I have not had the privilege of visiting Spain myself, although I do have some friends who have traveled there a time or two. You have given me a good excuse to call them and ask about their experience of exposure to English during their travels.

David

Sorry, David, you have misunderstood me, I`m afraid. Go there not as a traveller, not as a tourist, not as just a visitor; go there to study... or work, I suppose...

David,

I should have specified that I am definitely still exposed to English everyday.  I work in the tourist-crammed neighborhood of Paris on a daily basis, although I don't mingle much with the tourists, just see a lot of them on the way into the office and on the way back home.  50% of what I write company internal per day is in English, and probably 15-20% of verbal business communication is in English.  I learned a dear lesson during my first year in France 20 years ago when I was so fully immersed in French that I went back to the US the following year to do my MA and degree and received terrible grades on my first sets of papers (compared to what I had completed during my BA degrees).  My written language was so affected (because the only English I had written during the first year in France were letters to family, yet was writing term papers and everything else in French) that it had affected the grammar and phrasing.  It took a lot of getting back into writing in English to undo the consequences during the first term and came out OK at the end of the year when I successfully passed the written MA exams. Another 4-5 year stint in France (2 additional degrees in French) brought me back again to the USA and with having to deal with it again for articles submitted to international journals in my area of expertise.   Now for the past 10 years again in France, I've always forced myself to write a lot in English, and with the Internet and email availability, this has made it possible to maintain it.

However, the difference is that my professional work has been to work with French customers, and they tend to be very very proud of their language, and quite demanding with regard to both form and content. Language is simply an extremely important thing to them, whereas we Americans in general just see language as a way to communicate.  I'm generalizing here, but there is not the same value on language per se between the two cultures.  It would be socially and culturally unacceptable for me to communicate with clients in English here in France.  My job is to solidify the customer relationship with French clients, and this can only be done really in French.  There have been times where colleagues have come over from other countries for first time meetings with customers, and I have discussed all in French with those clients, and then we had a few minutes in English with my colleagues.  Holding those discussions completely in English would have been a hindrance to customer relationship development.   Making the specific and strategic effort to adapt to the local culture has made it work.  The clients want to talk in French, and they expect it.  And I have forced the organization to not allow itself to lean on English, but make every effort to communicate entirely with the French clientele in French (brochures, letters, marketing materials, presentations, etc).

My point was more that even though it would be possible to rely on English and use it everyday, this would very well lead the clientele to seek out other providers who would communicate in French.

On the personal stance, we have not sought out US or UK friends (since I speak with enough of them on a regular basis through work) here in France.  That is more related to the fact that my spouse is French and we live here, rather than being a completely American couple that would likely look for expatriate groups to participate in.  

I do very much enjoy coming home and talking the kids in English. It actually makes me dig back and use words I haven't heard for a long time.  I also try to say things differently to them all the time, so they can pick up different expressions. 

There are times when I get the chance to speak with people in Swahili, and I take every chance possible to talk with Creole speakers in Haitian, Martiniquan, St. Lucian, Dominican, or whatever variant of Creole they speak (my Masters and doctoral degrees were in Creole linguistics).  Maybe this helps reduce the stereotype of Americans who only speak 1 language.

One other idea to look at would be the influence and use of English in countries which border the sea (Netherlands, Portugal) versus those which are more inland (France, Germany, Austria, etc). I'm just giving European examples above, but I think that if you study the history of these types of countries, those on Ocean and seafronts were forced to international exposure and have become very good at speaking the lingua franca of each period, whereas those which are more inland will be more reserved and will prefer to communicate in their own language.  It's a topic I was discussing with someone a couple of weeks ago. 

Jeff

Very interesting, Jeff. I do believe the more inland one goes the less influence there is of “other” outside language influences. Although, with the internet reaching more and more of those once isolated areas the influence is probably changing. Border towns, for example, are notorious for having a mixed language –Spanglish (English and Spanish mixed), for example. The deeper one goes into a Spanish speaking country the less influence English has.

Using my student example given in the prior post (see Post #157397) I would guess (again, I have no proof) that if you traveled to a Spanish speaking country the chances of encountering English would be higher than encountering French. Therefore, if your goal was to not hear French for X period you would have a better chance than the English speaker not wanting to hear English.

David