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’ve spent a huge amount of time in Italy and this is not my experience. Funnily enough the only time I’ve experienced extreme hostility is when they’ve thought I was German (they told me this). As soon as they realised I was English it was all sweetness and light!

Very much the language. You don't get anywhere in Italy without speaking the language.

Also, treat shops as if you are walking into private property. They aren't really considered public places - ask to look around.

Also I assumed we aren’t liked on the continent because of Brexit - if we don’t want to be part
of Europe we can fuck off thinking they’d all still want us to visit!

Not at all. Plenty of people in EU countries dislike the EU as well, they're not a monolith on that any more than the UK is.

My weird/negative experience in Italy was DH and I got openly gawped and stared at. No idea why, we're not covered in tats/piercings or anything.
Also got the police called on us when we were using a laundromat (travelling in our campervan), although the police themselves were friendly and a bit bemused.

Have never been stared at randomly in France or Spain in the camper so fuck knows what that was about.

It's interesting that so many people think that the problem is not speaking the language. My experience has been that they don't care if you speak the language in Italy and, as soon as you attempt it, they roll their eyes and even correct you! I've got basic Italian but gave up. As someone up thread said though, they did seem a bit forbidding and snooty but usually became all smiley and helpful once engaged

TBF I'm a Londoner recently moved elsewhere in the UK and I don't think that reputation is undeserved. It's every man for himself in London 🤣

Not my experience.

I did GCSE Italian a long time ago and when I went to Italy on holiday at that time, I did find that people were friendlier and chattier, because they knew I could understand a bit of Italian. But they weren't unfriendly when I went back and had forgotten a lot of it.

I've been in a queue where everyone else has asked for the tickets in English or German and I was the only one who tried in Italian. It helps that I do speak German as well, so if I'm somewhere like Lake Garda which is full of German tourists I just carry on speaking German if I see the person speaks it well.

DH and I were in Italy last month and found everyone to be very friendly and helpful.

I had tried to learn a little Italian before we went but in practice this just came down to simple greetings, please and thank you, asking for the bill etc.

I think it always helps anywhere to smile and look friendly yourself.

I find Italians friendly but they do seem to get stressed when it's very touristy, more so than other nationalities.

Also I assumed we aren’t liked on the continent because of Brexit - if we don’t want to be part
of Europe we can fuck off thinking they’d all still want us to visit

I suspect most of them don't care about possible political views when it comes to making money.

And they may also take the view that with 50% NOT voting to leave the EU, those who go on holiday are more likely to be in that 50%, especially in Italy - unlike the Daily Heil reading squad in parts of Spain.

Excellent observation.

No Italian school teaches German instead of English. The autonomous regions have 2 official languages used in schools but their official MFL language is English.
The Italian ministry of education stipulates that, in line with the CEFR for languages across Europe, Italian school kids will be at level B2 when they go into their fifth and final year.
Linguistic high schools offer a second and third MFL and students are expected to get to B1 level by 17 in those.

If any school offers German instead of English (as a MFL not as language used in schools) it must be private.

Decades ago they had French as their first MFL but it's been at least 30 years since that was the case.

That's because Germany and Italy were allies in WW2 . A lot of Italians went to Germany after WW2 to rebuild it . There is a large Italian community in Germany.

Utter rubbish.

I speak tourist Italian. My experience is usually that if I use it I get replied to in English, but not in a rude way, I just assume they want to practise their English.

Been to Italy twice, though not for some 10-12 years, and always found them lovely and friendly. I think they appreciated me trying to speak their language, even though I was terrible! 😆

Ditto the Spanish, and the French. Always found them very sweet and charming when we have been on holiday there. Again though, not been there since the late noughties. Went to Germany in 2019, and they seemed pretty friendly too. Ditto America (NYC 2015.) Friendly and pleasant. Then again, we are always very friendly too.

Maybe you came across as aloof @SoreFeets or maybe they were just having a bad day?

I don't understand why, having been more than once, your husband can't be arsed to learn anything other than thank you in Italian. Is he just rocking up with "I'll have two coffees and a vanilla ice cream, grazie" instead of saying hello (in Italian), smiling etc?

Nobody is expected to learn an entire language but this is at least your second time in Italy, with a third trip next year, it's lazy of you/your husband not to be learning some basic phrases to show the locals you're trying and not expecting a, presumably, minimum wage worker to make all the effort communicating.

I don't go anywhere without learning the following, or at least writing it down as a note on my phone if I can't remember it so it's ready when I need it:

Hello/good evening
Thank you
Please
Goodbye/goodnight
That was lovely/tasty/fantastic etc
Can you help me
Thank you for your help
Sorry/pardon
Two (insert drink/ice cream here) please
Can I have the bill please

Yeah, everywhere we have been in Europe they speak English, especially in the holiday/tourist spots, and they get loads of Brits there! I find older people don't always speak English though (65+.) And there is nothing wrong with that btw. Many people middle aged and older in the UK don't speak any other languages!

I have had the opposite. Italians have always been incredibly friendly to me and it is one of the many reasons I love going to Italy. I don’t speak a word of Italian except for greetings and thank you.

When I went to Paris when I was in my early 20s, I made sure I knew how to ask for a beer!

You're trying to find a way to blame yourself for the extremely poor/rude customer service you've experienced. You've just experienced rudeness and poor customer service. If I treated a non English speaking customer that way, it wouldn't be their fault, it would be mine. I wouldn't and don't though. Because I'm not rude and xenophobic

You mention money/change being handled abruptly, one thing in Italy is to always put money in the little tray or saucer on the shop counter. The change will also be put there too. It can be considered impolite (possibly unhygienic?) to put it directly into the hand of the shop assistant.

Although perhaps this is less of an issue now with contactless payments.

Apologies if this has been asked already OP:

• Are you white?
• Are you slim?

Have been to Italy quite a few times and never experienced anything remotely like you have, and only have a few phrases/ words of Italian (though not very accented as I'm European).

It may be different because I'm Scottish (I've heard it makes a difference in France anyway haha) but I found the people in Italy lovely, very friendly- we stayed in a small village near Sorrento- travelled into Sorrento and also to Rome. We did have our daughter with us who was only 2 at the time and she got a lot of attention but honestly everywhere we went people were so lovely.

I was in Pisa a couple of weeks ago and everyone seemed incredibly friendly. We felt bad for not really speaking Italian much beyond the basics but literally everyone in shops/restaurants/tourist hot spots spoke English without hesitation. We obviously gave off British vibes haha. But yeah I found that language didn't seem to be an issue, like I said, most people voluntarily spoke English with us, there was never really a problem.

I think as with most places, you get rude people who are just rude, not because you've done anything wrong. We had a rude waiter one night but I didn't assume he hated us, just maybe his job!