Visit Day language of communication?

[maelia8]

This may seem insignificant, but I thought I'd ask anyway:

 

I study German history, and I do almost all of my research with German-language sources. I've lived in Germany for over three years, I speak the language extremely fluently, and I wrote one of my undergraduate theses in German. 

 

I am going to a visit day next weekend, and the professor I will be meeting with (a POI and potential advisor/mentor) is a professor of German history as well as being a native of Germany. Would it be appropriate to ask if he'd like to chat in German or in English? Should I take my cue from him (what language he addresses me in)? Would suggesting or offering to speak in German come off as pretentious/rude, or friendly? Normally when I meet native German speakers in the USA I immediately start speaking German with them (because it generally makes a favorable impression), but I'm not sure what the etiquette is in this case. 

[kdavid]

I'd start by greeting him in German and see how it goes. As he is the "senior," I'd defer to whichever language he chose.

 

Of course, if you end up working together, there's a good chance you'll shift back and forth often.

[TMP]

go with "Hello Professor..." and see how he responds.  But honestly, I've never heard of cases where advisers and advisees speak in any language but English (except for language departments).  I would just go in expecting English since it's the business language of our discipline in the US.

[thedig13]

Vaguely interesting anecdote: At a prospective student weekend, I ran into a pair of current graduate students who were Latin Americanists. When they found out that I briefly studied in Argentina, they asked me if I knew Spanish. Just to show off a bit, I responded in Spanish, and then we chatted in Spanish for about 2 minutes. It was pretty fun until I realized that my Spanish can't hold a candle to a native speaker's.

 

I've also heard graduate students (one non-native-speaking Americanist and two native-speaking Latin Americanists) chat in Spanish at a bar, so I guess it happens occasionally.

 

OP: If you want to show off a bit, find a clever excuse to squeeze a line of German into a conversation and see where the professor takes it from there. To be frank, though, if he/she has seen your application and/or knows you've lived in Germany, he/she has probably already assumed that you're a fluent speaker.