I agree, Jo - and yes THEY DO. ime they are however more tolerant of it than than native English Speakers. But I see comm's frustration DAILY in the Town Hall I work at.

I've had to live and work in Germany and Spain - dealing with fortune 100 multinationals. You want to do business you'd better learn the local lingo even if the folk you're dealing with can speak English (often extremely well). Only once has my being a non-national worked in my favour - but because the customer was arrogant beyond belief and would not talk to anybody who was not US/UK.

Very rarely now will an Expat have skills unavailable locally. 15-20 years ago it was not always the case.

Doing business here (Spain) ime depends on you building a relationship with the other person. Often hard to do but long lasting if you're successful. This matters so much that it can infuriate companies who believe that the deal matters more than the relationship.

I know (first hand) folk that are just not prepared to do this - and accept they cannot deal within Spain. And no - if they cant be bothered I'm not going to do it for them. Others are prepared to and so the price goes up as they want their pound of flesh. Often kills the deal stone dead.