You’re using English now.

If English were not considered absolutely essential to one’s personal progress, parts of the English-speaking world – including Malta – would not have a thriving TEFL industry, teaching (or trying to teach) English as a foreign language to those who are desperate to acquire at least a basic understanding of it.

If Malta had not been colonised by the British, it would have been just another desperate island off Sicily. Good luck with that.

The trouble with you is that you are unable to detach the language from the coloniser. They are two separate things. The coloniser gave us the language, and that means a massive advantage which is absolutely indisputable, though you try valiantly to dispute it.

The Italians speak only Italian, but without English, the Maltese would have spoken only Maltese, and the consequences of that would have been dire for society, education and the economy. You only have to consider the fate of the many Maltese who speak nothing else to see what the problems are at merely a personal level.

People like you make me desperate.

People don’t learn English because they are Anglophiles, or because they were colonised by the British. The latter is not a reason – it’s a massive advantage.

People learn English because it is what is known as the ‘lingua franca’ – the language used for communication internationally and at every convention or conference where people from all over the world participate. Then there’s the internet, films, books, a whole world out there – from which you are excluded if you know no English.

And no, Italian doesn’t cut it. Nor does Spanish, or French, or Chinese or Russian.

Learn those other languages by all means, but they are no substitute for English.

Italian is definitely poxy – it is a minority language.

I don’t really think most continental Europeans actually need to speak English, as they are not Anglophiles, and rightly so.

Second languages are usually the result of cultural connections – and continental Europe has little of that with Britain, especially as a result of the British “isolationist” mentality, which continues to manifest itself in the frequent British opt-outs from EU policies and legislation.

Whilst learning English may be valuable in the tourist industry, learning Russian or Chinese could equally be useful in that context.

Indeed, their traditionally poor English has not stopped English-speaking visitors from returning to Italy, time after time, and even buying property and eventually learning Italian.

That said, it does seem that learning English is “fashionable” in Italy at the moment, as chico has pointed out.

I really wouldn’t call the language of Dante, Petrarca and many other great poets and writers “poxy” – just to quote an example, Benigni’s rendition of La Divina Commedia has had enormous success in the USA.

But yes, you are right that receptionists in hotels are picked because they speak English nowadays – though for heaven’s sake, that is the barest minimum expected.

A hotel receptionist who can’t speak English in 2015? Please.