It's been around two months since I moved to Sweden, currently taking classes for Swedish, but I find myself defaulting to English. The more I am in Sweden the more I notice the whole "everyone speaks perfect English in Sweden" thing is a bit of a fallacy, many immigrants (which make up about 20% of the pop) and older native Swedes do not speak English or speak it at a very low level.
I've found myself now asking "do you speak English?" before I interact with people here in Sweden, just out of a courtesy, as a non-native English speaker myself did not think it'd be an issue. But I have definitely noticed I'm given the cold shoulder by a few people, like the body language is "of course I speak English duh!". I'm now not sure if I should ask "do you speak English?" or just go right in with English? If I say it in Swedish "pratar du engelska?" would that just come off as patronizing?
I'm curious in your travels what's the experience with asking "do you speak English?" or is it rude to ask that?