Where Can You Practise Your Languages?

English
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, UK (British English), USA (American English). English pubs worldwide. A form of English spoken in Singapore is Singlish. Several English-speaking islands.

Arabic
Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia. Mosques.

Bulgarian
Bulgaria. Cyrillic alphabet, invented by Christian Bulgarian brothers, used in Russia. Read up in Wikipedia the history of Cyrillic and where you can see the statues to the brothers in different countries.


Chinese
Cantonese in Hong Kong. Mandarin in China and Singapore. Chinese restaurants in Chinatown London, England and other Chinese restaurants and Chinatowns worldwide. The classical sign language is the same as classical Japanese.

Chineasy in Wikpedia and on YouTube and look to buy on Amazon and Ebay.

Esperanto
Easy artificial language - go to conferences, take course in England (Stoke, England, UK), go to Meetups (Reading, Berks, UK) or stay with fellow speakers at homestays worldwide.


French
Belgium, Canada (different accent), France (pure French in Paris).

German
Austria, Germany, Switzerland.

Greek
Greece mainland and islands. Cyprus.


Hebrew
Israel. Jewish Museums. Holocaust memorials inscriptions. Cemetery tombstones. Synagogues.

Indonesian
Indonesia. Language almost identical to Malay. Hear announcements on Singapore train stations.


Italian
Italy. Italian restaurants.

Japanese
Japan. Japanese restaurants. The sign language is the same as Chinese.

Korean
Korea.

Latin
Archaeological sites. Roman museums, eg St Albans in England, Caerleon in Wales, Hadrian's Wall in the UK, also Italy (Rome, Pompei), Israel, Jordan and the Middle East. Latin has been dropped from some Catholic church services but you might still find it used.

Malay
Malaysia. Language almost identical to Indonesian. Hear announcements on Singapore train stations (MRT is an English acronym and means mass transit).

Polish
Poland. UK - many cafes, restaurants and mini-supermarkets in London, England, some with Polish language newspapers, free or paid for versions.

Portuguese
Brazil. Madeira. Portugal. (All have different accents.) Macau - just a little, placenames etc.

Russian
Russia. Cyrillic alphabet in Bulgaria.

Spanish
Mexico. South America. Spain. (Also see Spanish signs in the USA.)

Welsh
Wales. On trains from Paddington, London to Wales, and railway station signs and road signs in Wales, also tourist information plaques.

Toastmasters International
The USA has Toastmasters clubs which speak English, or Spanish or both. Canada has English speaking and French speaking clubs. China has English speaking clubs. Singapore has clubs speaking English, English and Mandarin, French, Tamil.
London has clubs speaking English, bilingual meetings in English and French, Polish, the Spanish and German clubs seen to come and go.
Toastmasters materials are published in English, and several other languages including French.

Meetupas
Also see Meetup groups for different languages, eg in Singapore I have seen English, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese and European languages.

Useful websites
Wikipedia has articles on all languages, where they are spoken, and their alphabets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mexico

Duolingo

Free internet lessons including English for speakers of other languages; English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Korean, Russian, Spanish and more and others in beta (tryout form) being added.

Polyglots
If you speak or wish to speak several languages, see videos on YouTube or look at or join polyglot groups on Facebook.

Language Swaps
You can join a Facebook group called Language Exchange. Also try the forums in Duolingo for translation queries.

Travel information
Useful websites
You will see the national flag on the page of any country in Wikipedia. Also check Wikivoyage and Wikitravel.
wikitravel.org
wikivoyage.org

Travel Information
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com

Useful Information and Websites
Travel and Tourism
visitlondon.com
visitbritain.com
visitbritain.org
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.co.uk

Transport
virginatlantic.com (airline UK to USA and USA to UK and Europe and world)
skyscanner.net (flight date and price comparisons and offers)
citimapper.com
tfl.gov.uk (transport for London)
rome2rio.com (directions)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.