Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Conversational Spanish in Action

My eldest daughter and I were shopping for summer shoes, when she attempted to make friends with another little girl there. My daughter said "hello" twice to the girl, but the girl didn't really respond. Then Jaida said, "Hola" and the girl looked up.

I asked Jaida what else could she say to the girl and she said "¿Cómo estas?" The other girl was shy to speak much but her mother was trying to encourage her to respond. Then Jaida asked, "¿Cómo te llamas?" The girl said her name, Jaida then said hers.

After leaving the area, I asked Jaida how did she know the girl spoke Spanish and she said, "Because she didn't answer me after I said hello two times in English."

Jaida, te quiero. Soy tan orgullosa de ti.

I still have the hardest time striking up a conversation in Spanish with others. Seeing my daughter in action reminded me that fear and insecurity only holds us back.

So I encourage all of us who want to improve our Spanish-speaking skills:

1. On an index card write down 3-5 sentences that you could say to someone in Spanish.

2. Practice saying those sentences in Spanish.

3. Write down responses and follow-ups to those Spanish sentences.

4. Make a goal: ie. I'm going to practice these sentences on a Spanish-speaking person one time this week.

¡Qué le vaya bien - May everything go well for you!

Jessica




3 comments:

Josh said...

That's a great story! I can't wait until my son is old enough to talk and I can tell similar stories.

Jessica said...

I thought that would have a been a cute story to share.

Thanks for commenting about it.

Karen said...

You must be so proud of her. That's a wonderful post. :)