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?

I should add we weren't loud, wearing weird clothes or sporting tattoos. Go to Greece - at least they're friendly - and they had the ideas the Romans ripped off and copied.

Tourist hell hole. Like Limone. No space.

@SoreFeets oh interesting. Now I think about it, a couple of years ago we went to one of the Garda villages and had a fucking rude taxi driver (I gave him a direction and he lost the plot, shouting about how he knew his way he'd been a driver for years and years, then missed the turn) and in a theme park I got a random lecture from some rude teenager when I asked why I'd been sent to the ice cream lane to collect ice cream but they were also serving non ice cream people so all the lunches were finished. The lecture was how English people don't learn Italian. In Italian 😀

And actually another couple told us how rude everyone was to them.
So I think it's not you.

At the very least you should be asked to say hello in the local language and ask if they speak English please. My Italian isn't great but I do as much as I can until they take pity on me and switch to English

It's the height of arrogance to just start talking away in English. If your DH can't even greet people he needs to work on that.

I did notice a difference in attitude in parts or France after the Brexit vote but it was more of a puzzled and mocking vibe.

To be fair ever since we Brexited our economy has flatlined with any 0.2% increase in GDP seen as a massive win, so the I can see why the French were sniggering!

Do you speak any other languages other than English? My trick for pleasant service in Europe is to try to speak the local language, then switch to my second language if that’s not going well, and then finally settle on English since almost nobody in Europe speaks my second language.

I do find that having some basic phrases like hello, can I please order x, thank you, apologies I don’t speak x language etc go a long way.

I speak French and passable Spanish.

Even I get pissed off with entitled Brits who can't even summon a waiter, or order drinks in anything other than loud, monosyllabic English.

As pp have said, it's a minimum wage job expecting two or more languages. If you went the extra mile to learn a bit it would go a very long way op.

I was in Austria and whenever Brexit was mentioned they were generally in favour of it.

Been to Italy numerous times. Never once had this experience. The opposite in fact. I speak Italian now but the first time i went i didn't apart from the basics which i will learn for any country i go to.

If those Italians you’re referring to don’t speak English, I can guarantee you they can’t tell the difference between English and American accents, so if they treated with disdain, it’s not because they hate the English.

I've seen this kind of attitude from staff in Paris but only at very touristy restaurants where there are tons of people. Maybe try going off the beaten track, OP?

I lived in Italy for several years. They definitely don't hate the English, and I generally find waiters really friendly (obviously there are exceptions) but customer service in general is shit and e.g. shop assistants and bank tellers can be rude as anything. I learned fluent Italian but had a few friends who didn't speak a word of it and they got by, people didn't hate them, although they were maybe a bit bemused (but they were people who had chosen to LIVE in Italy).

Italy is a lovely country in many ways but there are also many other lovely countries. If I go somewhere and find the locals rude, I just don't go back.

Because they wanted the British to leave?!

I was on a bus in France and there was a loud British family getting off the bus. A Frenchman said he couldn’t wait for Brexit and half the bus laughed.

I’m autistic so I do struggle with eye contact

Okay, this may be the issue OP. Can you make eye contact? Because if you can force yourself to do that while smiling and saying 'Buongiorno' or 'Buonasera' (good evening) that will get any interaction off to a good start. It's just a little thing, but it really helps. It's the same in France - lesson no. 1 is to start off every interaction with 'Bonjour' or 'Bonsoir'. It's just basic politeness.

Nowhere you have been (in one of the British tourist hotspots of Italy-for at least the last 50 years) has any staff who speaks English, yet they all speak fluent German?

Really?

If the staff are Italian, they've been studying English since they started nursery school aged 3. If they are not Italian, they would be unlikely to be offered a job in hospitality in a tourist spot without demonstrating their capacity to speak English.

German is offered as a third language at some high schools (post 14) and a few middle schools. Unless all these people were from the autonomous regions where German is one of the official languages.

And every Italian you've come across "throws" things at you. All the people in restaurants, every activity you take part in.

Really?

Couldn't be slightly exaggerating about the mean old Italians, could you @SoreFeets ?

I've been to Italy a few times over the years and always found Italians incredibly friendly. I do make an effort to speak Italian so that might help. Not remotely fluent, just basic buying tickets and ordering foods.

Maybe you've just been unlucky.

We’ve had the opposite experience in Italy - we go to Rome every year and have always found everyone to be very friendly and welcoming.

I'm not a particularly seasoned traveller, but have been to most of the most popular countries in Europe and definitely found Italy was the country with the least tolerance for the language barrier, and that saying even a few words went a long way in softening customer service. Haven't been for a few years but am going this September and will be Duolingo-ing everyday in the run up! It's a beautiful language so I don't mind!

Are you rushing service etc along rather than taking time for small talk / niceties? In my experience Italians are generally very laid back and place importance on greetings and niceties. It is common to order drinks first before food (even in England) but they might react badly if they feel you are hurrying them up rather than going along with a slower pace of service?

We have Italians in the family and visit every year and they don’t hate the English ~ nonsense. Have never been treated with anything other than warmth ~ we bond over food, wine and football.

I will say we were in Garda once with friends and one of the group was rather posh and arrogant and that went down very badly. I think they hate bad manners and being ordered about ~ they have a very strong sense of their own self worth. I’m not saying that’s you OP but in a busy restaurant you have to be realistic too especially if you’re in the tourist trail.

I’ve had much more perfunctory service in the UK!

I was just going to post that the only place we've ever received rude service in Italy is Lake Garda. Everyone seemed so grumpy, but it was August - extremely hot and absolutely heaving, so I thought that was a factor.

We are off to Italy in about 10 days. Reading this thread I am glad of my 86 day streak on Duolingo, even if I can only say "where is the station" and "my boyfriend can't sleep in this scary room".

That's cool, I'm nervous of tonal languages, so easy to ask your way to the bank and find you've insulted someone's mother instead. 😬