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> I went to see a wonderful older woman One of the most joyful conversations I had in Italy was for 15 mins with this old lady at the bus stop. She was patient
by nnain 8y ago
> I went to see a wonderful older woman
One of the most joyful conversations I had in Italy was for 15 mins with this old lady at the bus stop. She was patient and tender, in a way that old people are. If there was a younger person at the bus stop that day, I'm pretty sure we would have just spent the time skimming through our phones.
- nnain 8y agoI forgot to put the context: My Italian was pretty broken then. I never had a meaningful chat in Italian till that point. She complimenting me several times on how well I could talk. It helped me approach other conversations with much more confidence.
- tragomaskhalos 8y ago.... or just speaking English. The reach of English is now at the point where, in my experience, most people in Europe will just switch to it even if you open the conversation with them in their own language! It's actually kind of deflating ("what was wrong with my grammar or pronounciation that immediately gave away that I'm English?") and it makes building foreign language competence through direct interaction that much harder. Of course from the other person's perspective they see an opportunity to practice their English, so they are identically motivated