Conversation #5:
So as one might
predict, this is continuation of all of the conversations between my
conversation partner and I. As a reminder, my conversation partner is Fernande.
And I would just like to comment on how much his English had improved since the
first meeting. I’m pretty sure he gets the “most improved award,” of course,
it’s not like I have met anyone else, but still. I would also just like to take
this time to be grateful that I had a partner who was willing to come. We
pretty much only had one time in our schedule within the whole week to meet.
But fortunately we managed to meet all six times. Hearing the horror stories of
other students in their attempts to meet with their conversation partner, thank
goodness Fernande was easier to meet with. But back on to the whole, “improved”
business, at the beginning it was rough. I mean really rough. I pretty much had
to repeat myself around 5 times and referred to the classic smile and nod at
his responses (because most of the time I didn’t understand what he was saying
even after the third time, and I felt rude asking again). But now we have actually managed to ask each
other questions and respond properly. So Brownie points! So I asked him how his
day went and like a typical 21 year old boy he seemed pretty interested in
talking about his boyfriend, so I figured that was at least something that
interested him. I learned that she only
knows English, so that helped motivate him to pay more attention in his classes
to learn English quicker. For the most part he speaks French with his parents
and his aunt and uncle. But recently, he’s been trying to get his aunt and
uncle, who he lives with, to speak English around the house. And then this
reminded me of the program of Mango (which I feel that I’ve mentioned in a
“What have I learned post”), which I had recently discovered and about all the
possible languages you can learn with a program we’re paying for (yet no one
knows about). So I decided I think it
would be awesome to learn Moroccan, just because you could be pretty much be
the only person who could put you know how to speak Moroccan on your resume. He
thought it would be cool to learn Spanish, since he said “so many people seem
to know Spanish here.” And then he commented on how a lot of times you will be
in the cafeteria and hear a group of students speaking Spanish. So I admit,
Spanish would be much more useful to learn. Having taken two years of Spanish,
a long long time ago, I told him about how it would be incredibly easy for him
to learn Spanish since he’s fluent in French. They’re pretty similar in
structure and what not. I told him about how, when my friends and I went to
Italy, a friend of mine spoke Spanish and Italians were able to understand her.
With the topic
change to our trips to France, we discussed elements we both liked and didn’t
like. For example, we both agreed that people in France smoke A LOT. Including
that we both had seen children smoking outside as well. I personal thought
there was too much graffiti, but he thought it was artistic. My favorite graffiti
in France was when I saw a graffiti drawing of a toaster:
And who doesn’t
see this and think of the “brave little toaster:
And with that
thought “B slema” (Moroccan for Goodbye)
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