How to Be Polite in a Foreign Language

The two main circumstances where you could do this are when the face threat is so mild, it hardly matters. If there's a fire and you need to evacuate, nobody stands on ceremony. Asking someone to pass you to salt at dinner may not require very much in the way of politeness dances. My guess is that people who are in a foreign country learning a foreign language are probably over polite for fear of doing something stupid. But yeah, I think sometimes learners might overdo it.