Intercambios Linguisticos

About a week ago, some of us UGA kids got together with some English-studying spanish students for a good old "language exchange." We were given different topics of conversation, alternating between languages, and paired up with a partner of the opposite language to speak for about 10 minutes en cada tema. I'm not going to lie, I felt pretty good about myself after those little exchanges. Turns out my spanish measures up quite nicely to some people's English. I had to speak super slowly and in words with no more than 2 syllables to get any point across.

For a split second, I was frustrated that the amount of comprehension that was happening was close to zero, but when that second was over, I fell even more in love with mi familia, and even mis profesoras, who have to deal with my spanish every day. Those poor souls. I would never be able to put up with being forced to speak like a dysfunctional robot for two months.

All in all, el intercambio was a fun experience, so when it came time for the next one (a noche), I was excited to go and feel good about myself all over again. Feel a twist coming on? If so, I give you permission to feel good about yourself for about 5 seconds because you are exactly right.

So last night was the second intercambio. (Ps. your time is up). First of all, there were barely any estudiantes espanoles there to begin with, but the few that I did talk to were essentially bilingual. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure we spoke in English 86% of the time.

Here's to hoping for poor students at the next one.