As a school student I was taught French by a dedicated but very Aussie nun. Two wasted years later I discovered the excitement of learning from a teacher who had spoken French to the French in France. Sadly, too late, in 1979 I don't think Parisiennes even registered that my butchered accent was an attempt at their mother tongue! Australians are isolated on an enormous English speaking (apologies to our Aboriginal language speakers) island where everyone is expected to speak English. And because we just happen to speak the language which has become the modern common tongue, most people do. Being blessed to be able to travel I feel it is the right thing to do to make an effort to speak the national language. We walked in Northern Spain about 9 years ago, and enjoyed communicating using the limited Spanish we had because in the rural areas there were few English speakers. It's not always like that. The train conductors in Germany seem to be polyglots who can tell what language you speak just by looking at you, and will address you in perfect English straight off! To an Australian that is amazing. Ok, so what I'm getting at is I have the opportunity to visit Germany again, next time I'd like to speak Deutsch.