Pearle Vows Frances?

Well I’m biting the bullet. I’m going to try to learn to speak conversational French.Since I’m not working any longer and I’m planning this trip east I figured what the heck. I went and got a book and a CD set. Really this is rather cruel as I totally massacre my mother tongue English, now I’m going to brutalize another poor unsuspecting language.
My problem is not with comprehension, nor with my reading skills. It’s my pronunciation. I guess the best example of how I can totally mess with our language is to use the word salivate as an example. Most the population of the world pronounces this word SAL-i-vate. I pronounce this word sa-LAV-i-tate. My dad has always pronounced it this way and it wasn’t until some one actually freaked out on me for pronouncing wrong that I even knew I was doing it. Even then I actually thought I was pronouncing it correctly.
I had been commenting on how good the pies were smelling and the reaction my mouth was having as a result, when she finally snapped. “THE WORD IS SALLLL-iiii-VATE!!!!” (Obviously this had been bothering her for while.) I looked at her puzzled, then said “Yeah that’s what I said sa-LAV-i-tate.” Later Flip was kind enough to explain what I was doing wrong. I have a habit of emphasizing the wrong syllable. Apparently I have a whole host of words that are uniquely mine. I was shocked and a little (make that a lot) embarrassed. I have been making a valiant effort to fix the way I speak but I am beginning to think I’m just hard wired that way.
My other major area of concern is replacing one word with one of a similar value. We just bought a new house and are having hardwood floors installed. For some reason when I tell people about them its hardware floors. I’m thinking hardwood but the word hardware is coming out. For others it’s confusing and amusing for me it’s frustrating.
So now I’m going to attempt to learn French. My biggest fear is they might think I’m making a mockery of their language when really I’m just slightly inept. But maybe, (just maybe) I’ll get good enough to scratch number one off my list.