> My experience with the Germans not wanting to speak German with you while you stumble over everything, is simply that they want to exercise their own English, and its just not as fun for them to wait for your marble-mouthed nonsense to parse. ;)

As a German, my reason for switching to English quickly was always along the lines of "oh no, they're struggling to communicate with me! I feel bad. Let's make it easier for everyone and switch to English".

This applies especially when talking to English native speakers, but, weirdly enough, also for others - I feel better when I also have to suffer by talking in a non-native language. Doesn't really make sense, I know :)

I've talked to other Germans about this a few times and many of them agreed that this was their way of thinking in these situations.

I get that this behavior can come across as condescending and I absolutely understand the frustration about it when trying to exercise one's German skills. So nowadays, when this happens (which is quite rare anyway), I try to just stick to German.

I'm a bit puzzled why people would learn German out of all languages anyway, apart from living here obviously, so I'm always happy when someone does.

Also, I obviously can't speak for the whole German population and sadly there's definitely some xenophobia to be found wherever you look.