Meet People & Learn Languages While Traveling

Hola, Como estas?
こんにちは、お元気ですか？
Olá, como você está?
हैलो, आप कैसे हैं?
Hallo, wie geht es dir?

The above are some of the many ways to say “Hello, how are you?” in the some of the over 6,000 different languages in the world. These words are the starting point to meeting someone new. This world is filled with so many different people which makes it hard to meet them all; especially when there is a huge language barrier. You know how it is. You travel to a foreign country where you don’t know the languag, you just feel like a ghost, invisible, like no one can see you, isolated and you don’t fit in. It is dicouraging feeling. What if there was a place to help you with that? What if you could meet people who wanted to learn more about you and help you communicate in their native language? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could help others communicate in your native language? Wouldn’t it feel good that you are helping each other out when you while creating a strong friendship with someone you never thought about meeting before? Let me tell you about a brief experience I had while in Bogotá.

It Started in Bogotá

When I arrived to Bogotá, I wanted to brush up on my Spanish. I wanted to practice with people who were native to the language. It is hard enough being in a foreign environment and not fitting in as the gringo. Even harder was trying to say hello to strangers, not knowing if they were willing to help you with your Spanish. So I started to look for some help. I went to a place familiar to me, meetup.com.

What is Meetup.com?

Meetup.com is a place where you can meet people with similar interests as yourself. How it works is that you insert a keyword that happens to be an interests of yours, whether it be Spanish, fishing, underwater basket weaving or just video games, and meetup.com shows you the groups made by other people who also have those interests. The difference between meetup.com and other online message boards is that it is designed to actually physically meet with these groups in person.

The First Language Exchange

With the help of Meetup.com I stumbled a Spanish/English Conversation club that happened to be meeting the day I landed in Bogotá. Right after my flight landed in the Capitol of Colombia, I made myself to Chapinero section of Bogotá, took a seat and introduced myself in Spanish.
The crowd was small group of men who arrived promptly at the start time, which a rarity to see in Colombia. Overtime it eventually it grew as locals and foreigners started to pour on in. I was one of 3 foreigners who spoke english fluently. While one other American and another person from England were surrounded by men, I was surrounded by curious Colombian women who had questions about different words, different sayings and curious of why I was in Colombia. The 3 - 4 hours of practicing talking went by so quickly, it seemed like I had just sat down. I headed back to my apartment with an amazing feeling of accomplishment, I was able to speak Spanish (not well, but I was speaking). I also got know 3 lovely women who were interesting. Due to this experience, I was addicted. I returned the next week to meet more interesting people and again I left with that ecstatic feeling afterwards. However this time. the group decided to go out for drinks and karaoke afterwards. Each week after that I went back to improve my spanish and add more friends to my list.

The List Grows

This addiction of feeling accomplished and feeling like I belonged resulted in looking for more language exchanges. I found out about Gringo Tuesday at La Villa from CouchSurfing (which I may never use again). While in Cali I came across another language exchange in the salsa club La Topa Tolandra. When arriving back in Bogota I found 2 more at beer gardens. Each time I was creating new friends. Friends like Dave from Switzerland with his amazing friendliness and optimism, Takaaki a very friendly man from Japan who treated us all to a home cooked meal at his place, the ever so curious and intelligent Fernanda, Fanny a beautiful Dutch girl who dances salsa like a native of Cali and John a jolly friendly Colombian who speaks the world of Apple. This list could go on with people like, the smart Marg, Liliana and her smile, the joker Jair, Rumi always smiling, the quiet Carlos, the photographer John Fredy, Adriana, the beautiful Nahya, the party girl Patricia, the creative Yudy, the cute and friendly, the willful Nelly…but I think you get the point.

A Realization

Over the past few months these were people who I can call a close bunch of friends, all wanted to learn something from me and I wanted to learn something from them. It makes me think that we are in relationships to grow and learn from each other. It is what life is all about and these friends demonstrated. Travel has made this possible to find so many amazing people in this world.

So, lets switch back to you. Doesn’t it seem a bit more interesting to try to learn a new language now? Perhaps even better to try to help someone learn your language? You two can feel like you finally belong with a sense of accomplishment. Then do it! Join a language exchange. Do it while you are traveling to a foreign land if you can. Check out meetup.com for one near you or CouchSurfing or even mylanguageexchange.com and conversationexchange.com.

Ever meet a bunch of great people before? Ever struggle learning a language? Tell us Perhaps you have questions? We want to hear those stories. Leave a comment below, send me a tweet on twitter, or post on my facebook. Heck even send us a message. Let me know so I can help. Happy travels

Erick Redcloud

A partially blind Graphic Designer, Freelance Travel Photographer, Artist, Buddhist and Vegetarian who loves to travel. Erick loves traveling by being with the locals and going off the beaten path. He is the founder and owner of Pathlesstravels and loves inspiring others to follow their dreams, whether it is to travel or something completely different. He started Pathlesstravels to hone is photography skills and to meet amazing people, and to help a friend break into journalism. Check out his photography at his link.

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Erick Redcloud