2 different languages in conversations

I hear a case where 2 native speakers of 2 different languages, such as Russian and English, each speak the other's native language to the other. That is, the native English speaker speaks Russian to the Russian and vice versa.

My question is, Why doesn't the opposite occur, where the native English speaker speaks _English_ to the Russian and the Russian speaks Russian to the native English speaker? Wouldn't that do better for the input of the two, making sure they can understand each other before each attempts to speak the other's language? Wouldn't this be more in line with Antimoon?

What I see instead are people who assume that if the person can't speak it, they can't listen to it. I guess it's in line with, "It's rude to speak to people in a language they can't understand [except babies and children of course]"? Perhaps if they were more insistent on being rude, people would learn languages better?

Perhaps this is a sub-conscious attempt by native speakers to prevent non-native adults from becoming native?

I've never heard of such a thing happening, although I have seen the opposite. Ie, Americans speaking English to a Hispanic speaking Spanish.

I've seen Spanish and Italian or Italian and French, but with Italians it's easy: they speak with hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVCuyrPk7P4

As far as I've heard, this was the case in the Apollo-Sojus mission. To my mind, it is to ensure that both parts have equal chances to understand the other. If they would talk their respective mother tounges, they would propably not realize the other doesn't understand it. So, if they both struggle with the language of the other, respectively, they are forced to communicate on a level each of them understands.

I have heard of a case where 3 were spoken.

As Guest Tue Sep 23, 2008 9:37 am GMT said:
I've never seen that happening. However, I oftenly speak Dutch to a Frisian, where the Frisian person speaks Frisian to me. Sometimes it's even possible to speak Gronings dialect to a German. Usually I speak German in Germany of course. :)