At home

Late in the list stands il pisolino, the nap, and the sentence under it — faccio un pisolino dopo pranzo — shows the habit that will catch an English speaker out on half the entries above it. English owns four faint verbs for doing something ordinary, and it chooses between them by custom rather than by any rule: one « takes » a nap in America and « has » one in Britain, one « does » the washing-up, one « makes » the bed, one « has » a shower and « takes » a break. Nothing in the meaning decides which; each pairing has to be learned singly, and the wrong one is heard instantly. Italian loads almost all of that onto one verb. Fare un pisolino, fare una chiacchierata, fare il bucato, fare la spesa, fare una doccia, fare il letto — three of those nouns sit on this very page. For once the traffic is easier in the outward direction: leaving English, stop choosing and say fare; coming back, expect to start choosing again.