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What's this all about?
Are you trying to learn a new language for research or personal interest? Do you miss speaking your native language? Join one of the Cafe Vita Language Meetups!
The meet-ups are an opportunity to get graduate students (and others) together to speak and practice their language(s) of interest. All of the meetups take place at Cafe Vita in the UCSD One Miramar Housing Complex on Miramar St (just off Regents Rd in the UTC area.)
Scheduled Meet-Ups
(contact coordinators for more info)
| Language | Day/Time | Coordinator | Coordinator's Email |
| Spanish | Thursdays @ 7 pm | Reece | ude.dscu|kcepr#ude.dscu|kcepr |
| French | Thursdays @ 6pm | Erin | moc.liamg|dscuenolame#moc.liamg|dscuenolame |
| German | Sundays @6pm | Annette | ude.dscu|revulca#ude.dscu|revulca |
| Japanese | Wednesdays 7-8:30pm | Daisy | ude.dscu|eelysiad#ude.dscu|eelysiad |
| Mandarin | Tuesdays @ 8pm | Lili | ude.dscu|gnepl#ude.dscu|gnepl |
| Portugese | Wednesdays @ 7pm | Elize | ude.dscu|ogeidazame#ude.dscu|ogeidazame |
Get involved!
Participate!
If you are interested, send your name, email, and language(s) spoken to the coordinator above. If your language isn't active email Erin at moc.liamg|dscuenolame#moc.liamg|dscuenolame to find out the status of that language. The group could just be waiting on a coordinator or a few more members to get started. Please indicate if you are interested in coordinating a group, being a participant, or both! New meetups can start back at anytime. Check back often for updates!
Coordinate!
Being a meetup coordinator is easy and fun! Coordinators greet new participants, keep conversation going and make everyone feel welcome. You're primary job is to be present so people will know where the meet up is taking place. Your few duties will include: determining a meetup time, greeting new participants, and keeping an email list. All publicity, reserving space, and other logistics will be taken care of for you. Your language meetup can also have a webpage on ucsdgrads.wikidot.com where you can place updates or photos if you wish.
As grad students we know that even this small committment might just be too much to handle, so consider co-coordinating. Split your duties with another participant or if you can't make a meeting, contact someone on the email list to play coordinator for a day. If you are interested, contact Erin at moc.liamg|dscuenolame#moc.liamg|dscuenolame.
Languages of Interest
Thus far, there has been interest expressed in the languages below. There are many groups that have interest but to start scheduling the meetings there should be at least 1 participant and 1 coordinator. Once those are secure the meet-ups can officially start. Contact moc.liamg|dscuenolame#moc.liamg|dscuenolame or leave a comment to express interest in one of the languages below or suggest a new language.
Check the table below for the status of non-active meet-up groups.
| Language | # of Participants | Coordinator? Y/N |
| Arabic | 2 | N |
| ASL-American Sign Language | 4 | N |
| Bengali | 1 | N |
| Cantonese | 1 | N |
| English/ESL | 3 | N |
| German | 4 | Y |
| Hindi | 1 | N |
| Italian | 3 | N |
| Japanese | 5 | Y |
| Lithuanian | 1 | N |
| Mandarin | 5 | Y |
| Russian | 3 | N |
| Tagalog | 1 | N |
| Taiwanese | 1 | N |
| Thai | 1 | N |
American Sign Language?
Arabic? I am a beginner to intermediate speaker and interested in improving.
Japanese
I would love a group to practice beginning/intermediate Spanish with!
Mandarin
If there are any speakers of Lithuanian out there I would be very happy to have a chat.
I tried to add it on the sidebar, but I didn't see it come up.
I just added french w/ schedule info, and I'm willing to coordinate.
I'm a native speaker of English and Japanese
I'm also interested in learning any one of several (most?!) of the languages listed so far - if I have time and there's sufficient interest to get a group going.
Pig latin
Anyone interested in Romanian?
Hi, everyone!
I'm new here and I am really excited to see all of this language learning activity! I'm a native english speaker with pretty good German skills. I'm looking to learn Mandarin and Latin American Spanish and to keep up my German. I'm willing to teach German and help non-native speakers to improve their English… I could possibly be the ESL coordinator if no one else steps up. Call me if you want to set up a 1-on-1 outside of the meetups: 419.787.9577. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you around at one of the above meetups! :o)
Jason B.
Hi Jason,
I have studied German sometime ago. I would love to refresh it in conversation. Have you succeeded in forming up a group?
Best regards,
Tatiana S.
I'd love to do a Russian meetup. I just started this year, and am still pretty new at it. I wouldn't mind coordinating it, but it would be nice if someone who was more fluent would help co-coordinate.
Anyone?
The impact of social interaction on speech learning was demonstrated in a study investigating whether infants are capable 350-001 exam of phonetic and word learning at nine months of age from natural first-time exposure to a foreign language. Mandarin Chinese was used in the first foreign-language intervention experiment (Kuhl et al. 2003). Infants heard 4 native speakers VCP-410 exam of Mandarin (male and female) during 12 25-min sessions of book reading and play across a 4–6 week period. A control group of infants also came into the laboratory for the same number and variety of reading and play sessions but heard only English.Two additional groups were exposed to the identical Mandarin material over the same number of sessions via either standard television 642-901 exam or audio-only presentation. After exposure, Mandarin syllables that are not phonemic in English were used to test infant learning using both behavioral (Kuhl et al. 2003) and brain (Kuhl et al. 2008) tests.