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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Italians’ bad English ‘deters foreign business’

Some foreign business executives are frustrated that their Italian counterparts either can't, or won't, speak English, something they argue deters foreign investment. The Local finds out whether or not an aversion towards English is, in fact, a major drawback for Italy's economy.

Italians' bad English 'deters foreign business'
Photo: Flickr

When international business leaders and Italy’s prominent politicians met on Monday to discuss the country’s future, the conference was billed as an English-language event.

But after Prime Minister Enrico Letta summed up the state of the country’s economy in English, panelists discussing the future for business in Italy then chose to speak in Italian.

It was a decision that frustrated Norwegian delegate Elisabeth Holvik, chief economist at the Oslo-based bank, Sparebank 1, who felt it was "unfair to those who had travelled thousands of miles" to the Rome event, organized by the Financial Times.  She aired her views during the question and answer session.

Speaking to The Local after the conference, she said her frustration mainly stems from her experience of grappling with business processes in Italy, where she has a number clients.

"The country’s system of doing business is a further barrier. It’s so complicated you really need someone locally to understand and translate everything," she said.

Though delegates at the conference were offered translation headsets, Holvik said using them is difficult as words can be lost in translation.

The panelists under the spotlight effortlessly switched into English once prompted, suggesting using Italian is seen as a choice rather than a necessity.

Holvik believes the inability, or reluctance, among Italians to speak English is an impediment for Italy, adding that they "need to change their approach" in order to compete more effectively at an international level.

“If you really want other foreigners to invest in Italy, you should make the effort to make them feel welcome; the first thing is to use the international business language, English,” she said.

Her views were echoed by Luigi Viglione, a lawyer in Rome, who believes an inability to speak English "closes the door to foreign business". 

"It is an obstacle. For example, whenever I need to translate a document for a foreign client, I have to pay for an interpreter, as I only know basic English and have nobody among my staff who can do it. This can get very costly," he told The Local.

Carmelo Brunetta, a businessman in Rome, says that many of Italy's top executives are, in fact, fluent in English, and often other languages.

"Problems might arise for foreign companies here when hiring lower-level staff, but that's irrelevant," he told The Local.

But for Holvik, the decision among business leaders to speak Italian when they are fluent in English represents “an attitude problem”.

“They perceive themselves as very cultural and the idea of adapting to others is harder than for those from other small, open countries such as Norway, where we know that we have to communicate [in English],” she said.

Fabrizio Goria, a financial reporter for the news site Linkiesta, questioned the impact the choice of language has on Italian business success in a column after the event.

"Perhaps this is why businesses in Italy attract so little foreign investment? But perhaps it is also about mentality, with little inclination towards foreign cash flows,” he wrote online.

Despite the drawbacks a lack of English might cause businesses in Italy,  Viglione believes attitudes are gradually changing.

“English is the number one language in the world, so it is important. I think people are beginning to realize this, especially because of the recession,” he said.

“The younger generation is starting to understand how important languages are, especially English,” Viglione said.

In order to speed up the process and boost business prospects, Holvik said Italy needed to increase the use of English at every level of society.

“They should be more conscious about the need to be better at languages,” she said.

“Make it a national campaign to increase interest and focus in schools to learn English. You need to learn from a young age that you need to communicate. You can’t just wait for people to come to you to be part of the global economy."

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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