This page is an attempt to collect information about all of the different language conversation groups at Berkeley and to encourage people to create similar groups for other languages. This is inspired in part by the Language Table system at Princeton and the Language Conversation Exchange at MIT. The creation of this page was partially motivated by the discovery that many Berkeley students are interested in these groups but unaware of their existence.
Given the strength of Berkeley's language programs and the diversity of the student body, one would hope that Berkeley could grow to support a selection of language conversation groups as diverse as that found in the above link from Princeton. Some natural candidate languages include Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Farsi.
Berkeley also has a Language Exchange Program (LEP) that pairs language partners and holds weekly language events. However, the latter vary from semester to semester and are sometimes more like student-taught classes than conversation groups.
Please let me know if you have suggestions or additions!
Due to the COVID-19-related campus closure, groups are generally not meeting. Some of them may begin online meetings, so please contact your favorite group to ask if that's happening!
Chinese: Berkeley Mandarin Language Meetup Group, Saturdays, see the Meetup.com page.
French: Alameda / Contra Costa Co. Rendez-vous français, see the Meetup.com page.
German: German Speakers Meetup Group, see the Meetup.com page.
Irish: Tuesdays 5:30-7pm, Becket's Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave, contact tadx4@aol.com for more info.
Italian: Berkeley Italian Language Meetup Group, see the Meetup.com page.
Japanese: Nihongo Moriagarii, every other Wednesday 6:30-8:30pm, Paris Baguette, see the Meetup.com page.