Do Italians hate the English or is it the language barrier?

[SoreFeets]

Currently in beautiful Italy. Love it here but we appear to be hated by the staff in most places, especially food/drink settings.

This week alone we’ve had receipts thrown at us, we went to pay for a coffee in a little shop and the woman wouldn’t even look at us, took the money, looked really pissed off and immediately moved on to the next customer without a word (but was happy and smiley with them).

DH hired some bikes and had the keys thrown at him without a word.

Last night in a restaurant the waiters were deliberately tending every table but ours until DH caught the attention of one of them - waiter then took our drinks order but when we tried to order food he threw the menus back onto the table and walked off!! He then said something to another waiter who looked at us and laughed. Nobody came back to take the food order.

Now this exact same thing happened in Rome a few years ago, everyone just seemed to hate us. We would try to book a table in a restaurant and they would say it was full … before letting someone else in 😂

so I looked it up last night and I found no suggestion of Italians having a problem with English …. But what I did find was Italians have no time for people who have not bothered to learn the language.

Is this the problem? I have tried to learn a bit of Italian before coming but nowhere near enough which is obviously my fault. DH doesn’t speak a word of Italian other than Grazie.

We’re coming back next year and I aim to be practically fluent in Italian in that time! AIBU to think/hope we’ll have a totally different experience?

Ha ha, the idea that we are hated on for having an empire by the fucking Spanish and French of all people is wild!

Also last time the Italians had an empire we British ended up as their slaves.

This is it, isn’t it? The ‘English’ language has very few Indigenous words in it. We have Latin rooted words from our time as a colony of the Roman Empire, we have Germanic words from the Saxons and the Vikings, the Norman invasion put a layer of French over it.

I wonder if that posters FIL is American. There is some sort of mad movement in some parts of the US over there that codes Southern Europeans as "not white", somehow completely ignoring the fact that a. They are white and b. Italy, Spain and Portugal all committed awful colonial atrocities in Central and South America, Asia and Africa.

But you get rude people in our service industry, who are probably rude to Italians at some stage. Do Italians then think all English people hate Italians.

Yes I think it is because indigenous people from South America speak Spanish and are called ‘Hispanic’ people - so Americans conclude that Spanish people are also indigenous South Americans, not white colonisers?

Ahh possibly! Still mad though.

I’m sure Mediterranean white Europeans are more than happy to get off the hook and class themselves as ‘Black and Minority Ethnic’ in America to duck the blows.

Try Romania. They are friendly, better value for money, less tourists but some fantastic historic sites from Ottaman Empire, parts were in Austria Hungarian Empire so high cultural attractions, fantastic scenery and they have no problem with the English, or if you really want to be welcomed as English person then North Macedonia is the place to go.

Sorry, while I still have a bee in my bonnet. This idea that ‘White Europeans’ are empire builders and colonisers. I am sure that the people of Tibet would have something to say about the Chinese, for a start.

I mean, we definitely were colonisers and empire builders, just not the only ones at it.

This is true, and there are currently countries live at it today and they aren’t European. It’s a nonsense to keep banging on about the British Empire as though it’s a live issue.

Me and my husband are just back from a week in Italy. Before we went my husband got the Babbel app. He somehow thought he would be paying a few pounds a month for it but it took the yearly price out all at once so he decided he would have to get his money's worth and he studied hard for a couple of months. I was sceptical but it was actually really lovely. He tried really hard and spoke Italian to everyone and mostly people responded very nicely. He had lots of laughs and back slapping and help when he got things slightly wrong. I could tell that the atmosphere warmed up when we were trying. I was a bit fish out of water but did my best too. Where we were it was incredibly busy with all nationalities and I could see how difficult it must be for the workers, pretty relentless really. I'm a good watcher and I wouldnt say any nationalities were treated any better or worse.

That was the thinking, about a hundred years ago.

I agree with this. I lived in Germany for many years, and if I had a euro for every time someone told me that 'English beat German by one vote to be the official language of the US', I'd have, well, an awful lot of euros. I've just googled to see where this massively popular but untrue urban legend comes from, and it actually has a name (according to Wikipedia anyway), the 'Muhlenberg legend', if anyone wants to read about it!

I remember once, a long time ago, chatting to this man from the Netherlands, whose English was so good he pretty well sounded like a native speaker, but was moaning about how unfair it was that native English speakers had privilege over everyone else who had to learn it as a foreign language. I pointed out that it was a bit daft for a white, straight, able-bodied man who had all the advantages of growing up in one of the richest and most developed countries in the world to be complaining about unearned privilege, but he had a real bee in his bonnet about it.

DH says it is because England tried to take over the world and treated indigenous populations abominably in the process.

well if the Spanish or Italians want to judge us on that basis it’s a bit rich 😂

Been to Italy many times. My daughter lived there and speaks fluent Italian. Mine is basic, but I definitely try. Never had an issue with rude Italians, apart from the odd one.
I have found them friendly and welcoming.

Be honest you have said the following

“SPEAK ENGLISH!!??”
”ENGLISH!!”

”YOU WOULD HAV TO SPEAK ENGLISH IN ARE CUNTRY!!!””

”HANDS OFF ARE ROCK GIBRALTAR!!”

I'm also a bit puzzled by this. I've always had very good service in Italy, definitely much better than the other European country where I live and speak the language fluently.

Where I live has 'different' customer service and somebody barely speaking to me and not smiling can be quite normal and not meant maliciously so one possibility is just that OP is a bit sensitive.

I can guarantee that doesn't work. Trying to explain around Europe that Wales is not part of England is very, very difficult.

That's totally not my experience. As a pp has noted, in very touristy areas all customer service people speak English and the last thing they want to do is help you with your basic Italian (or whatever). You'd have to intermediate at least to be better than them in English.

Brits and alcohol is definitely an issue in some places, but not really in most of Italy. This doesn't explain it imo.

I've had some bad experiences in London, but I understand it's likely to do with the high-stress, rushing everywhere environment of a very large city and not a reflection on Londoners being either better or worse people than anyone else.

I spent a few weeks in Friui Venezia Giulia. People there spoke German and even some Slovenian (or it could have been Croatian, but the bordering one) and very little English. Totally logical considering the location.

We go every year and we do so because of how friendly we found the Italians! Incredibly funny, warm and upbeat nation.

The French on the other side… 😔

"• Restaurant owners really hate customers who see eating pasta as the main meal and clog up the tables taking ages over eating it. The pasta course is not supposed to be instead of the expensive meat and fish mains. It wouldn’t surprise me if Brits are the worst for doing this."

I've never had a problem doing this. I did a whole week in Umbria having starter and pudding without a single complaint and lots of friendly chatting. My friend spoke Italian, but the waiters prefer to show off their English, French, Spanish and German.
They must know that not everyone can handle their four course meals.

I can imagine that Lake Garda is so busy that the attitude might be different though...