As I write this post, I'm hearing the sound of a woodpecker drilling away at some wall outside. It doesn't seem to be making much progress penetrating the hard wood of the wall. Here are the words for woodpecker in French, Italian, and Spanish.
French: pic (how compact and appropriate!)
Italian: picchio (the French and Italian word clearly came from the same root)
Spanish: pájaro carpintero (Cool. a carpenter bird. Again very appropriate)
Though language instruction books make a valiant effort to provide comprehensive and practical vocabulary lists for learning, inevitably the time will come when you need a word not usually presented in beginners' textbooks (or even advanced ones for that matter). With mobile phone apps with foreign language dictionaries, you no longer have to lug around a dictionary, but still, if you're in the middle of a fascinating conversation with your new Italian friend, there's seldom time to punch in a word.
This is where useful phrases such as ¿Cómo se dice "woodpecker" en español? come in handy. How do you say 'woodpecker' in Spanish. There are similar expressions in French and Italian. You may get lucky and your partner knows the English word you are trying to define. If not, if you know the word for 'peck' and for 'bird,' you might get by with 'How do you say the word for a bird who pecks?' Feel free to use hand gestures (using your fingers to 'peck' at your hand, perhaps).
In essence, it's impossible to learn every word in another language, just as most of us don't know every English word. The key is to get creative. Hmmm, that pic has finally stopped pic'ing. What a relief!
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