Voices en Español

Sunday morning. Wake up, walk the dog, get coffee, go home. Turn on computer, log-on to Skype and look for your Spanish intercambio. Two hours later you log-off, strangely dissatisfied.

Maybe you are still half-sleep. Maybe you needed more time for the caffeine to kick in. Whatever it is, you can’t pinpoint why you feel so “blah” afterwards. You replay the conversation in your mind and realize that during a conversation that lasted roughly 120 minutes, you got 5 minutes, okay, 10 minutes tops, of actual conversation in Spanish. Whoa. You woke up early on Sunday morning for this? What happened?

You’ve just been conversationally hijacked.

Photo: Too Talkative by Sanguine Rouge. Used with permission.

Do enough intercambios (language exchanges) with enough people and this scenario is bound to happen to you — meeting a chatty Kathy who won’t let you get a word in edgewise. But here’s the thing, a conversational hijacker may not necessarily be a conversation hog. It may be a sign of mismatched levels. It’s only natural that a Spanish speaker with near native fluency in English isn’t a good match for a English speaker who can only speak in the present tense.

OK, that example may be a bit extreme, but the point is that you need to figure out whether your intercambio is dominating the conversation because that’s just the way he or she is or because your respective language levels are too far apart.

If you decide that the answer is the former and not the latter, here are some suggestions on how to tilt the conversational scales in your favor:

1. Set an alarm

It can be on your cell phone, your watch, heck, you can even use an hourglass. Whatever you do, decide from the start that a fixed amount of time will be spent talking in each language. Set the alarm to be a reminder to both of you that it’s time to switch languages.

2. Start the conversation in the language you want to practice

If you’re an English speaker who wants to improve your Spanish, greet your intercambio in Spanish. Do the initial “meet and greet” in Spanish. When you do this, you immediately set the tone that you are ready and able to begin the conversation in Spanish. If your language partner answers you in English, respond in Spanish, telling them politely that you would like to do the first part of the meeting in Spanish.

Whatever you do, try not to flip back and forth between Spanish and English in the opening chit-chat [“¡Hola! ¿Qué tal? How was your vacation?”], because when you do that, you’re sending a signal that you’re uncomfortable speaking in Spanish and you’re opening the door for a talkative language partner to hijack the conversation.

3. Change the meeting frequency

This may not be feasible for many people but one way to give you more quality talk time is to increase the number of times you meet per month or per week. For example, instead of one weekly session where you take turns talking in Spanish and English, you do two shorter sessions; one session on one day only in English and the other session another day only in Spanish. For some people this might be the best option since it forces both sides to focus on one language per session. But this option takes more time and scheduling coordination, making it potentially less appealing.

4. Steer conversation to a topic where your intercambio is forced to use Spanish

If you know that your intercambio has a limited vocabulary in English in some particular area, you can get them to speak Spanish just by asking them questions that deal with this topic. Pick a subject that you think they will feel strongly about or have an opinion on. It doesn’t have to be anything controversial. The idea is to get them talking about something that taxes their English, (i.e. they don’t have the vocabulary in English to talk about it), so they will switch to Spanish. For example, current events, art, history, cooking, music, etc. Come prepared with some questions and a little bit of vocab on your own, so that you can keep this part of the conversation flowing. And even though you may not be able to respond as fluidly as you’d like in Spanish during this part of the conversation, it will be great listening comprehension and a good vocabulary- building exercise for you.

Obviously, if the situation persists and you’re unable to find a happy medium with your intercambio, don’t continue meeting with that person. Thank them for their time and don’t burn any bridges. You never know when you might meet again!

What steps have you taken in dealing with very talkative intercambios? What works and doesn’t work? And if you’re a talkative person, how do you rein yourself in?