Voices en Español

Here’s a Q&A I recently did with August Flanagan, co-founder of Lenguajero, an online Spanish-English exchange site.

Tell us a little about Lenguajero. What prompted you to create the site?

Lenguajero is a website that connects Spanish and English speakers for online language practice and cultural exchange. Natalie Gordon, (my fiancée and business partner) and I provide our members with three effective learning tools: Online Conversation Exchanges using a voice, video and text chat app., a Writing Club to practice writing in the language they are learning (native speakers leave feedback on submissions), and a Smart Flashcard program to help them memorize and retain new vocabulary.

While Natalie and I were living in Medellin, Colombia our Spanish really started to take off, and we started feeling comfortable speaking the language. It was around this point in time that Natalie pointed that, despite the thousands of language learning websites out there, few of them were focusing specifically on connecting Spanish and English learners with one another for conversation exchanges.

Given how much spending time everyday interacting with native speakers had helped in our own learning process, we thought that there was real potential for this type of site. We had our laptops with us, and just decided to start building something.

Currently there are several different social networking language learning sites such as Busuu, Live Mocha and iTalki. How is Lenguajero different from those other sites?

As I mentioned above, it was the observation that none of these learning communities were focusing on just Spanish and English learners prompted us to start working on Lenguajero. We had both tried Busuu and Live Mocha before we left the U.S., but we always felt like the wide open “any language you want” approach made the community more of a social site than a learning tool.

Our focus on just Spanish and English means that every user has something in common with every other user.  This makes it easy for users to connect with one another and help each other out.

How and where did you learn Spanish?

I’m originally from Washington state in the U.S. and Natalie is from Canada. Neither one of us are native Spanish speakers.  In fact, it wasn’t until about two years ago that I really developed an interest in learning Spanish.  I was traveling through Central America, and not being able to have normal conversations with people I would meet was pretty frustrating.  It gave me the motivation I needed to buckle down and start learning.

I took a few Spanish lessons in Central America, and studied on my own when I got back to the U.S.  Then, Natalie and I decided to move to Latin America and immerse ourselves in the language.

We took classes for six months while living in Cuba and Colombia.  We also spent a lot of time reading, watching movies, studying flashcards, spending time chatting with friends and acquaintances, and in general just living day-to-day life in a Spanish-speaking country.

What were some of the difficulties you faced when learning Spanish?

Getting past the initial “This is really hard, and I’ll never understand the Subjunctive” phase.  I remember that for the first couple of months, no matter how much progress I was making, I always felt like I would never be able to speak clearly. Once I just relaxed, and accepted that it was going to take time, I started feeling a lot more comfortable and started to notice big improvements.

What’s the size of your language learning community and when is it most active?

Lenguajero has roughly 5000 members, and it is a pretty even mix between English and Spanish speakers. The site is most active during the week, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I always wonder why mid-week is more popular than the weekends. Anyone have any ideas?

What is the profile of your native Spanish-speaking members?

About 50-60% of our Spanish-speaking members are in their 20s, and are either university students or young professionals. There is a high number of engineers, software developers, doctors and lawyers because it is really important in these fields to learn English.

With that said, the other 40-50% is a complete mixed bag (this goes for both English and Spanish speakers).  Our community is really diverse.  Almost anyone who is learning Spanish or English can come on and find people with similar interests to talk to. We have a 79-year-old Venezuelan and a 78-year-old American who are very active in the community.

Any new features or tools under development that Lenguajero fans can look forward to seeing later this year?

Yes! We just launched Lenguajero – Classroom which helps teachers integrate Lenguajero into their course curriculum, by allowing them to monitor what their students are doing on the site.  The feature is in beta testing right now, and we currently have about 25 classes signed up to try it out.  We will be working closely with the teachers of these classes to improve and expand the tool over the next six months.

We also are planning on adding a few more community features to the site to make it easier for members to interact and share with one another.

We are always looking for ideas on how we can improve the site, and offer things that other sites do not.  If anyone has any suggestions we would love to hear them.  You can reach us through our contact us page.

Follow Lenguajero on Twitter @Lenguajero