Before my month abroad, I expected the language lessons to be the hardest part. In fact, the first difficulty was knowing how to join ordinary conversations. In class, people took turns and the teacher waited for an answer. Around my host family’s dinner table, several people spoke at once, and a joke could end before I understood its beginning.
For the first few days, I smiled and pretended to follow everything. My host, Elena, eventually asked whether the evening meals were too late for me, because I seemed so quiet. I admitted that the timing was fine; I simply could not follow every change of topic. After that, the family began checking that I knew what they were discussing. I also learned to interrupt politely rather than wait for a perfect silent moment.
One Saturday, Elena asked me to buy some vegetables from the market. I wrote a careful list but forgot to check how much of each item she wanted. The seller asked a question I had not prepared for, and I came home with enough onions for several dinners. We laughed, then used the extra onions in soup. The problem was not that I knew no useful words. I had prepared a speech instead of preparing to exchange information.
My school organised trips every afternoon, but I chose not to attend all of them. I wanted some unplanned time in the neighbourhood. Visiting the same small shop several times helped me become familiar with the owner’s questions, and gradually our conversations became longer. This did not make the organised trips worthless; I enjoyed the museum visit and learned things I would not have discovered alone.
At the end of the month, I still made many grammatical mistakes. What changed was my response to them. Instead of abandoning an idea when I could not find the exact word, I tried another way to explain it. I returned home with less confidence in my ability to predict every conversation, but more confidence in my ability to keep one going.