Conversation with my Host Mom
I have a conversation with my Spanish host mom Carmen every
day at dinner. We talk about the daily activities, classes and a lot about our
different cultures.
Carmen is a retired psychology teacher. She has two
daughters both are married and live in different cities. She meets her
daughters almost once a month. She
spends her most of the time doing leisure activities. Different days of the
week she goes to do yoga, swim or to the park. Being a former teacher she loves
to read and also watches TV every night. She doesn’t like her photo to be taken
and below is the only photo that I have of her.
I like to talk to her specially about the Spanish culture. I
love to learn new things about different cultures. Talking to her is kind of
challenging because she doesn’t speak English and I have been taking Spanish
classes for only a year and my Spanish is not very good. But this language
barrier doesn’t stop us from having a meaningful conversation. I have learned
many things from her. Recipes for many dishes that she makes for dinner, things
to do in Barcelona, cities to visit in Spain. Also a lot about Spanish culture
food, family, festivals.
From all my conversation the things that I have learned to
make intercultural conversations successful are-
·
Be patient the conversations would be slow.
Reduce the pace in which you speak normally as it takes time to process
different language.
·
Pay close attention to what the other person is
saying. When your vocabulary is small each word comprehended helps a lot to
understand the meaning of the whole sentence.
·
Be aware of the surroundings. As things in the
surroundings can be used to talk about things that you don’t have vocabulary
for or things closely related to it.
·
Use gestures effectively. People talk using sign
language, gestures and signs are very useful in intercultural conversation
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