Are you interested in learning or practising languages locally? Language Lounge is a not-for-profit language club organising free or low cost classes and conversation groups. All groups are taken by a native speaker. We offer the chance to learn without paying a fee by swapping your language skills or to share the cost of a language teacher. We prefer people to swap if possible.

Everyone is welcome to come along and try a "taster" class first, without commitment. If you're interested please send a private message and let us know what language(s) you're interested, approximately what level you're at, and provide an email address. We'll reply by email (your contact info is not shared with anyone).

Currently we offer English, Italian, Mandarin and Turkish on Mondays, English and French on Wednesdays and Russian, English and Spanish on Thursdays. There are spaces at the moment for Spanish beginners, with a qualified native Spanish teacher, Italian intermediate, Turkish for beginners, Mandarin conversation (all levels) and Russian lower intermediate.

We meet mostly in a quiet area at The Mag, a gastropub at the junction of Pellatt Road and Lordship Lane, SE22 8HA. The current session starts runs for another two weeks, with the last meet on Thurs 18 Oct and then we start up for another six week run in the week of 5 November.

Most of the groups are free, provided that you are willing to help others learn your language in exchange, if asked by the Organisers. We have one paid teacher, for some of the French groups, as there is too much demand for French to be covered by volunteers. The paid-for French groups are £5 a session.

If you're not sure what your level is, please take a look at this and let us know which of the levels described is closest to yours: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Euro..._Languages - or you can google the Kings College or the LSE evening language classes, and take one of their self assessment tests, or you can try one of the tests on About.com.

Please bear in mind that we're completely run by volunteers, who also work full time, so it may be a few days before we're able to reply to your message. You can also check Twitter: @LangLounge for updates, and we will soon have a website.

We also do volunteer translation for some international voluntary organisations and can offer translators and student linguists interesting and rewarding voluntary assignments and the opportunity to build a translation portfolio towards membership of professional bodies. All work is credited.

This post was last modified: 08-10-2012 01:33 PM by languagelounger.

We're starting up again next week. The first meet will be on Tuesday 6th (rather than the usual Mondays). Please email langlounge@hotmail.com if you'd like to come for a taster session. We have friendly meetings with people who are learning/improving/practising French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Russian, Turkish and English.....because they enjoy learning languages, or are about to travel or work abroad, or are now settled in the UK and want to improve their English. All the groups work by language exchange and are free, except for a few of the French groups for which there's a fee of £5 per session.

Hi, I am interested in mandarin for beginners - do you have space for two of us? I am English and my partner is American - we do not speak other languages but are well educated generally so could perhaps help out with English conversation if necessary?