Inside my head (e la mia casa)

bicchière

drinking glass

Why can't I ever remember the word for spoon? (cucchiàio)

buongiorno

Vorrei . . .

Abbiamo . . .

Mmm, prosciutto 

I think you've got this one.

Andiamo!  (Hint:  this one always makes me think of touring with Tom DeWitt.)

le stylo (That's French.)

Getting to the airport is going to be fun. 

Yes, that's a missing wheel.
Thanks, American Airlines.

TIM (Finally!)

Living without WiFi was giving me a twitch.

Also, dear Italians, I love you, but it's pronounced W-eye-F-eye, not wee-fee.  We'll let you name food, but we'll handle the technology stuff.

tavolo

table

un deux trois (Damn it. That's French, too.)  Why can't I remember Italian numbers?

la sinistra

For my mother and my sister, this is left.
No, your REAL left.

vino bianco

Or rosso.  It's all good.

regàzzo regàlo (I'm not buying a boy.)

Gift--despite the lack of ribbons or bows.

banane

I think you've got this one, too.

Did you notice something?
As in how jumbled it all is?
The words are all over the place.  Some of them are whispers, and others are shouts.

As in there's not a complete sentence in that mess?
Which is odd for someone who JUST finished re-editing her last post because the thought of the its/it's error was haunting her. Right?

And, Mmes. Davis and DeWitt, nothing, absolutely nothing, makes me remember my French vocabulary better than to try and recall an Italian word.  It's like there's a trunk in my head marked "Foreign vocabulary" where the French words must be lighter than the Italian ones, so the Frenchies float to the top.

Studying French in high school has, for the most part, made learning Italian easier, but there is much of Italian that is more like Spanish than French.  And I can not, for the life of me, figure out why anyone ever felt it necessary to assign a gender designation to inanimate objects.  I know that much of English is a mess, but it's English for the win when it comes to articles.

So, the best description of what's in my head (not so much in my house) is that DEAR HEAVEN ABOVE, LEARNING LANGUAGE AS AN ADULT IS HARD*.  Especially if you're persnickety about the use of your native language--because you KNOW people are patiently listen to you talk like an imbecile--and you likely don't have much patience at home.

I know there's a lesson here, but I can only remember the French words for it. 

*No one explains this better than David Sedaris.  You should read this article of his.  Then get his book Me Talk Pretty One Day to read the "Jesus Shaves" essay.