Italians do some fast talking

The country's citizens are scrambling to reverse their indifference to English.
ROME (AP) -- The dolce vita days for Italy's lazy language learners are gone.
For a long while, Italians got away with ignoring the growing use of English as a lingua franca in the world and especially in Europe. If nothing else, they had that almost acrobatic lexicon of hand gestures to help communicate with foreigners.
But Italians are finally grappling with the harsh reality that a solid grasp of English is needed to win good jobs and enter prestigious universities. They're scrambling to enroll in newly opened language schools, cramming in private lessons at home or office, and booking vacations for their kids at English-language camps in England, Ireland and Scotland.
"Italians, if they don't learn English, they're doomed," said Marco Incerti, a research fellow in Brussels, Belgium at the Center for European Policy Studies, an independent think-tank which ponders the continent's future.
In Brussels, political and bureaucratic hub of the 25-nation European Union, "English is not even considered a second language. It's something you speak as a matter of fact," said Incerti, who is Italian.
'We're behind'
Ilaria Sasso, who is from Rome, first saw the English writing on the wall eight years ago, when she was 15 and living with a family in England to improve her school-taught English.
"There were two younger Russian children who spoke better than me and a Turkish kid who spoke so fast I couldn't keep up," Sasso recalled, sounding still amazed.
"I've seen that English is the first thing employers ask about," said Sasso, a business communications major at Sapienza University. "People are realizing this, that we're behind."
Statistics
EU surveys bear Sasso out.
Italy is No. 15 in a country-by-country ranking of percentages of people in the EU who speak English as a second language. Among newcomers to the union, three countries outrank Italy's 28 percent; two are former British colonies, Malta with 84 percent, and Cyprus with 27 percent, but even Estonia -- with no British connection -- has 29 percent.
At 36 percent, Greece, with its proud ancient language roots, also outstrips Italy.
The rankings are top-heavy in northern and central European countries, including Denmark (79 percent), Sweden (76 percent); the Netherlands (75 percent); Austria (55 percent) and Finland (50 percent).
Few people speak Italian in the European Union other than Italians. By comparison, English is spoken by 47 percent of the European Union's 455 million people.
Most of the newest EU nations are from Eastern Europe, where mastering English was equated decades ago with a better life.
Many universities in EU nations outside of Britain now offer masters programs exclusively in English.
Closing the gap
Italians are doing what they can to close the language gap.
Luciano Cacciamani was so desperate to learn English well that he left his mother's pastas and marinated fish dishes behind to spend half a summer making hamburgers in a fast-food place in a sleepy Connecticut town. After the grease got to him, he spent the rest of the summer in California, making beds at a spa, all for a chance to chat in English with guests and workers.
"You have to go abroad to learn English well," said Cacciamani, who studied English, German and Spanish in school and now is a book translator.
While English has been taught in Italian public schools for years, and became mandatory last year, many students complain they can't speak it.
"The emphasis is on rote learning and grammar rules" in Italian schools, said Anna Searle, director of the British Council's teaching center, who noted that annual seminars to help Italians learn better methods of teaching English are now popular.
"Spoken English" is the most popular request at The British Centre, whose four English language schools in Rome advertise heavily on city buses. It's an institution that opened five years ago with 40 students. Now there are 3,500, said director Daniela Moretti.