Let the Conversations Begin: Meeting My ESL Partner

My Conversation Partner is named Christian Castañedo and we met on Friday, February 1^st at Einstein’s Bagels. He is from Guadalupe, Mexico and he is new to TCU. He was extremely nice and even bought me a smoothie while we were there. I asked him about school and he wants to major in film and become a producer in the future. His English was surprisingly pretty good and during the whole meeting, he would ask me to correct him if he said something incorrectly. He lived in New York for a while before coming to Texas but said it was too expensive there and he likes it better here (which I can’t blame him, Texas is awesome). He says that Americans have funny sayings and he thought the saying “Don’t count your eggs before they hatch” was odd. I asked him if he liked America compared to Mexico and he said that he loves the opportunities in America but misses all the traditions that Mexico has. I told him that America celebrates certain special holidays but other than that, Americans do not have that many traditions. He also said that America seems fast-paced and he constantly feels the need to always be doing something when he’s here. We also discussed how the food differs from Mexico. He said that “Tex-Mex” food is not nearly as spicy/flavorful as true Mexican food. When I exclaimed that I also enjoyed spicy foods, he said that he would bring me some true spicy food next time (but hopefully not too spicy!). He said that Taco Bell is not even close to Mexican food (especially the tacos) but he does like Fuzzy’s and Salsa Limón. He says that he enjoys all the fast food options here but they are dangerously fattening. He works at the Hilton hotel to help pay for his house that he has close to campus and he says that he likes his job there. I asked him if he misses his family and he said yes but that he has a cousin that also lives here and his family is planning on moving here soon. We also talked about sports and he said he enjoys more extreme sports and also soccer, sand volleyball, and swimming. He says that American football (not futból) is confusing to him and so he does not normally watch it. I attempted to speak some Spanish to him thinking that maybe the Spanish I learned in high school would come back to me…But it didn’t and I ended up telling him that I lived on “el rancho” (on a farm), which he thought was hilarious. He also didn’t understand me when I said I ran track because he didn’t know what a track was. I had a hard time trying to explain what a track is but I did manage to remember the Spanish word for running (It’s correr in case you were wondering). Overall, the meeting went well and it was unexpectedly easy to talk to him. I was actually surprised how much I enjoyed getting to know someone from a different culture and I look forward to the experience of further getting to know Christian and learning about each other’s cultures.