Conversation 1 with Tatiana

            Yesterday I met my conversation partner!  Her name is Tatiana Bicalho, and she is from Brazil.  Tatiana invited me to the Saudi Arabia day the IEP hosted.  It was an amazing experience!  I was extremely impressed with all of the presenters.  They did a great job putting everything together and speaking about their country’s culture.  I would have been terrified to give a presentation in any language other than English, especially because English is the only language that I actually know well, so I was impressed with the presenters’ courage and skill with speaking in a language they weren’t as comfortable with.  I learned many interesting facts about Saudi Arabia, including that it is home to the largest national women’s college and women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.  The students also sang us their national anthem.  After the presentation, we ate authentic Saudi Arabian food and socialized with the IEP students.

            Once the event was finished, I was able to sit down and talk to Tatiana.  Tatiana is very excited to be able to practice her English with me, and I am eager to get to know more about her life and her culture.  Tatiana is an art major who enjoys photography and traveling.  She has travelled all over the world, and plans to show me all the pictures she has taken of both her country and the countries she’s been to so that I can learn more about the world’s cultures.  Tatiana is somewhat embarrassed by the fact that she is unable to speak English fluently, but I kept reminding her that I am only able to speak one language, and the fact that she fluently speaks two languages (Spanish and Portuguese) and is almost fluent in English is so impressive.  She came to America and TCU for the main reason of improving her English.  Her life is very fascinating, as she has literally been all over the world and has experienced so much already.  She is a very driven and motivated person.  Currently, Tatiana lives on a ranch that is about an hour and a half away from TCU.  With traffic, she spends about 5-6 hours on the road everyday just to get to and from school.  I emphasized to Tatiana how much I respect her for going to such great lengths to learn another language and further her education.  I could never imagine leaving my family and deciding to live in a foreign country without knowing a soul living there, and I admire Tatiana’s courage and ambition.

            While speaking with Tatiana, I realized that there is still a lot more I have to learn about the English language, and I am not as much of an expert as I thought I was.  While I would obviously consider myself to be fluent in English and I am fairly good with grammar, I do not always understand the reason behind certain English grammar rules or why there are so many exceptions to the rules that exist.  I came to this realization as Tatiana kept asking me which word would be more appropriate to use, and why it is more correct to say one particular word/phrase over another.  I have always been told that the English language is by far the hardest to learn, but I had never really understood why this is the case until I spoke with Tatiana.  Tatiana noted that Spanish and Portuguese are very similar to each other so it was easier to become fluent in both of these languages, but English is vastly different from every other language out there. 

During high school, I studied French for four years, but did not learn much at all.  Some of the only words I still remember how to say in French are “hello” and “goodbye,” and I don’t know nearly enough to be able to go to France and speak fluently to a French person.  Students at my high school, including me, were very ignorant about the importance of learning other languages, because we knew that many people around the world speak English, so even if we go abroad we will most likely be able to find other people who speak our language.  After getting to know Tatiana, I realized how unfair this is.  We shouldn’t expect other people to take such great strides to learn English, and we need to start taking foreign language studies seriously so we can communicate with and understand other cultures.

            I am so excited to further get to know Tatiana and learn more about different cultures and the English language as a result!