A warm welcome to you
Practical and not overly academic this Website is designed for Spanish and English speakers who want to learn the others language.
The best place to learn Spanish is in Spain and one of the best places in Spain to learn English is in Playa del Ingles at at Cafe Florin.
Built by myself John Joseph Mulkearns this Website is designed to help expand your active vocabulary in both languages and to reference translate and conjugate words and importantly to give you a chance to practice face to face, free and hopefully in a Cafe or bar near you.
Hundreds visit this site daily and It is my sincere hope that you to find it useful
Originally built to help members of Cafe Florins regular language exchanges this sites scope has rapidly grown to aim at serving a wider world wide community who will likely benefit from like minded individuals who want to freely help others to learn their language.
Small Cafes answer to a big industry challenge
Here in Playa del Ingles we are part of the Green tourist industry and orientated around a practical approach to language learning and exchange meetings.
Our face to face get togethers and this Website are aimed at helping both the English community to better integrate and the native communities desire to benefit from any positives the foreign community may have to offer
Yes language exchanges can be complicated things.
Primarily focused on English for Spanish and Spanish for English I have also included a German and hopefully soon a Scandinavian dictionary or two, both of which are driven by desire to reflect the winter population migrations to these Islands and in particular to my new Island, Gran Canaria.
The members of the language exchange groups who attend weekly face to face meetings at Cafe Florin and other bars and Cafes across the Canaries now number in the hundreds
We hope to expand our reach, influence and co-ordination efforts across the entire Spanish speaking world and into Cafes and Bars near you; both in the English and Spanish speaking worlds where small, sometimes foreign groups of Spanish or English are, like us, looking to learn a little more of the others language and culture.
A final note about some of the reference and learning material included here, I have also included a number of popular English and Spanish videos learning resources, e.g. some videos with subtitles, where and when possible I I regularly add and embed new videos that I think will help each learn the others language.
Soon this site will hopefully include further audio, video and learning material direct from my own attempts at creating lesson content.
If you are interested in software then please visit our new website webica.es where you will find some interesting stuff.
About the author
I am a London born native English speaker who now lives in Playa del Ingles (2008) where I design and develop Web sites and where I also help run a small Internet Cafe Bar called Cafe Florin.
I am also a graduate of the University of London and a qualified teacher in higher and further education and most importantly a humble student of Spanish.
As such, I use this site as a learning tool to expand my vocabulary, conjugate, translate improve me pronunciation.
Deep Link Documentary Video Sample
Cafe Florin started the Intercambio de Idiomas in Maspalomas Gran Canaria in early 2011 and one year later, with hundreds of active members we now have this Website to power us through the next year where hundreds, possibly thousands more can benefit from the fastest growing Intercambio de Idiomas program in the Spanish speaking world
The translators you see here are only a temporary measure while we create more original hand written content in different languages
Chat room
Various third party chartroom options are being evaluated, currently I am looking at Microsoft Messenger and Yahoo working with each other. One day I would like to write my own solution but the constraints of time dictate evaluating a third part option for this summer is expedient.
So expect to see a chat room here before the end of May.
We have Radio!
More exciting news, something I can do quite quickly is to help you to listen to the language you are learning, for now German, British and Spanish radio stations have been added so you can listen along with millions of others daily live radio in each language.
We have the top references
We now have some of the smartest search engines for you, for each word you find you will be able to search a custom version of
Google for that language / country for all references to that word in e.g. German, see how the world sees any particular word.
Not just the Canary Islands
Language exchange groups exist all over Gran Canaria, the Canary Islands and throughout the Spanish speaking world.
Face to Face via Facebook.
The practical day to day face to face meeting groups, locations and contact details are best managed through your local Facebook group. We list all the approved Facebook groups here for you.
If you do not have a co-coordinator for you local area we will help you find one
If you are a café bar or club owner who would like host meetings we can help you reach your local community and start your own intercambio de idiomas.
FACEBOOK
Gran Canaria Facebook Group here
intercambiodeidiomas@groups.facebook.com
LanguageExchanges@groups.facebook.com
Further Facebook groups will be added shortly
A Youtube video demonstrating how to get the best from this Website will be available shortly.
It will be made with the a free product called Cam Studio Recorder for screen recordings, this Website site is also built with free software from Microsoft, visual studio express
more here shortly.
We accept no responsibility for the content of external Websites and Facebook groups
