Ruben and I are really starting to get to know each other at this point and I can actually see many improvements in his English. One thing specifically that he has asked about every time we have met is English tenses and how well he uses them correctly when he is talking to me. In our first meeting, some sentences he would say would be similar to, “I graduate in May 2009,” and even though I knew what he was saying, the tense on the verb would be incorrect. Now however, he is even using conjunctions with his tenses, such as won’t, couldn’t, and can’t. It is just interesting to watch as someone moves closer and closer to fluency in a language.
I asked him what he was doing this weekend and he said he was going to mostly relax and maybe take his sister to “the cinema” to see Paranormal Activity 3. He then asked me what I was doing and I told him that my fraternity was having a party that I might go to. For some reason, it did not even cross my mind that Ruben wouldn’t know what a fraternity was. When explaining fraternities to someone who has never heard of them, it is difficult to describe without getting some weird looks and a lot of questions. “A brotherhood of men that share many of the same ideals who are bound together by the sacred bonds of ritual.” Ruben really didn’t know what to think when I told him about it. I was laughing. It really did sound sketchy and weird. And to top it off, our name was made up of Greek letters, which Ruben had no knowledge of. I think right when I told him, he believed I was part of some secret cult on TCU’s campus. But after I explained the various things we do around campus and how many students at TCU join fraternities and sororities, he began to grasp what being in a fraternity entails. He told me that at Columbian universities, there is nothing like this and most stress is put on the academics, although he didn’t seem completely against the idea of fraternities (after he knew they weren’t cults).
Overall though, I find it riveting to explain parts of American culture that Ruben does not know about yet because he is learning about our country and able to compare it back to the country he knows best. Vice versa, it is always fascinating to learn about other countries, like Columbia, because it allows us to view our lives from a different perspective than that which we’ve always known and grown up with.
Haha I had this conversation with my partner too! Right when I brought it up I knew it was a bad idea because it is a pretty odd concept to understand when you're from a different culture. It looks like you a had a bit better luck explaining it than I did considering mine probably still thinks I'm in a cult!
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