For a student of any age, a cultural or language exchange in a foreign country is a big adventure. Staying abroad with a friendly host, however, offers much more than the opportunity to learn a language. You can expect the benefits to continue when you return home and in the years that follow.
The best way to learn a language is to live with the people who speak it every day. With a tailor made cultural immersion you can practice your target language in authentic day to day learning situations. You will also find Lingoo members who want to learn your language, so you can organise a language share or language swap between yourselves.
Three ways to organise your Cultural or Language exchange:
- Language exchange – you stay with a member abroad then that Lingoo member comes to stay with you. You swap language learning. Find out more
- Homestay – you stay with a friendly family abroad who will help your language learning. Find out more
- Stay with a teacher – you stay in the home of a teacher abroad for more structured lessons. Find out more.
Lingoo is not an agency and our cultural exchange programs are not ready made. The choice is yours. On Lingoo you can choose to stay with a friendly host family living in the city or the countryside, you can choose how you combine the formal and informal parts of your cultural exchange and you decide who you want to stay with and for how long.
Five benefits of a cultural or language exchange:
- Personal growth: You will gain confidence through your stay. The courage and curiosity it takes to embark on a cultural and language exchange mean you are already open to gaining knowledge, maturity, and independence. Your stay will help you achieve this.
- A choice of hosts: We think you know better than anyone who you would like to stay with, when and for how long. So all of our cultural and language exchange partners have online profiles. You can choose a partner based on shared interests and lifestyles, and contact them using our secure messaging service to get to know them before you book.
- Learn more than you imagined: With so much control over your cultural and language exchange, your stay will be filled with rich language-learning opportunities in authentic situations. Your host will also give you an inside guide to the local culture, giving you a new perspective, and deepening your understanding of all aspects of life in the host country.
- New opportunities: Living in a new cultural environment is a great experience for a young person. Workplaces are becoming increasingly diverse. Your cultural experience and new language capabilities will be attractive to potential employers in future.
- Make lifelong friendships: The thousands of young people who take part in an exchange program each year say they have the time of their lives. Their host family often becomes their ‘second family’ as lifelong friendships and bonds are formed.
On our cultural language exchange program, you’ll find some warm and friendly welcomes waiting for you in some amazing locations all over the world. Find out more by searching for an exchange partner.
Lingoo was launched by a husband and wife team in 2008 and is now the world’s biggest language exchange and homestay club.
Our mission is to help language learners connect with learning opportunities within this community, give people the power to decide how they would like to learn and practice a language and help language teachers and hosts deliver authentic language learning experiences.
People of all ages use Lingoo including parents, families, adults travelling alone and young adults.
Parents use Lingoo to help their children improve their foreign language skills through either a language exchange, paid homestay holiday or a stay in the home of a teacher. Adults and whole families can do the same.
If you are interested in joining Lingoo for your children, click here. For adults travelling alone or with family groups, click here.
If you are interested in becoming a host family or teaching from your home, please click here.