Monday, October 15, 2007

It’s harder when it’s not your native language


I really don’t have much of a fear of public speaking. Between different jobs I had in the Air Force I was given ample opportunity to speak in public to varying sizes of groups. This past week we had the opportunity to give our first (of presumably many) talks in Spanish. Although my Spanish is certainly better than it was when I arrived, I’m nowhere near fluent. It makes it a challenge and at the same time fun. The talk covered the organization of a community group so I felt comfortable with the topic and actually we pulled it off very well. An interesting observation which was made to me was that it’s possible that we may know Spanish than our audience if they come from an indigenous village. Not sure I’m ready to pick up a Mayan language…vamos a ver.

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