“Did You Know?” Blog Series (Part 2) – Facts About Italian Culture

  • August 1, 2013
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  • Blog

Image – Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II and the Tiber River – Some rights reserved by archer10 (Dennis) via Flickr

We’re excited to continue our “Did You Know?” blog series as a way to honor and celebrate our diverse community of clients, Linguists and employees! Each blog entry in this series will feature a host of unique and interesting facts about a particular culture. In part 2 of our series, we take a closer look at the Italian culture.

Did You Know?

  • Italians, on average, eat around 30 kg (66 pounds) of pasta and drink 60 liters of wine per year.
  • Italians are extremely expressive communicators. They tend to be wordy, eloquent, emotional and demonstrative, often using facial and hand gestures to prove their point.
  • The concept of ‘bella figura’ or ‘good image’ is important to Italians.
  • Many Italians use calling cards in social situations. These are slightly larger than traditional business cards and include the person’s name, address, title or academic honors, and their telephone number.
  • Italian is a Romance language and is related to the other Latin languages: Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian.
  • Italians prefer to do business with people they know and trust, and they favor face-to-face contact.
  • Many companies in Italy are closed throughout the month of August.
  • Bocce is a popular sport in Italy.
  • Italy manufactures most of the world’s top sports cars, including the Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Maserati and Alfa Romeo.
  • Italians refer to their country as Italia.
  • The colors of the Italian flag represent three virtues: hope (green), faith (white) and charity (red).
  • Italy’s major industries include tourism, machinery, iron and steel, chemicals, food processing, textiles, motor vehicles, clothing, footwear and ceramics.
  • The ice cream cone is an Italian invention.
  • With almost 40 million visitors, Italy is the fourth most visited country in the world.
  • Pizza was “invented” in Naples around the 1860s.

What fun facts about the Italian culture would you add to this list? We encourage you to post your comments below!