[pjmlp]

As someone that has lived in French and German speaking countries and nowadays speaks both fluently, I would assert usually in French speaking countries there is the cultural issue of speaking directly in English versus trying a very basic "Parlez vous Anglais?" as initial question.

Whereas in German speaking countries I only had any issues in reaching out to technicians for house repairs.

However if we insist learning French and German, regardless how bad it might feel like during initial efforts, eventually it will improve good enough to work on those languages.

[petesergeant]

> there is the cultural issue of speaking directly in English versus trying a very basic "Parlez vous Anglais?" as initial question

In my experience in the Netherlands you should definitely just start speaking English to people, as asking someone if they speak English is a bit like asking if they can read

[Scarblac]

Yes, we much prefer speaking English over having to endure slow, broken Dutch.

[WJW]

Yes we do, but there's a bit of nuance to it. Most Dutch people will happily oblige to speak slowly (within reason) if you preface any conversation with a quick "I'm trying to learn Dutch properly", and will appreciate the effort.

Knowing the language will definitely help people fit in better as many conversations amongst the Dutch will still be in Dutch and also most signage and other written texts will obviously also be in Dutch.

[pjmlp]

As mentioned, it is a cultural thing.

[diggan]

Very much so. We get a lot of tourists where I live (Spain) yet consistently the only tourists that come here and assume we speak their language (yes) are people speaking French. Everyone else seems to ask if I speak English before engaging, or they try to speak Spanish directly, while French-speaking people just start speaking French with you, seemingly assuming you also speak French, even though we're both in Spain...

[vidarh]

Yeah, the difference in France if you try vs. don't try can be dramatic. My first school trip to France with my French class, one of the girls in my class tried asking for something in a small shop in Paris in English. The entire shop went quiet, until she tried again in French whereon they immediately spoke English to her.

Conversely, I went into a small shop, tried my broken French, and asked the shopkeeper if he spoke English after a failed attempt at making him understand me. He didn't, but dragged me into the street and started stopping random people until he found someone who could help translate.

While purely anecdotal, those extremes seem fairly common even today, and frankly I get it - it'd annoy me to if people don't even make a perfunctory attempt. Of course the stereotype of certain types of tourists doesn't help.

Apart from that, I think people in general are far more likely to feel ok about trying to express themselves in your language if you've made a fool of yourself in their language first...