01 Nov 2015
I am a sophomore at the University of Illinois studying Spanish, and a few hours ago, I had my second ever conversation with TalkAbroad.
I talked with Hagia Schulz from Honduras. Before the conversation, I felt a bit nervous, as I was about to have my second ever close to legitimate conversation in Spanish with someone, and I was a bit afraid of assigning incorrect meanings to the words I was using.
I suppose I was right to be worried, as I did do this a couple times, which resulted in me saying things that were completely random and that made absolutely no sense. Fortunately, Hagia was nice enough to help me out in these situations, as she was able to tell that I was trying to converse with her normally.
Other than those few slips, the conversation was a blast. I learned a lot about Hagia and her family, and she learned the same of me. The conversation became really enjoyable when we started discussing, in detail, just how delicious wine is. I am a bit jealous of people like Hagia because, at least in Honduras, unlike here in the United Sates, there is not a feminine stigma that goes with drinking wine that men have to worry about when enjoying a nice glass of Moscato.
These conversations with TalkAbroad definitely leave me feeling that I want to spend more time having conversations in Spanish and even possibly study abroad at some point. The feeling you have after spending a decent amount of time talking in a foreign language is almost indescribable. Firstly, your mind is spinning at about five hundred miles per hour and your thoughts are said to yourself in the foreign language. After, however, you have settled yourself down and decided not to sign a lease to live in the local insane asylum for your following year of college, you feel fantastically confident.