I was invited to speak on the radio this week about HIV in the province of Azuay. This is all well and good, I´ve been through media trainings, have a general idea how to craft a five point message and stick to it. The problem of course was that I was asked to speak in Spanish. It was a pretty favorable set up from the beginning, my friend was the host of the program, I knew what I was talking about.
It went fine. But I still choked on couple questions. There were a couple monents where I got this panicked look in my eyes that made my friend rephrase the question so he was sure I understood what he was asking. There were a few moments in which I couldn´t think of anything to say at all, but having my five point message helped because even if I couldn´t think of the answer for a question, I could always plug in something else that I wanted to say. The host swore up and down that he was happy with it, and my the family that I lived with during the fall sent me a text message to say that they thought it went well.
It highlights for me though, how slow a process this is, learning and mastering another language. You spend years and years studying, practicing, plunging yourself in to another context where you have to sink or swim, and still you reach points where your language capacity does not suffice. I still say stuff that doesn´t make any since on a regular basis because I am simply imprecise, I plug in the wrong pronouns or pronounce something funny, (in a language which has perhaps the most straighforward rules of pronunciation of all.)
Aye.
2 comments:
Ugh, I know, sometimes I feel like I'll NEVER be able to speak Spanish. And it's just frustrating that everyone else (from Ecuador) is fluent. But to be expected I guess. That's exciting that the radio speaking went well! Do you have a transcript of it, by any chance?
dude! you were on the radio!! albeit an ecuadorian radio, instead of mexican. so cool.
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