So I viewed this a little different. I just saw Michael switching to English because he could better articulate what he wanted to say.

And for context, I had a similar upbringing to Michael in that I was raised in the US by immigrants whose second language is English. So I spoke a mix of English and a second language, but my "native language" is English.

When I communicate with my parents, they switch between English and their native language back and forth in the middle of conversation.

Since Michael had to have a conversation in a language that didn't seem to be his "native language," I just thought he switched to English in this instance because it was easier for him.

There are a lot of times in the series that there is a mixing of languages, often in the middle of sentences, or just at the most random times (the first instance I can think of is when Michael and Pentangeli are having a conversation in Pentangeli's home and Michael says something about Roth: "He's gonna think our relationship is good, (something Italian)," which Pentangeli repeats.

Not sure if I'm going way off topic here, but it's one of the things I love about the movies, the immigrant experience and how Coppola uses language. It's very authentic to me, as someone who grew up with essentially two cultures.

(For the record I am not Italian so maybe I am completely off on all of this.)

Would love to hear others' thoughts about language and immigrant experiences as seen in the movie, etc.