Nat Sounds

My First Foray In All-Spanish Journalism

For the last year, I’ve been working to immerse myself in Spanish-language journalism as much as possible. Last week, in Gandía, Valencía, I was able to dive in completely with Comunica2, a conference at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia about social media.

I was lucky enough to hear presentations about a wide range of topics, from the role that marketing good plays on the Internet to how nudity is censored in today´s digital age.

But the best part of the conference was in all the presentations: EVERYTHING WAS IN SPANISH. The. Whole. Time.

At the end of the day, I realized that hours-long exposure to natively-paced Spanish speakers using technical vocabulary was a first-time experience for me.

The thing that made me even more happy happened AFTER the conference presentations; I had conversations with conference speakers and students attending the conference.

Un placer haber disfrutado del Comunica2 con mi apadrinada @janinewarner y @NatVanH 😍 pic.twitter.com/YX8OuxEyzz

— Inmaculada Celda (@inmaculadacelda) February 17, 2017

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I’ve had academic conversations in Spanish before. The difference happened when I knew there was no way for me to switch to English when I couldn’t remember a Spanish phrase. It may sound dramatic, but I noticed my brain stretching to allow me to express myself. By the end of the weekend, I definitely noticed a difference in my ability to follow a conversation in rapid Spanish. Even better, I could tell that I could speak with my ease at a faster backed than I had been able to at the start of the weekend.

When I gave a presentation in my grammar class on Monday, I could tell that my presentations skills had improved as a result of my weekend learning and networking in Spanish.

Who knew that spending my weekend talking and Tweeting would have so many benefits? It’s just one of the reasons I am loving the language immersion aspect of study abroad.