wellinformedyid – first of all, for a second i thought you were telling me to be happy. lol!
anyway, i have had an interlinear siddur since my bas mitzva pretty much, that’s AT LEAST 😉 seven years, besides having a very good Hebrew, so i actually know what i’m saying.
and i’m still having a problem. not concrete – i’m very makpid with zmanim, daven shacharis and mincha every day, etc, but most of the time, it’s rather automatic, like i don’t have the patience (what an awfaul thing to say) to stand and concentrate on every word.
(this is just interesting: for a while, a couple months back, i had terrific shemona esreis. i coulnd’t figure it out. a couple weeks ago i realized that that had been exactly when i was the companion of the mother of a specific chassidish rebbe in e”Y. cool, no?)