I can speak to this from the point of view of a non-local interacting in her native language - in this case, the location is Belgium, and when I had to speak to the police in an emergency, I went into total language-block from my panic, and had to complete the task in English. I felt very badly about that, though (I'm a bit proud of my Dutch-language accomplishment) so when I had to follow up the phone call, I succeeded in staying calm enough to actually do the second, and rather less panicked, call in Dutch. Melanie