Butcher the language ??...... dominicans butcher spanish just fine w/o the help of foreigners.......
I always come out with my story :
My parents, eldery folks, took spanish classes at geneva university.
The first day, the teacher was asking why they wanted to learn spanish. My mother answered that her son ( that would be me ) was marrying a dominicana, and so it was to be able to communicate with the new family-in-law.
The teacher, a mexican, laughed and said : dominicans ?? You are not in the right place then !!!!!
As for dominicans answering in english..... never happens to me....... i would have appriciated it at first though, lol. Probably due to me being in the campo, though.
But even retirees from the states dont speak english to me. Maybe it means my spanish/dominican is getting better ??
To be honest, the first year, i did have some problems communicating, at times.
And there were 2 diffrent types of people :
The patient ones, who would reformulate so i could try and understand, or who would ask me again ( and again, and again ) what i was saying.
A big thanks to those guys.
And the others, who wouldnt make the slightest effort. Not a problem since I was the odd one out, not speaking spanish.
To those ones, well tough poo-poo for them. They didnt, and still dont, get my buisness i say buisness, cos obviously in a purely social context, in my experience, dominicans are very prone to make the effort of understanding/be understood. Much more than we would back home in europe, if a foreigner doesnt speak the local language or english...... he is up sh.it creek w/o a paddle.