My Talk Abroad experience with my conversational partner, Elias, was a little rocky but got easier by the end. I do take responsibility for the difficulties since I am a novice in French, and my nerves got the better of me. I could barely remember to stick to the rubric since I was so focused on maintaining good conversational flow and just recalling how to say things. I’d say by greatest downfall was getting stuck on how to say things in my natural voice, or the way I usually speak, instead of focusing on the basics. Hopefully, I can use what I learned from this first experience to have a better, second Talk Abroad session.
During this, I learned that Elias is a professor in France, which explains why the Talk Abroad program labeled him as beginner-friendly. He works from Monday to Saturday, which surprised me. He also mentioned that he works only 35 hours a week, a dream for me who wants to stay in the United States. We learned that working hours in France were shorter in class, but it was still jarring to see it confirmed. My talking partner is 37 years old and was born in Mexico, but now resides in France.
We talked about our hobbies and habits, and I learned that Elias was much healthier than me. He has a healthy diet including smoothies, fruits, vegetables, etc. He also does a lot of exercise-based activities, like swimming and other sports. All I could offer was that I watch TV and read a lot of horror and romance books. And in contrast to his nearly perfect diet, I said I prefer sandwiches and candy the most. We did agree that chocolate was the best, though. On the same topic of food, I learned that he loves his grandmother’s family recipe the most. While I did not understand what the dish was, it did sound good from the few ingredients that I could pick up on. I then shared my own go-to recipe, which is a sausage alfredo pasta. Elias seemed impressed enough, but I suppose it would be concerning if someone didn’t like the sound of pasta.
Overall, by the end of the 30-minute duration of the conversation, I was more comfortable and confident in my French-speaking abilities. This was to the extent that I forgot about the time, but Elias kindly reminded me, and we said our goodbyes. For the next TalkAbroad, I plan to work on my ability to be creative with how I describe things.