Voices en Español

It’s been several months since I’ve done an intercambio and I’ve recently been more immersed in English than in Spanish. So when some guy contacted me last week via a language exchange web site that I had signed up for ages ago, I figured, why not? His profile was short and to the point and it said he was in Santander, a city in northern Spain. I emailed him back saying that I was interested and to let me know when he was available to meet. He emailed back saying that he could only meet Mondays at 2 p.m. or Fridays starting from 5 p.m. Okey dokey. He must’ve realized that sounded odd so he explained that his teenage daughter monopolizes the family computer and so those two days and hours were the only times he can get on the computer. Okey dokey.

I couldn’t call him on Monday at 2 p.m. and Friday at 5 p.m. was really not ideal for me. I ask him if there’s anyway he can make 6 p.m. He says yes.

So we “met” on Skype last week Friday at 6 p.m. Skype is great because not only is it free to use, it also has a chat feature which you can have open and running while you’re speaking. It’s a great tool to use particularly when doing intercambios since typing out a word can often clear up doubts and mistakes.

Anyway, I get on Skype and look for this guy. According to Skype, he’s not online. I open up the chat and send him a message. No response. I then call, he answers. Turns out he’s got his visibility set to “invisible.” Okey dokey.

I ask him if he has the chat open and he says no, that he doesn’t like chat mode. I’m like “Huh?” I tell him that I would like to have the chat open because it is actually quite helpful for clearing up things that either one of us may not understand, etc. He initially refuses and then agrees to it. Okey dokey.

The thing that immediately struck me about him is that not only did he start the conversation in English, he did not acknowledge my responding to him in Spanish at the very beginning of the call when I said “¡Hola! ¿Qué tal? ¿Cómo estás?” Usually, I ask the other person or they ask me, which language do we want to begin with. This guy couldn’t be bothered with that. He was determined to speak English and English only.

His English was very good but there was an error that he made that I figured he’d want corrected. It’s a frequent mistake among Spanish speakers when they speak English. He was talking about his daughter and he kept using the pronoun “he” to refer to her. He said it three times, so it was clear that he wasn’t aware of his mistake. So I asked him, “Do you have a daughter or a son? Because you keep saying “he”. He got a little  uppity, like I had offended him, and said he had a daughter. He then went on to say that he doesn’t like to be interrupted when he’s talking. Okey dokey.

It was little bit like a therapy session, with me sitting on the other end listening and him doing all the talking. Whenever I could get a word in to ask a question or make a comment, he didn’t fully acknowledge it. He just kept right on talking and it was clear he wasn’t really interested in hearing anything I had to say. And keep in mind all of this is is happening in English, so that means I’m getting zippo out of the conversation.

We were exactly 58 minutes into the conversation when I was about to suggest that we switch over to Spanish when he interrupted me, and said “Oh sorry, I have to go. I have a German class in two minutes.” Okey dokey.

To say that I was pissed is an understatement. I doubt I will be speaking to this person again. Call me old-fashioned, but I think there should be some basic etiquette when it comes to doing language intercambios. So here’s the imaginary email I would send to this person if I thought he would give a hoot.

Hello  ___________,

Thanks for inviting me to do an intercambio with you the other day. I hope you enjoyed our chat. There are a few things, however, that I’d like to say to you. Maybe it was just a first-meeting miscommunication, but I was a disappointed by how the conversation went. It’s supposed to be good to get things like this off one’s chest and out into the open, so, here goes:

1). Don’t book your intercambio session right on top of some other activity you’ve got planned. If you know in advance that you’re not going to have enough time to do a full session, reschedule.

2). Don’t hog the conversation. Yes, I know you’re excited about speaking with a real life native speaker, but don’t be so hellbent on speaking that the other person is reduced to being just passive earphone. Which leads to point number 3….

3). Agree from the outset, that the very first conversation will allow BOTH PARTIES to speak the target language they wish to practice. First of all, it’s only fair. (Later on, both people can decide how to divvy things up going forward, whether that means doing alternating sessions of one language or doing both languages in the same session with a 50/50 split.) Second of all, both people need to see (or hear) what they’re dealing with.

For example, if the person sitting across from you (or at the other end of the line) can barely speak Spanish or English, it is clear that you’re going to have an extremely lopsided intercambio where one person is doing all the talking and the other person is just listening. In the long run, that’s neither desirable nor a sustainable language exchange. The most enjoyable intercambios are like a game of tennis, with two evenly-matched partners who can help one another as well as raise the other person’s game. There’s no fun and no challenge in playing tennis with someone who is light years ahead of you nor with someone who doesn’t even know how to hold the racket.

4). Ask questions. Don’t make speeches. You’re supposed to be having a conversation, a dialogue, not giving a lecture. If you can’t drum up at least a modicum of feigned interest in your conversational partner, find another one or just stick with private lessons where at least someone will get paid to listen to you drone on.

Now I throw it over to you guys….what etiquette points would you add to this list? What type of “code of conduct” do you want your intercambio partners to abide by?