Entries  |  Comments

Calendar
September 2010
M T W T F S S
« Aug    
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  
Archives
August 2010
July 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
Categories
Blogroll
37 languages
Babelhut
Behind the Curtain
Cantophilia
Chinese Blog
Confessions of a Language Addict
Doubting to Shuo
Dr. Goodword's Language Blog
Dragonfruit
ESL Daily
ESL Teachers Board
Foreign Language Home
Hanzi Smatters
James Fallows
Language Geek
Language Hat
Languages of the World
LeTutor Blog
Lingformant
Omniglot Blog
Paleoglot: Ancient Languages...
Polyglot to be
Protuguese Tips
Sexy Beijing
Sinosplice
Stu Jay Raj -- The Language Guy
Talking Taiwanese
The Cunning Linguist
The Linguist
The Linguist Blogger
Tower of Confusion
1st hand account: a semester in Mexico…
FLdoctor @ November 20, 2008 - 12:04 pm Comments (0)
Filed under: immersion learning, How to go abroad, beginning language study
Prior to living in Mexico I did not have much exposure to Mexicans in my young adult life. In fact, in the town of Pocahontas it is very rare that we see any foreigner at all. In my high school, we typically welcomed one foreign exchange student a year, and they were usually from Europe, where they had already taken English in school and could speak it passably.

When I was dropped off at the home of my host family, I realized that my biggest problem was not speaking but rather listening to a native Spanish speaker. It was all I could do to make sense of what my host dad was saying, which I tried to counter by doing most of the talking. I knew I spoke Spanish very slowly but I tried to convince my listeners that my speech was naturally methodical as a product of my personality and not that I needed more time to think of what to say, even though that was the truth.