Brits are making more of an effort to communicate with the locals when buying overseas, according to a survey by holidaylettings.co.uk.
Although the results won’t get rid of our reputation for ignorance of foreign languages, a surprising 49 per cent of people surveyed have sufficient language skills to get by in their chosen location. Of those, 22 per cent already knew the language before purchasing abroad and 27 per cent picked it up along the way.
More interestingly, as a measure of whether attitudes have changed over time, the figures revealed that an equal number (30 per cent) of second home owners who had bought their property up to ten years ago and those who have bought within the last year, felt that knowing the language was beneficial when purchasing the property and dealing with local services providers.
While many would expect countries closest to the UK, such as France, Spain and Italy to be the easiest for English to be used as a means of communication, 36 per cent of owners said that they benefitted from being able to converse in Spanish, 23 per cent in French and 12 per cent in Italian. The next country where it was deemed to be beneficial to be able to communicate in the native tongue was Turkey, at nine per cent).
Ross Elder, MD of holidaylettings.co.uk, says, ‘These results, while not scientific, show that British holiday home owners and expats are far from ignorant when it comes to the languages and cultures of other countries. These are positive statistics that Britons buying abroad should be proud of, but also heed as a useful spot of advice when doing business abroad.’