Drink Sizes
Short: 8 oz. The smallest size Starbucks offers, and not generally shown on the menu. If you ask for a small, you will get a Tall, not a Short.
Tall: 12 oz. The small size.
Grande: 16 oz. This is the medium size. Pronounced GRAHN-day, more or less.
Venti: 20 oz. hot, 24 oz. cold. For some reason iced Venti cups hold four more ounces; for this reason, Venti espresso drinks often have an extra shot of espresso in them, and cost a little bit more. Prounounced VENN-tee.
Trente: 30 oz cold. Only some drinks are available in this size, mostly variations on iced tea.
Basic Drinks
Coffee: Plain black coffee, brewed less than an hour ago. If you want them to leave room in the cup for milk, go ahead and ask. Also available in decaf and (sometimes) mild, which is a lighter roast.
Iced Coffee: Plain coffee, brewed double-strength so the ice wont dilute it, and kept in the fridge. Not just regular coffee poured over ice.
Tea: Starbucks has several varieties of tea: black, green, herbal, blends, decaf, you name it.
Iced Tea: Also available shaken (with ice). Comes in regular or passion, with or without lemonade, sweetened or unsweetened.
Caffe Misto / Cafe au lait: A drink consisting of half coffee, half steamed milk and a bit of foam. Can be made decaf, nonfat, etc. Misto is the Starbucks name, cafe au lait is the more general term.
Espresso Bar Drinks
Latte: Espresso, steamed milk, and foam. Not sweetened in any way unless you ask for syrup or sugar in it.
Cappuccino: Like a latte, only much more foam. Normally half milk or half foam, unless wet or dry is specified. This is also not sweetened.
Caramel Macchiato: Basically a vanilla latte with extra foam and gooey caramel drizzled on top. If it doesnt taste sweet enough when you first try it, be sure to stir it well! Caramel sauce doesnt really dissolve well in milk. If its still not sweet enough, ask for extra vanilla, not extra caramel. Macchiato, by the way, is pronounced mah-kee-YAH-toe.
Americano: Espresso diluted with hot water until its roughly the strength of regular coffee. An Americano will usually have one more shot than a latte of the same size. Sometimes if the regular coffee you want hasnt finished brewing yet and you dont want to wait, the barista may offer you an Americano instead.
Mocha: Espresso and steamed milk mixed with chocolate and served with whipped cream. Despite being chocolatey, these are not terribly sweet. If you dont want to taste the espresso, try asking for flavor syrup (such as orange or raspberry) or try a white mocha instead.
White Mocha: Espresso and steamed milk mixed with white chocolate syrup and served with whipped cream. These are a lot sweeter than regular mochas, but also a bit less healthy and a bit more expensive.
Toffee Nut Latte: A latte flavored with toffee nut syrup, which tastes & well, toffee-like. Originally introduced as a seasonal drink, it appears to have been permanently added to the menu.
Espresso: Just espresso, nothing more. A solo espresso is a single shot, which is a bit less than an ounce. A doppio espresso is two shots, a triple is three, and a quad is four.
Espresso Macchiato: Espresso dropped into a cup of milk foam, and only foam. Like a small, extremely dry cappuccino. These are ordered not by cup size, but by the number of shots.
Espresso Con Panna: Espresso in a big squirt of whipped cream. Also ordered by number of shots rather than cup size.
Non-Espresso Bar Drinks
Hot Chocolate: Chocolate and steamed milk, with a little bit of vanilla added, served with whipped cream.
Steamed Milk: Just steamed milk, usually with a bit of foam. Usually these are ordered with flavor syrup added, which used to be called a steamer but was changed to a creme when the creme Frappuccinos came out.
Chai Latte: Sweetened Chai syrup (tea, spices, and sweetener) added to steamed milk and hot water. If you dont want it so sweet or so milky, you can also get Chai made with a tea bag, which is black tea and spices without the extra stuff. Both versions have caffeine, since its made with black tea.
Steamed Cider: Apple juice / cider (not sure what the distinction is) steamed to a nice hot temperature. You can also get plain, cold apple juice.
Caramel Apple Cider: Steamed cider with cinnamon syrup, whipped cream, and caramel sauce.
Blended Drinks
These are cold, blended drinks, like a milkshake. They can be made with or without a coffee base, with most kinds of flavoring, and even with soy milk or a lower-calorie light base. Check the menu at your local Starbucks or ask someone there for suggestions.
Miscellaneous Extras
Foam: Fluffy milk foam produced when steaming. Lattes, macchiatos, and cappuccinos usually have this. You can always ask for for more, or less, or no foam at all.
Wet / Dry: These pertain only to cappuccinos. A normal cappuccino has about half milk, half foam. Wet means more milk, dry means more foam.
Whipped Cream: Made fresh from whipping cream, not the kind of stuff you get out of a can. If you really want whipped cream, or really dont, make sure you tell the person taking your order. Its a lot easier to write the info on the cup than try to fix it later.
Extra Hot: Some people like their drinks extra piping hot. Some people just want it to stay at a drinkable temperature for longer. Be very careful if you order this, you dont want to burn yourself! Anything over 170 degrees F may scald the milk, however.
140 degrees: Some people dont like their drinks so hot. This is about ten to twenty degrees cooler than the usual drink temperature nice and warm, but not hot.
Kids: Hot drinks for children can be no hotter than 130 degrees F. Keep this in mind if youre saving money by ordering a kids hot chocolate.
Is there a quick course We can take prior to entering the Magic Kingdom? 
All we want is a decent cup of coffee but we don't want to sound stupid doing it.
(posted just for fun)
I know, I would buy so many, not just for myself but for friends and family as gifts!
And if they are going to follow that language, I doubt that the Italian word for Small is Short and Medium is Tall. One thing or the other that anyone can identify because it means something. OK, short could be interpreted to mean small, but you would have to search your mind a long time to see how Tall translates into Medium. To me it conjures up an image of something much larger then Medium. Back when you could order a small, medium, large or extra large without having to have an English to Starbucks dictionary handy, was not pretentious.
