Practice Your Spanish in Spain
Best Places to Speak Spanish with Native Spearkers in Madrid, Free
Looking to improve your spanish while traveling in Spain? Looking to meet new people? If so, then you may want to know the best cafes, bookstores, and web sites to do it.
Traveling to another country where you don't speak the language can be somewhat scary. But if you know the best places to meet other people like you, or native speakers who are interested in helping you improve your language skills, then the new environment may become more maneagable. Here are some great places to meet people and improve your Spanish in Madrid!
Cafe Madrid: Every Wendesday night at 9:30pm Cafe Madrid becomes a home away from home. People from all over the world who are in Madrid for a week, a month, a year, go to this cafe to meet new people and practice different languages, You can meet people from Spain, Belgium, Germany, France. You can speak with people from Israel, Brazil, Japan and England. Many languages are spoken here, so you are bound to find whatever it is that you might be looking for. The cafe is located directly accross from the Opera Metro stop on Calle Meson de Panos.
J&J Books and Coffee: This is one of the greatest places to go if you're feeling homesick for your favorite bookstore/coffee shop. Here you can sit and have a coffee, a beer, a cocktail and read anything your little heart desires. They also have a plethora of events for you to chose from, one of which is an intercambio night. This is a great place for you to meet people looking to exchange languages. If you want to learn Spanish there is someone that may want to learn English. It's a fifty/fifty trade off! http://www.jandjbooksandcoffee.com/
MadridTeacher.com: If you aren't in the mood to handle a large crowd and you just want to find someone to help you with the language, Madridteacher.com is a great site to go to. They have listings of people looking for language exchange. Here you can find people around the same age, gender, etc., to help you on your way. www.madridteacher.com
Another great site to go to is loquo Madrid, http://madrid.loquo.com, here you can find people who have the same interests as you and it is a great place fo find people to practice the Spanish language. Loquo is the craigslist of Spain; it has everything. Not only can you find people to talk with but you can also find restaurants, cafes, and bars to meet in.
Now if you have no interest in meeting people to learn the language why not log onto http://www.notesinspanish.com/. This is a wonderful site for beginners, intermediate and advanced Spanish learners. The podcasts are free to listen to and each one is filled with great tips about Spain and the Spanish lifestyle. Being in the country alone and not speaking to anyone, these podcasts are great as they make you feel like you are a part of the conversation. Sooner than later your hosts, Ben and Marina, feel like old friends.
Hopefully these places can help you achieve the language proficiency you are looking for. After finding friends or people to talk to, the ovewhelming feeling of being in a different country will have disapeared, and who knows, maybe you'll be able to help another foriegner just arriving in the country.
