Marissa_CP#5

Marissa M.
Conversation Partner Blog #5
9/29/2014

Tonight I had another conversation with Henrique.  During this session he told me that over the past few weeks he has decided that he wants to begin studying his English lessons again more serious.  His goal is to take the TOEFL exam and enter into educational programs to perhaps pursue a degree in business, finance, or accounting.  I told him that he should consider an MBA program - the degree I have - because it covers all of those areas.  I was excited to hear him discuss this!  And I promised him that I would help him in any way I could.  He recognizes that his conversation English skills are good enough to make him understood.  However, he wants to learn to be more proficient and form complete sentences - rather than leave out words and mix up tenses as he tends to do.  He has an extensive vocabulary and thus I told him this would probably be pretty easy for him.  The hard part for him will be writing because he does not do that as often.  When I speak he says that most of the time he understands what I am saying.  There are only a few times he does not.  Thus, I think his listening skills are also fairly developed.

Another topic we discussed was tennis and meetup groups.  He had not heard of these before, but was very glad I introduced him to them tonight.  Recently he started playing tennis again and wants to find more people to play the game with.  He was not certain where to go to find opponents and then I introduced him to meetup.com tonight.  Hopefully he will find some good friends to play with. 

We discussed houses and architecture.  At the moment he is very interested in this since he is getting ready to open a new business which will require him to build a new building.  He asked about my house and my parents house.  I showed him pictures of both, as well the house that I first grew up in that my parents built.  One of the main differences between houses here and those in his city is that the ones where he lives mostly have gates surrounding all of them to protect from the crime that used to be such a problem there.  We do not have that as much here.  Honestly, seeing so many gates and fences when I travel unnerves me somewhat.  They are meant to give a sense of security and protection.  However, for me they have the opposite affect. 

In addition to various styles of architecture, I taught him a few new words tonight: lecture, mortgage, savings, cold-blooded, and Silicon Valley.  Our chat concluded with a short discussion on the time changes coming up and the season shifts.