Slightly offtopic: I live in a city in Brazil whose heritage is basically german so I know a lot of people trying to learn german here. A particular friend of mine used to work for an IT german company and went to Germany a couple of times and he said every time he tried to speak their language they'd frown at him or feel like "conversation's not flowing" and switch to english. Other friends living in Germany (Stuttgart, Munich, Berlin) and also in Switzerland (Zurich) said the same happens to them with some frequency. I never heard about it happening with other languages or in other countries, so why is that? Any germans out there care to comment on this?
Edit: just to make it clear, this is purely out of linguistic curiosity
Edit: just to make it clear, this is purely out of linguistic curiosity