> I visited Florida once and was "mistaken" for a local ... people there immediately assumed I would understand... Spanish That used to happen to me in Germany

> I visited Florida once and was "mistaken" for a local ... people there immediately assumed I would understand... Spanish That used to happen to me in Germany, even though my German is limited to "noch ein Bier, bitte." Whereas in France (where I lived as a kid and used to have native fluency), people would immediately switch to English. I asked one Frenchman, "why?" The answer was, "You sound French but you look Australian or maybe South African." "No, I'm American." "That can't be; Americans don't speak French like that."