Language Exchange Scheme launched

Meet new people, learn about other cultures and improve your English.

Languages for All (LfA) are looking for fluent or advanced speakers of French, Spanish, German, Italian and Japanese, to partner with students on LfA courses. In exchange, you’ll be able to practise your English or another language, and make a new friend in Cardiff!

A language exchange is sometimes called a conversation exchange, or tandem learning. It takes place between two (or more) people who speak different languages, but want to practise the other person’s language. A native Japanese speaker may want to improve their English, for example, so will do an exchange with an English-speaking person who wishes to practise Japanese.

Besides enhancing your linguistic skills, there are loads of great reasons to become a language partner. Here are a just a few:

• Discover more about life in the UK
• Learn about other cultures and different ways of thinking
• Make contacts for your future career
• Get to know another country in more depth
• Practise cross-cultural communication
• Build up your business network
• Exchange ideas, tips and advice about living in Cardiff

If you are interested in joining our Language Exchange Scheme, please sign up by 23:59 on Sunday 20 September. We will then send you details of your partner by the end of October, so you can make contact and set up your first meeting.

Please note the following points:

• If you do not yet have your Cardiff email address, you should complete this question using ‘noemailyet@cardiff.ac.uk’.
• An ‘advanced’ speaker should be someone at CEFR level B2 level or above, so please assess your language skills if you are not sure of your level.
• As this is a new scheme, we cannot guarantee that everyone will be assigned a language partner. We do try our best to match all our applicants, but this may mean some students have more than one partner.

If you have any questions, then please contact our Languages Advisor Vicky at languagesforall@cardiff.ac.uk.