Hola!  In this edition of the Berklee Valencia blog, I will be discussing more of the culture and what it is like for a foreigner to live in Spain as well as the interesting courses we are taking.

Not only do we study music here, but also we have the opportunity to improve our Spanish skills.  Even though I came in knowing a lot of Spanish, I was not able to fully converse with confidence.  Now that I have been here for a month and a half, my speaking skills have improved greatly.  I feel like I have a better understanding of the Spanish that is spoken in Spain.  I have also made friends with some of the students at the local universities here in Valencia.  All of them are studying topics unrelated to music or the arts, so it has been nice to have fun conversations with them that don’t relate to music!  Most of the students I have met are Spanish and grew up learning English in school.  I have found that when I start speaking Spanish to them, they want to speak English to me!  They do not meet many students who have English as their first language, so they want to practice as much as possible.  This has made for some interesting conversations!

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