the most mutually comprehended language. I think if you really spoke no English and poor Danish was the only common language for a conversation, people would be more patient in that case; it's only in the case of "why didn't you just use English, which you obviously speak better?" that people get annoyed.