We've been spending most our lives livin' in an Anglicised paradise...

DISCLAIMER: This article has absolutely nothing to do with the 90s rap one hit wonder Coolio. He probably Googles himself from time to time and might come across this.

There we were, about 10 minutes into a 3 hour journey on the Italian autostrada.. air conditioning was at full blast, we were slowly but surely getting the hang of driving on the right hand side and learning the local drivers idiosyncratic inability to indicate when changing lanes. I was sitting in the back and remembered a question posed to me by someone before I jetted off: “Do you have any Italian?” - a fair question, to which I responded: “Does the word pizza count?”.

I asked the same question to my fellow travellers, hoping that when we reached our destination at least one of us would actually be able to converse in the vernacular. They admitted that they only had a few words. "How do you say ‘hello’ in Italian?” I piped up, alarmed by my own ignorance. There was an awkward silence as nobody could give an instant answer.

We resorted to making a collective effort. Firstly, we went through the greetings in other languages: ‘Salut' in French, 'Hola' in Spanish and 'Dia Duit' in Irish, attempting to uncover some logical sequence or pattern that would lead us to our answer. Fifteen minutes later, realised that the word we had been looking for was ‘ciao’. Far too obvious! Well our delay may have partly been due to a 4am start, partial dehydration and a general discomfort being in new surroundings. However it struck me that I had absolutely no Italian. None. "Well they'll all speak English when we get there" I assured myself smugly. The opposite was true.

It wasn't that they didn't speak English at all, they just had a very basic standard. The hotel staff, the waiters and the taxi drivers could barely hold basic conversation in English. Attempts to seek help when there was a problem left us flummoxed. We tried repeating the same thing numerous times, each repetition at a slower pace, as if speaking to a deaf pensioner or baby. That didn't work. Speaking French, hoping that they would be accustomed to dealing with French-speaking tourists, also left us stuck.

I was surprised. Very surprised. How come that in France, where I have gone a lot in recent years, the locals seem to have no trouble with English? In fact, they preferred practising their English than replying to any pigeon French I had attempted to construct. In Italy, this was not the case. The dialogues we had were unusual insofar as often they spoke Italian and we responded in English, somehow both convinced that we both entirely understood what the opposite party was trying to communicate.

Straight away I blamed them. ‘Their education system obviously isn't up to scratch’ and ‘How can they maintain a tourist industry of they can't even speak to their clientele?’ I hypothesised. But how dare I blame them, when it is my entitled and spoilt attitude that needs to be addressed. This piece isn't about the linguistic skills of those particular Italians I bumped into on my travels, but more so about my ignorance. As an English speaker who only uses one language 99.96% of the time (don't quote me on that stat) I have the propensity to expect foreigners to speak my language almost as a mark of respect when I'm abroad.

I will finish with a blunt lesson in foreign etiquette from French rugby player Sebastien Chabal. Maybe it's the French living up to their stubborn stereotype, or perhaps the man is highlighting our ignorance and sense of entitlement.

adiós/arrivederci/au revoir*

Gavin.

*Other languages do exist.