One year anniversary of Windsor’s language exchange

Every Thursday night, there’s a busy crowd of diverse people speaking different languages in a downtown Windsor bar.

It is a language exchange club, and last week, it held its one-year anniversary with people from 22 different countries.

“We have had close to 2,000 participants since we first started, and over 30 different languages and native speakers from many countries,” said Audra Macintyre, the energetic host of the event who can speak French, Spanish and English.

“I started the language exchange in Windsor in 2016, because I am excited about languages, and want to improve my Spanish and French. I know that Windsor is a very diverse community, so I thought it’s an opportunity to bring lots of different languages and cultures together,” Macintyre said.

The language exchange club has met 58 times.

Every week, people come together to practice their conversation skills in different languages. And once a month, they hold a special themed event.

“Tonight is our one year anniversary. We brought in native speakers of seven different languages to encourage people to come out and know they can practice language with native speakers. And we also have a few prizes that people can win tonight,” Mncintyre said.

“This is my first time to take part in language exchange with the people all over the world. And I want to practice my German tonight, I haven’t speak German for two years,” said Hongyuan Cui, a student from the University of Windsor.

Macintyre said she received funding from the City of Windsor recently, and that helps to expand the resources.

“We can purchase some language learning materials, like visual dictionaries and conversation games to engage people more at the language tables.”

Besides, they can hire teachers to come and guide people including through pronunciation, new vocabulary and expression.

“It was an inspiring night. I hope we can keep growing and expanding in the future,” Macintyre said.