Can't Speak English, Can't Speak French

My sister called me the other day on my cell phone.

We live near a very steep hill and cell phone reception is spotty. So, I told her I'd call her right back using my home phone because my cell phone is "fragile".

I called her back immediately and she was still laughing. "Fragile", isn't that a french usage? Hmmm, I thought, I guess she's right. I should have used a term like "unreliable". I'm not sure "fragile" would have been right in French, either. Maybe a better term would have been "faible", meaning weak.

Weak, now there's a term that defines my language skills. "Fragile" in English, "Faible" in French.

People that are truly bi-lingual don't have these problems. The word just comes out in the correct language, right verb tense, using the proper adverbs and adjectives. They don't even have to think about it.

Now, I feel like I'm losing "it" in English. I have a Kindle and I have to use the dictionary all the time to look up words in English. Here's one that neither Terry no I knew the spelling of this morning. It was in an article in the LA Times. We both thought that they'd made a spelling mistake, but we were wrong and the paper (big surprise) was correct.

archetypal |ˌärk(i)ˈtīpəl|
adjective
very typical of a certain kind of person or thing : the archetypal country doctor.
• recurrent as a symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology : an archetypal journey representing the quest for identity.
• of, relating to, or denoting an original that has been imitated : the archetypal believer, Abraham.
• relating to or denoting Jungian archetypes.

At least we knew the meaning of the word and could use it in a sentence.