Roxy Rico TS #4

For my second session with Amir, I invited him and his friend Nikita over to my house for a spelling bee and conversation. Some other friends of mine came over, too, and we all participated in the spelling bee. Amir got a pretty difficult word and spelled it almost perfectly, except he missed one vowel. The rest of the contestants tried their best to spell the words, some failed, others succeeded. In the end, we all marveled at how strange English spelling could be. After the contest, we all talked—mostly about the differences between the United States and Kazakhstan, where Nikita and Amir are from. We learned a lot about one another’s countries, including the social scene, politics, and customs. Amir said he felt that he had leveled up somehow in English because he was encountering new words and slang he had never heard before. Plus, he could only speak in English because that was what everyone else was speaking. He was glad to be in this sort of social setting, where the language was totally conversational. Nikita and Amir also taught me Russian curse words! I think we each learned a lot of new information about our respective native tongues.

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