Café Lingua is an organization dedicated to helping others learn languages, form friendships, and exchange ideas.
We currently host weekly language exchange events all around the globe, but our ultimate goal is to open a physical café complete with coffee and paninis.
We plan to open our first café within the next year in Maryland (Washington DC region). The café will be a gathering ground for people to get to know their neighbors and develop new skills. Practice languages 1-on-1 with our multilingual guests, take a language class from one of our volunteers, dine with your family, sip coffee in the multilingual library, make new friends, attend multilingual karaoke night, attend the international film festival, and more.
Café Lingua will be the first destination for any tourist visiting the Washington D.C. area looking for things to do and places to explore. Imagine hopping off your plane, meeting a new friend at Café Lingua, and taking the next day to explore the town with your new friend by your side. And what’s more, your new friend can help you practice English while you help him with his Spanish. You return home from vacation, but you’ve made a lifelong friend who you continue practicing English with monthly to this day.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we came up with the idea for Café Lingua, you can read more here.
Reach Goals
Once we’ve proven the success of our first café, we want to eventually expand to other communities where there is a strong desire for a café. We can eventually leverage that network to help organize exchange events between different cafés. So with that in mind, if you’re still having trouble picturing what Café Lingua will look like, here are some possible scenarios of our guests.
🇯🇵 Nobeoka, Japan: You just got a new job in Nobeoka, Japan. You’re going to be an English teacher in Japan. But you barely know any Japanese. You took a little in high school, but you can’t remember anything other than konnichiwa and arigatō. On the plane ride over you’re nervous because you don’t know anyone there and it’s a small town in the lush green Japanese countryside. You think about taking some Japanese courses to improve your Japanese and perhaps make some new friends. So you begin searching online and come across a place called Café Lingua that offers a free beginner’s Japanese class and also says they can match me up with a language exchange partner. You find out that it’s a place where you can meet new friends and learn more about your community. It’s a coffee shop with classes and different cultural events. And a lot of those classes and events are offered free of charge by generous local community members. This is great! You can meet some new friends and you don’t have to spend a dime. Oh and one of the classes they’re offering is how to cook Chicken Nanban and another is Japanese calligraphy? Oh and a beginner’s Japanese course! Wow, this place is perfect for me!
🇺🇸 Sioux City, Iowa, USA: Or imagine you’re taking a family road trip from your home in California to your grandmother’s house in Indiana. Your car breaks down in Sioux City, Iowa. You don’t know anyone there but you find out that there is a Café Lingua there. You stop by and look at the local help board. There is someone who has an auto shop nearby. You call the number and they come pick up your car. Since you have nowhere to stay you stick around at the café. You find out they have a person offering free beginner’s ukulele classes and you decide to pop in to one of the classes. After it finishes you wait around in the language exchange section and someone approaches you to speak in Spanish. You use your rusty high school Spanish, but then you notice while you’re making mistakes you’re having a great time. And this other guy ends up becoming your friend and offers to give you a little tour of the town while you wait. Afterwards you guys grab dinner and by the time dinner is done you get a call from the auto shop that your car is ready and they’ll come deliver it to you. You continue on your journey and have a memorable break down story in Sioux City on your way home.