Quote from: Gronthaing on December 19, 2014, 02:16:59 AM

Quote from: gentlemand on December 19, 2014, 01:55:18 AM

Quote from: Gronthaing on December 19, 2014, 01:47:44 AM

Quote from: PandaMac on December 18, 2014, 02:55:18 PM

To be honest, it's not worth the effort to learn a whole new language and give up on English. Learning a language past 20 years of age is incredibly difficult.

You wouldn't be giving up on English. And kids learn languages much easier, but learning a new language if you have to deal with it everyday isn't that hard. Then, most people there know some English anyway, making the process easier.

In my time there I came across hardly anyone who spoke English. French is the most common second language. Maybe I wasn't hanging out in the right places. It's a pretty easy language to learn.

That's weird. Were you there recently (these last couple of decades)? And in urban areas? I would imagine most students these days pick English over French or German. But I can see that in more rural areas that might not be true.

This was around 2000 or so. It was about 50km outside Bologna but I was all over Italy.