Lots of truth here in the thread. It is quite a challenge to write here without writing a hundred pages but I'll try.
1:Not even non natives are spared English langauge banditry.
a very unpleasant example:
A few years ago, I spent one month in Spain. A student exchange. A mixed group of spaniards and various foreigners.
A nice walk through the city, a czech and a french together, could you imagine a less risky setting?
The french girl's Spanish was even worse than mine (my active skills were horrible but the natives still had no trouble talking to me and not only due to the fact most spoke English really bad. Even those able to choose were usually chosing Spanish with me and we had fun). Neither of us was a native English speaker or at least totally great without an accent. And still, she told me: "I haven't come here to speak French."
That hurt my pride just like (or more than) those dozens of native French speakers in France, who had been basically repeating a message "We don't care how many years and how much money you've flushed down the toilet while attempting to learn French. YOu are a stupid worthless foreign worm who cannot ever learn much than a few phrases with mistakes. Of course you can't speak French better than we speak English, even if we have trouble putting a sentence together. And we don't care you have paid quite a lot and spend money in our country instead of another because of an opportunity to speak , just pay and answer in English like a good stupid foreigner knowing her place."
2.Touristy places are the worst, capitals are horrible. Smaller towns in France are much better than Paris, I guess it might be similar with Italian. Go to less touristy places and people will be probably excited to talk in Italian with a foreigner. Spaniards are without a trouble. Even Germans (and in Berlin!) had no trouble with my really crappy German.
Go alone. I learnt to be stubborn enough to get through the French attempts to swith the conversation to English. Sure, waiters don't matter, if we only exchange ten words, there is not time or need to switch. But for all the other uses, people don't switch anymore. Not only I have improved, I have grown stubborn and it helps. But what doesn't help is my family. Yes, people have trouble computing (Error. Error. Great metaphore, EMK!) that a foreigner can speak their langauge. But imagine the mess in their heads that a foreigner talking to their family in some slavic language (I think the stigma of central/eastern europe plays a role too) knows something else than bad English! So, leave your English/anything family alone for a while or simply get extra stubborn.
3.I also hate the compliments "You speak good French/anything". It feels offensive. Like being patted on head like a dog that has learnt a simple trick. It is a feeling "oh, do I really sound like a naive beginner in need of a polite encouraging lie? Am I really so bad I can't be treated like a normal human being?"
Another similar trouble is something I've realized a few days ago. The French often assume you cannot speak/understand more than "un petit peu". Last year: I was asked whether I could read "un petit peu" French, after an hour of talking with a police officer (and despite imperfections really well, considering the nerves right after the theft of my handbag with my documents and some treasured personal stuff) and even correcting his French typoes. A few days ago: in a touristy building (so much for the defense of the old man), a guide asked whether I can speak "un petit peu" French after several sentences of totally non-phrasebookish conversation. I can't remember exactly how I answered but still. No, I don't speak "un petit peu" French, I've invested lots of time in it, I have the highest level exam you can get, I occassionally work as a translator, I use it for many purposes just as easily as my native language. I've just proven to you I CAN speak it and probably better than you can speak any foreign langauge. Put your "un petit peu Français" where the sun doesn't shine. Of course, this could be a matter of politeness as some nations rarely brag. But could French really be among those nations, afraid of officially knowing anything more than "un petit peu"?
4.Of course you'll get to use the language in the country, once you leave not only the touristy areas, but as well the most common touristy dialogues. Do you trully think most people, despite all the ESL [s]propaganda[/s] PR, get much further than most English natives learning other langagues? Yes, people studying at universities do. But the others often stay well within the standard several situtions happening at work and that's it. Need something more? Awesome, you can talk in the local langauge! Really. Now in France and a few years later in Spanish, the local language turned out to be much more than a nice bonus. Perhaps not a necessity as many things can be handled in broken English. But my skills made everything much faster, much more efficient, much more enjoyable for both sides. And I think Italians are one of the best nations for talking as lots and lots of them are really bad at English!
5.I think it is too early to get trully angry at the switching natives at the intermediate level. It is highly offensive at the C levels. But around B1, we could still count in their favour that they see the low level as an obstacle to doing their job as fast and smoothly as possible. So, you don't need them to get to the solid B2 or better C levels. You don't need to talk to other people to get there at all, if you don't want to. (Yes, take a tutor if you want, etc etc, I don't want another thread ruined into a similar discussion to many others).
Until you get there, enjoy the other stuff. After all, most books are much more interesting than most people
6.I don't think "support your local cultures" is such a great advice, despite having a grain of truth inside.
I think most English natives don't realize how much are the other cultures being pushed aside. The originally anglophone series are the most watched not because of someone forcing people to watch them (even though not putting many others on tv is partially that). The US and UK simply produce so much stuff they can please most tastes and lots of objectively great stuff comes from the enormous amount of production. Should I watch crappy czech tv series instead? The best one won't ever get a second season as the american owner of the czech channel won't give money on it for their reasons. The other one or two contemporary not bad series are remakes of foreign ones, is it still Czech culture? Music. Supporting czech musicians and bands? Yes, there are a few exceptions of good ones, fitting my tastes. But apart from those, supporting czech bands means either supporting musicians singing in English, or supporting crap, or both at ones. Books? Yes, I buy and read some czech authors. But in most cases, it is the same as the previous examples.
Talking about the Czech example: our culture is already supported more than it currently deserves. Pretending it is awesome, while it is in crisis, that is not likely to help.
What we could do and what would help: spreading other cultures like the anglophone spreads. At least within the EU. The cultural exchange is highly limited. Especially thanks to totally wrong and twisted ideas and laws concerning copyright, regionalized internet content and such. As long as whole EU can't normally watch a new French comedy or a new Swedish thriller in their cinemas just as often as an american movie (comparing the amount of whole EU to the amount of imported US stuff), nothing is gonna change. As long as radio stations and tv channels don't get some courage, nothing will change. And I could continue.
7.There is a "English is the most important langauge" self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people learn English because the believe they need it, as was said. But it is so illogical. They want to use their (often weak) skills for practice and they are proud of them, ok. But it would be much better, had they learned easier and subjectively more useful languages instead. In many cases. I am convinced English is much harder for natives of various european languages than other european langauges. It is so common to see a Czech spending lots of money trying to learn English, and often with not that great result. But the person goes to Croatia or Italy every year (and Italians are bad at English as well) and that is their only opporutity /need to communicate with a non-czech native (believe it or not, you can happily live in a small country and still not need to meet foreigners at all). Or they are living near the German borders and can't find a job in their field in the Czech Republic, and they are still learning English instead as "English leads to better jobs". Similarily, I've just met a cleaning lady in France, who can't speak French, only Spanish and some really broken and unusable English. A Polish and Czech native business partners are likely to speak English together.
8.Iversen's experience with the aquarium employee is not that rare. A friend lived in Japan for a year and could speak the langauge, she had learnt it well enough to do all the usual stuff in it. A native Czech speaker. But we were in an aquarium (what a coincidence
). And an employee insisted on using English with her without need. Firstly white=English (we were taken for americans various times and it was not always pleasant, given the context). Secondly "Japanese is too hard for foreigners, she can't be speaking it". Thirdly: "I was hired for my English skills."