Conversation Partner #1


     I was able to finally meet my assigned conversation partner, Zhao Hanqing after some difficulties trying to contact him. We met each other at the school’s CIES building and talked. We started off introducing ourselves, talking about our majors and where we’re from. Most of our conversations focused on the difficulties of speaking English and offering suggestions on what shows to watch for someone who isn’t too skilled at listening and fully understanding English. While Hanqing was good in his grammar and, for the most part, didn’t have too much difficulty understanding what I was saying, he does have a really thick accent. In some weird way, I was kind of interested in his difficulty pronouncing words. I guess it’s because it’s having me learn more about languages, especially how different they can be and how seemingly simple vowel pronunciations can cause someone to struggle. In Hanqing’s case, he told me how he has trouble individually pronouncing “bad” and “bed”. Hopefully, he’ll be able to overcome this. I suggested to have him attend some accent reduction classes to help him with his word pronunciation. Overall, it was a fun time and I’m excited to see him again soon.

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