Benny Lewis (Fluent in 3 Months[1]) says he doesn't speak English, if people try to switch. His approach is basically go to pubs and try to speak from day 1.

On the other end there's Khatzumoto (All Japanese All The Time[0]) who spoke as late as possible, getting as much exposure as possible first (had Japanese audio on 24 hours a day for 18 months).

After 18 months of "input-first" learning, he did a phone interview with a Japanese company and was treated as a native speaker (and hired and moved to Japan).

Benny's method is about getting a "workable" level as quickly as possible (at the risk of forming bad habits in accent early on, misusing grammar & vocabulary).

Khatzumoto's method (based on linguist Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis) is about getting a solid model for the language, which the brain builds naturally through constant exposure, before speaking or writing a great deal.

For more on these methods check out their respective sites. As an introvert I prefer the "listen first, speak only when necessary" approach, rather than "go out and make an ass of yourself from day 1" :)

[0]: https://ajatt.com/

[1]: https://fi3m.com/

No affiliation, but I have great respect for both, and have benefited from their advice tremendously.

Stephen Krashen's Input Hypothesis says that you need comprehensible input. Immersion as a complete beginner does not give you much comprehensible input. He advocates that you need what you listen to be 95% understandable, which means you have to start with very, very basic input. Personally, I find 50 - 60% is good enough for me to improve if only slowly. I went to France this year after 7 months of listening to French for 2 hours a day. During that 7 months I went from DELF A1 level material (complete beginner) to YouTube videos from native speakers talking about things that interest me (such as physics). I took a French immersion course in France and was tested at the beginning as B1 level. So, the input hypothesis method got me from complete beginner to intermediate in 7 months without immersion. I did not do any speaking until after 5 months of listening.

That's interesting. I learned of it second hand, and must have got the wrong idea. I thought the whole point was that it's the way everyone learns their first language, as babies? When you start, nothing is comprehensible. But with enough input, everything becomes comprehensible!

I second this.

I lived in a bland, boring commuter suburb of Paris for 2 months to improve my French. Completely different to central Paris which I came to hate as much as the French. Even my poor French trumped people's willingness to switch to English, and many people in the suburbs speak very little English. So it's possible to get immersion even in a city like Paris.

I feel the need to comment on my original post to clarify (as it appears I may have been misunderstood)...

I strongly dislike Paris - the city - not Parisians or non-Parisian French living there.

I dislike it the same way I dislike London. To someone like me, more at home in the countryside, it's just a noisy, sprawling, unclean armpit of a place. My opinion (and one shared by many French people I spoke to) is that Paris is no longer French in the same way that London is no longer English. They effectively operate as city states.

I really dislike this cliche that Parisians are rude. It is absolutely untrue, and usually the product of tourists not understanding French culture and inadvertently causing offence. It is also a product of people only visiting the hellhole tourist areas. Like most French people I wouldn't dream of going to those areas unless you paid me!

As an unbias observer (neither a proper local, nor a proper tourist) I can definitely say that the rudeness of tourists far far outweighs the rudeness of the locals. In fact, I don't recall any direct rudeness from locals at all. On the other hand, seeing tourists behave in a disrespectful manner was a daily occurrence.

Parisians are a whole different breed of people. Actually, that's too nice. They're assholes. I watched my Quebecois travelling companion speak in perfect French to a counter person, who virtually sneered at him before ignoring him completely and speaking to me in English. They've got being rude down to an art form, truly. Outside the city though, we got treated like long lost cousins - all due to his French. Same experience in Italy with an Italian speaking travel partner. Paris is, um, special, no doubt.

My wife speaks pretty decent French, which leads to amusing scenarios in Paris where she speaks in French to a person who insists in replying in (sometimes poor) English. Often they both persevere in the opposite languages to their own, leading to a weird inversion of what you would imagine would be the most efficient communications strategy!

I would guess there might be a few motivations for people to do this though, not necessarily just rudeness. Misplaced helpfulness, wanting to save face by not switching languages back, practicing English, who knows?

(What's really funny is when they finally give up and revert to French and then address a question to me - only for me to shrug with embarrassment and tell them I don't speak French.)

Does your wife have an alternative language to switch to? Maybe trump their English with a couple of sentences of German, or Spanish?

I wouldn't advocate being an asshole usually, but for Parisians speaking in English at you to be snobs, just compliment them on their impeccable English skills and suggest that means they must have some Englishman blood in them.

It may have also been what your friend said — French people are quite formal compared to Canadians and Americans — I know some French and was corrected a couple of times based on how I started the conversation: “Good evening” first, then start... most Americans at least don’t talk that way

Another 'politeness' example that can often trip people up is 'tu' offending people in France in situations where it would be perfectly normal in Quebec.

Everybody says this about Parisians, but I haven't found it to be true. I've visited Paris 3 times for a total of almost 3 weeks and met very few rude people. I've met a lot more assholes in Manhattan than in Paris. Of course, I follow the French rules of politeness. I always start with "Bonjour/Bonsoir" and always finish any visit with "Merci, bon journée/soirée, Au revoir." On the other hand, I've seen plenty of rude behavior by American tourists who just start speaking English to French people without any greeting or any attempt at French.

Canadian French is very different from France's, be it the accent, the idioms, the vocabulary.

As a native French speaker travelling in Montreal, I often found it easier to talk English with French speaking people, to my great shame.

I recall a simple transaction with a cashier in a supermarket, and having her repeat the simplest things (like "hello") a couple time because I had no idea what she was saying or if she even was speaking French, this was awfully embarrassing.

Although I agree, Parisians are asshole.

Parisians are SO awful. I studied abroad there for a year and was shocked to find that many of them (especially women my age -- and I'm a woman) were nastier than New Yorkers. All the French friends I made were a) not native Parisians and b) mostly male. But I spent Spring Break in the South of France and most people there were supremely kind and tolerated my accented French.

This is a myth, just as it's a myth that New Yorkers are rude horrible people who will yell at you in the street.

I'd argue that there is a surprisingly homogeneous distribution of horrible people throughout the big cities of the world.

Quebec French sounds very different to European French.

Weird. My partner and I visit Paris annually for weeks at a time. I've had maybe one or two rude experiences that I can think of. Everyone else I've encountered has been pleasant.

I am a very fat American tourist who has spent a total of two months in Paris in my life. I never met any impatience with my terrible terrible French from any Parisians at all.

How I truly wish I had had your experience. I'll be honest, I haven't been back in over a decade so maybe things are better now. That would be great.

I've been visiting Paris for 40+ years and I've noticed a distinct difference in sentiment over the past 5-10. Perhaps it's the younger generation or the freedom of movement within the EU or some other factors.

Good to know - I visited Paris at the end of the eighties, with friends, and it was a terrible experience. After two days we fled the city. I was yelled at when trying to buy metro tickets, because my pronunciation and word selection was slightly off - I remember I literally backed away several steps from the counter. Restaurants.. all bad. We met a total of two nice people, one young guy with a button which said he would speak English, and an old woman who didn't speak a word of English but still came running when she saw us studying a map. They were both very helpful. Everybody else? Not very much. Not at all, really. Train stations, other public services - speak perfect French, or get ignored (at best).

And at that time I had been travelling to lots of countries for years, and I never had any trouble communicating with people. Big cities, villages at mountain tops, desolated island towns. People were nice everywhere. Except for Paris.

If that has changed for the better recently then that's truly good news.

I confess I was surprised myself.

Not everyone has these choices available.

I am in Norway and am from the US. Kids now learn English when starting school at 6: My spouse (in his early 40's) started learning later. Advertising is half english and half Norwegian. English language television has subtitles instead of dubbing and "Norwenglish" exists. To make matters worse, I'm in an urban area.

I only know one native english speaker here in Norway.

It took some time before I could use norwegian in everyday activities: Before I had a certain level, folks would just switch to English. Heck, I still get folks switching over and I'm firmly at an intermediate level (at least, I don't consider myself fluent). Honestly, the best resource I could have is to be around elderly folks - or sometimes folks about my mother's age - because this age group is less likely to know english, not understand it, and/or not speak it as well.