Journal Entry Five

This week’s journal entry is sort of a failure on my part. On Thursday, it was my friend Ashley’s birthday. I met Ashley through our program group for Spanish Studies Abroad and she is living with a host family, rather than living in a residencia like myself. So, on her birthday, our entire study abroad group, plus other friends Ashley had made in classes, went to this Airbnb that she had rented out and all drank together before the subgroup went out to the club. When we arrived, we found out that Ashley’s host mother was there. She was extremely sweet and friendly, but I sort of froze when it came to speaking Spanish. While I think she knew some English (yet very limited) I sort of backed away from speaking to her because of my lack of confidence in the language.

I think that this was a golden opportunity to practice the Spanish I have been studying daily. While my Spanish was absolutely not up to par with Ashely’s host mother’s, she knew her audience and she knew that I would not be fluent. To contextualize and reflect for the purpose of class, this language barrier that we’ve been discussing was what caused a bit of a failure in this situation. One way in which I could’ve approached it differently was by communicating my shortcomings in the language, and then I could’ve done my best with what I knew. While it’s difficult sometimes, I know that my Spanish competence is only going to get stronger by pushing myself. Also, in order to further integrate into the culture here, I can’t just turn away when I hit a bump in the road.