WaiterвЂ™s English may also be only very basic, enough to take orders but not much more. Less so in more general supermarkets, shops and out of the main tourist centers. This includes staff in hotels, restaurants, and tourist shops and destinations. Rome вЂ“ The vast majority of the people on the well worn tourist paths will know enough English to do their jobs. Take each comment as a summary of the most common general tourist account of how widely spoken English is in each city. Here is a quick overview of the reported prevalence of English speakers in different Italian cities commonly visited by tourists and businessmen. Elsewhere you cannot really count on English being widely spoken and having some basic Italian will really help you.

Put simply, if you are dealing with people who are dealing with tourists a lot in the main cities, you should be mostly fine. In places like Sweden on Holland you can pretty much count on anyone on the street understanding English and being able to reply easily вЂ“ not so much in the Mediterranean countries.вЂќ White-collar workers and people who travel a lot for work will probably speak it better, but donвЂ™t count on being able to communicate in English while visiting the country. Only the high-end stores and restaurants have employees who speak English. вЂњI have very few Italian friends who can speak even passable English. A pocket dictionary should sufficeвЂ¦or a list printed out and taken with you of some important words and phrases.вЂќДЄnd other good account of the general low level of English speakers from a native Italian: Only Romans have a reputation for being grumpy, and that really only happens much in the heat of the late summer ). And even in smaller places where they donвЂ™t speak much English, Italians tend to be very friendly and will try to work with you to figure things out. вЂњEnglish is really hit or miss when you look at the country as a whole, but in some of the major cities with a lot of travelers like Rome, Milan, Florence- people tend to have a decent amount of English to work with people coming in and out of town. Here is a good summary of the prevalence of English as a whole across Italy and in the major cities: It Italy as with other Mediterranean countries, you will need to learn a bit of the native language to help you get by easier. In Southern European countries like Spain and Italy, this is not the case and the proportion of English speakers is much lower, with many of this minority only able to grasp very basic English as well. In countries like the Netherlands and Sweden you can expect pretty much 8 or 9 out of every ten people you meet on the street to understand and be able to fluently speak English. This is where the contrast between Northern and Southern Europe starts to become more clear. Therefore it will help enormously for tourists to have some basic Italian phrases learned before visiting there.

Many of this one third proportion will only be able to speak very basic English however truly fluent English speakers are actually quite rare in Italy and will usually be students and well educated professionals. Recent estimates suggest that about 34% or just over a third of Italians are able to speak English. It is not advised to visit Italy without learning at least some basic Italian phrases, since you cannot count on every person you meet being able to speak English. Italy is a very popular tourist destination for English speakers, and receives millions of tourists every year from the US and UK alone, but how widely spoken is English in Italy? Will you be able to get by with just English traveling to this wonderful country?Д®nglish is not very widely spoken overall in Italy, although there is a reasonable prevalence of English speakers in larger cities like Rome, Florence and Milan.

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