Category: Spanish

If you’ve read Errant in Iberia you’ll know that the whole intercambio (language exchange) process was fairly instrumental in the fact that I planned to only spend one month in Madrid… and have now been here nearly 12 years!

My intercambio lead me to a wife, and a life, in Spain, so you can imagine I am a fairly big fan of the whole idea! So I was really happy when I got an email from Foster Hodge, with an excellent account of his intercambio experiences. I’ve included the whole article here, it’s a great read:

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Mi Primer Intercambio – by Foster Hodge

After spending more or less a month in Madrid, working on my Spanish, learning the ropes of the city, and falling in love with a new and exciting culture—I decided it was high time to take the next step. I had received quite a bit of encouragement from friends and professors of mine that I should get myself an intercambio, or a language exchange partner.

I decided to put my nerves aside and posted an anuncio in loquo.com, a wonderful website that offers a wide variety of things from renting and buying property, to citas de Internet and intercambios.

To my surprise, a couple days after posting my anuncio my inbox was flooded with responses from young Spaniards who were interested in meeting with me for a language exchange…

There have been many times over the last 12 years in Spain when, faced with a situation where I’ve felt waaaaaaay-in over my head as a non-native speaker, I’ve sat back, smiled (or winced!), and said to myself, “Oh well, at least it’s good for my Spanish!”

These situations include everything from the truly horrendous (speaking in Spanish to morticians after the death of a friend), to the exceedingly-important-not-to-get-it-wrong (negotiating the purchase of a flat, as related here), and the truly fantastic (getting through the technical Spanish of my wife’s pregnancy and the birth of our son!)

Whenever I felt in over my head, I just remembered the mantra: “At least it’s good for my Spanish!”

Over at our sister site Notes in Spanish, we are giving away lots of free videos and special reports this week that will, without any doubt, be very very good for your Spanish!