I live in Japan and this has helped me come to a conclusion about communication in which at least one person is working outside of their native language. Communication between two people who don't share a native language is a tricky thing at times. In my opinion perfect communication between two people starts with the involved parties using some of both acceptable languages. Over time you feel out each other's ability in the foreign language. Eventually if you realize that one person has a higher skill level you stick to that language. To put it plainly, if I'm talking to someone whose English is far better than my Japanese, I stick with English. If my Japanese is better than their English I stick with Japanese. In this way you get the most out of your communication.
What gets really annoying is when you're dealing with someone who refuses to, or is unable to, follow this basic pattern. This mostly happens to me because Japanese people don't often get chances to talk to native speakers of English. This is fine when the obstinate person's English is acceptable or good, the problem is when their English is poor or abysmal. I've run into this many times and it gets more and more annoying the longer I live here. Not to mention, the longer I live here the better my Japanese gets and so more people seem to me to have poor English.
My worst experience with this was at the immigration office when I was trying to get my visa renewed. Despite the fact that I kept using good Japanese with him, the clerk at the window kept plugging away with his broken English that he had clearly learned at a seminar about five years ago. I can understand not wanting to feel like the few hours you spent were wasted, and if I didn't speak any Japanese, as some people who go to that office, I would be grateful for his broken English. But despite all that I was annoyed that he kept trying to force out English creating dialogs such as:
"Here is my completed form, I trust that everything is acceptable."
"This...revenue stamp! You. Stamp!"
"If you would like to speak Japanese with me, that would be fine sir. I am not sure I understand the problem that you are trying to explain to me."
"Money. You need pay."
"Please, if you would not mind explaining this in Japanese I think it would go faster."
"........money?"
"May I pay here?"
"No. You go, down. Pay at the...the...post."
"Do you mean that I should pay at the post office downstairs?"
*nods*
Everything I said was in Japanese and everything he said was in English. Clearly I could understand Japanese, it isn't as if I was reading haltingly from a phrase book. I was even carrying a Japanese novel that I was reading while I was waiting in line. There were more than enough clues that I could speak Japanese just fine. Clearly he just didn't care. I try to keep this in mind when I'm talking to Japanese people who can speak English. I might want to to practice, but if the communication is to some end then sticking to English might be helpful. If communication is the end, then different rules apply. I recommend that anyone who regularly communicates in different languages keep this in mind. You may not realize it, but your attempts to practice might be annoying someone else.
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