Ciao, or Bon Giorno?

For someone who has a pretty good command of the English language, you'd think I'd be better at learning foreign languages. But I spent three years in high school French learning hell (hell for reasons other than the language) and I can barely spit out a sentence. I can understand a lot of really slowly spoken French, but I can't articulate myself. Which, when I'm in a primarily French-speaking environment, leaves me feeling like Superman when he's near kryptonite-- I am not as strong as usual.

In order to prepare for my trip to Italy, I bought Fodor's Italian for Travelers. I don't want to approach Italy like it's an exhibit at Epcot-- I want to make an effort to communicate with people in their language. Yes, I know most people speak English. But I want to give it my best before I give up and wave the flag of "Parlate inglese?" I've been listening to this stuff for about a week, and I've absorbed just about nothing.

I'm listening to it now, just to hear the way people pronounce things. I'm used to busting out a French accent, which doesn't work with Italian, believe it or not. The vowels are pronounced a lot softer than I expect them to be. When I sit in my room, looking at the words in the book that came with the CDs, I try to anticipate what the calm, slow voices will say.

"Mee peermeesoo," I say, smugly.

"Me permiso," the bitch on the CD says back.

"Dammit!"

So my roommate is concerned even more for my sanity as I walk around the house talking to myself in Italian instead of my usual English. I have a month and a half to figure it all out, which I hope to be able to master the Italian for "beer," "wine", "where's the bathroom", and "get away from me, skeezeball".