Learning languages at the airport

Be brave and meet great people at the airport!

“How are you always finding people?” our exchange student asked me at the airport Tuesday night, after I had struck up several multilingual conversations with strangers.

Airports are full of languages, and this is how I’m “always finding people.” I keep my ears open. I cherish opportunities to talk with fascinating people from all over the world.

I met refugees. I heard about difficulties living in the US. I got to know about American life from a new point of view.

Do you keep your ears open? What languages have you heard spoken recently? How well do you speak them?

Learning from anxiety: Waxaan ku hadlay maanta afka soomaaliga! I spoke Somali today!

What did you learn after your crash?

I had some great opportunities to speak Somali this week. Since I live in the suburbs, just over the Minnesota River from the largest Somali populations in the US, I took an opportunity to cross the bridge to practice with some folks.

I listened to a podcast this week about language anxiety (listen to part 1 here) and read an article with new research on the same topic.

Language anxiety affects me. By getting out of the “classroom,” however, and into the community, I saw that any anxiety I had was unfounded.