French English

I recently visited Canada and in a wave of blonde moments, due to being a significant march west of the French regions, was quite shocked to find just how much of the day to day items and foods were bi-lingual. Of course it only took me a couple of seconds to realise why. Obviously they are not going to waste time making two sets of packaging for the east and the west, however; what did surprise me, were the way in which food items were labelled. Quite often, especially in the case of items such as milk, butter etc. one side will have the packaging all in French, the other all in English. So... I ask this question... was I blonde to think that 2 sets of packaging would make more sense, when after all; they do use two sets, but merely stick the two sets together. Or do I settle with the assumption that many French speaking travellers, will still travel to the West and many English speaking travellers, will travel east. I guess, as a traveller myself. I do somewhat rely on a certain amount of English being spoken when I holiday; although, even before moving to Italy permanently, I always made a personal effort to buy a phrase book and try my damnedest on the flight and in my hotel room, to learn enough of the native language to not sound like yet another spoilt English-speaker. Of course, one excellent advantage of dual packaging in Canada, is their export revenue. Any items which they export to France, Belgium, Italy would be well appreciated.

As an example, I have recently taken up knitting again. Something which I learned to do at the age of 4, but quickly lost interest in at my young age, due to the lack of concentration for detail I possessed back then. Now at 21, I am able to appreciate the joys of knitting and not only am I now able to knit, I am able to knit complicated stitch patterns. However'; I digress... The point being, as I mentioned above, I permanently reside in Italy. A country renowned world-wide for it's designers and skills with the sewing craft... but I challenge you to find a good sewing store in the outskirts, or even the in-skirts of Rome. I will be honest and say, that south of Rome, inside an area in which I previously resided, there was a wonderful selection of fabric shops, but... only one of the shops stocked wool... I apologise, I digress again. Well... 2 weeks ago I came across a small 99c shop, inside one of the larger food chains of Italy... and this shop stocked a very small, but fun selection of wool and knitting needles. This of course was the moment in which my knitting days were re-born. And... when I returned home, I noticed that the packaging for the wool was in both English and French... turn the packaging over... “Made in ... Canada”.

So although, as a non-French speaker (I have let to make my long awaited trip to Paris, France and beyond), I did find it a little difficult to begin with reading some of the food bags in Canada; in terms of export/import... dual packaging can be worth it's weight in gold! Ciao Ciao..

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