Meeting Language Practice Partners in Sevilla
For those learning a language, HelloTalk is the tool I used to meet all my friends overseas. I want to explain to you why I am on this trip halfway around the world Many people decide to go travelling to a certain country and then learn a language so that they can survive there. For me, the case was quite different.
I had started learning Spanish because I had gotten addicted to Duolingo the vocabulary application, however after several weeks, I wanted more. So I searched for applications for language exchange online and I found HelloTalk, an application where you can find people to chat with in any language. Once you find a social reason for speaking in a language, it motivates you even more, and I found myself speaking Spanish conversationally with nine months. Over the course of a year, I made friendships with people in Spain, Mexico, Peru and Colombia and the more I heard about their countries, the more I wanted to visit. So I put together a 6 month itinerary to visit these people, starting in Spain.
My first meeting was in Madrid, where I had posted on Instagram that I’d arrived and suddenly I received a message from Daniel from London, who was on holidays in his home town in Madrid. Instead of visiting the tourist attractions that day, I received the Madrileno tour of the city. Much preferred!
Samira: Sevilla
My second meeting was in Sevilla, and much anticipated for many many months. Samira was the first woman from Spain whom I’d spoken with, and that was a year and a half ago. I could barely speak more than a few phrases of Spanish at that time, and I had always admired her perfectly British English elocution. On my first night in Sevilla, we agreed to meet in front of her university, a beautiful old builiding grander than anything I’d ever studied in, but to the Spanish this just used to be an old tobacco factory. Oh, you Spaniards! Even your factories out-perform our town halls and parliament houses!
I turned around and saw Samira there with a friend she’d invited along, introduced lovingly as Maria del Mar. I wasted no time running and hugging her as though we’d seen each other thousands of times before. As we wandered the halls of the university and the streets of her town, it felt both surreal an totally natural at the same time to be here chatting idly with someone I;d known for so long but never met. I was taken on a Sevillano journey of the university, shown the amazing pasos, or floats that are paraded through the streets during the Easter processions, very famous in Sevilla. We traversed through the quaint streets of the Jewish quarter, and I was delighted to be regaled with stories of Andalusian way of life. As we walked through Barrio Santa Cruz, Maria pointed out to me how the ornate decoration of the Town Hall building peters out gradually to a very plain design, and whilst this is because the architect died, taking his vision with him, it is said that this is a great reflection on the Andalusian way of life: they start something with all the passion and energy they can muster, but as time drags on, they lose motivation “nos cansamos” – we get tired. “You’d get tired too if your summer afternoons climbed over 45 degrees!” argued Maria passionately.
Daniel: Huelva
Two days later, I journeyed out of Sevilla to a local town on the port, Huelva. When I had more time and more internet back in Australia, I created an English practise group in HelloTalk and Daniel was one of the members. He was always one of the top contributors and I always felt encouraged with his participation. I met Daniel at the bus station and after taking me for a walk around his town, showing me his work building, the port and randomly running into his father on the street (who, might I say, is a brilliant artist!).
His wife, Rocio, was kind enough to take a break from work to meet us for lunch and I was treated to some local Huelvan cuisine, including crab meat salad and fried cuttlefish, which as a scuba diver took some coaxing at first but I thoroughly enjoyed. Daniel, Rocio and I discussed our language learning journeys. Rocio mentioned that whilst she understands English well, her vocabulary is limited and that affects her confidence when speaking.
I am also experiencing the same issue with my Spanish, and my advice is that INPUT (listening, reading) is not enough to remember new, more complex vocabulary. You will see or hear new words this way, but to practise them enough to stick in your memory, you must deliver OUTPUT (writing, speaking). I was very impressed to hear that Rocio and Daniel speak English at home in the evenings, Between couples this might feel weird to speak another language other than you own when you know you can have an easier, more complex conversation in your native tongue, but when you are comfortable with someone, sometimes language flows easier than with a stranger and you are more confident to be corrected.
We drove out of the city to explore the famous Rio Tinto, which won its name from the red wine colour it runs due to iron contaminants. Unfortunately we were not so lucky that day, as the recent nearby rainfalls had diluted the river to a deep orange. Later we picked up Mario, Daniel’s young son, from school and went to visit the Muelle de las Carabelas, where are housed three full sized replicas of the three ships that Christopher Colombus sailed in his voyage that eventually took him to the Americas. It is from this port that the ships departed Spain, and this museum reveals just how proud the Spanish are for this great discovery of the new world.
Although shy at first, young Mario was skipping along holding my hand by the end of the day, and I received a big hug at goodbye time. It’s days like these that I will treasure more than any visit to a tourist attraction.
HelloTalk: Online Language Exchange App
WIth HelloTalk, learn a language by chatting with native speakers around the world – for free! You create a profile, search for people in any area (even people in your city) and away you go! HelloTalk is a messaging application where you make translate, make corrections, send audio messages and even have calls, including video calls.It worked for me – I was speaking Spanish within just a few months!
HelloTalk is a mobile application only, available on Google Play for Android and the App Store for iPhone users.
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If you are interested in learning a language and want to meet people online to practise with, HelloTalk premium is a great way to do it. You can make video calls, have unlimited translations per day and you can access your entire chat history, which is priceless for language learning to see how far you’ve come!
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