now you try...

...listen to the prompt, and in the pause give your answer.

I need some tiramisu... (it translates into "pull me up"). I am not an aural learner, I am a visual learner needing lots of repetition. Back to the drawing board... this time with Italian vocabulary...

I think I have mastered something, then it disappears again. Visiting daughter "eats" other languages, devouring them with relish. Her two weeks here showed me how it could be done...

All I have achieved is an acute loss of English and huge frustration with my inadequate progress in Italian. The other day I said something in English and wondered why it felt odd. Later I realised I had said it with the Italian sentence structure. I wonder if learning for me is a bit like cleaning a house; I seem to need to make a huge mess before I make any progress.

Four years ago my rascal friend worried that soon I wouldn't be able to talk because I hadn't learnt Italian and I would forget my English while I was in Italy. I think at only 6 years old he already knew...

I wish I could devour languages whole too... but my taste buds say give me a dark chocolate cherry liqueur any day!