What To Do When Natives Won’t Speak Spanish With You

It’s frustrating:  you spend hours and hours studying grammar rules, doing audio drills, and memorizing vocabulary words only to find out on your big trip overseas that not only do the natives speak perfect English, they actually prefer it than struggling through a conversation with you in their native language!  Although I’ve personally found this happens more in Germany and Central Europe than in Spanish-speaking countries, it’s pretty much universal in large cities.

Understand Where They’re Coming From

In many cases, it’s understandable why they’re prefer to speak English with you.  Perhaps you’re in a place of business and they’re busy and trying to help you as quickly as possible so that others won’t have to wait.  Maybe they’ve had a bad day and aren’t in the mood to indulge you.  Or maybe they’ve been working just as hard on their English as you have on your Spanish and jump at the chance to try it out on a North American.  Whatever the case, understanding their motives can help ease your frustration.  If this happens to you, follow these tips to maximize your Spanish practice.

• Respond in Spanish – If a native approaches you in English, responding in Spanish will generally get the conversation back on your terms.  It could be they simply assumed you only speak English and were trying to make things easy for you.  A Spanish reply is a strong hint that you’d prefer to speak in Spanish.
• Explain Your Preference – If they persist with English, politely explain that you appreciate their consideration, but that you traveled to their beautiful country to learn and practice Spanish.  Be positive and play to their ego, asking them to correct your mistakes as you make them.  Everybody likes to feel superior and feel like they have something of value to offer.  Most Spanish speakers will jump at the opportunity to help you out if they aren’t in a hurry.
• Don’t Push The Issue – If your Spanish isn’t great, there’s a decent chance your partner will become frustrated and attempt to switch back to English in spite of your polite explanation.  If this is the case, drop it and switch to English.  It’s not worth being rude and causing a scene and besides, they may be in a hurry or just in a bad mood.  Whatever you do, don’t take it personally.