[Magyarphile]

Spot on, GK. The other problem with German is it isn't just one language. Most people from the German-speaking world speak dialects, some highly divergent from the standard language. The net result is you can speak perfect hochdeutsch and they will automatically know you are a foreigner. If they want to keep you out of the loop, they just switch to their native dialect. Like you say, they don't want you to learn the language. Its a strange place...