EnglishBrno

by Nina

10.9.11

Where to practise English in Brno?

Posted by Nina Hanakova |

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More and more foreigners come to study, work or just live in Brno so whenever you walk up the high street or go for a beer in one of the pubs/clubs downtown there’s no doubt you’ll encounter a foreigner. 

I´m sure you can always run into one at Charlie´s or the Livingstone´s, the two popular hang out pubs/bars/discos where you can expect nice drinks, dance groove, great pub atmosphere and get chatted up...

However if you want something with a community feel to it, I strongly recommend to become a member of Brno’s Couchsurfing group. I have myself met some amazing people through this unique project and I am proud to be part of it. If you´ve never heard of this worldwide hospitality club, watch this short video: 


Also worth checking out are Matt Zitnansky’s regular English meetings which he organizes through Facebook. Matt is an avid traveller and loves putting internationals and English-speaking Czechs together at these regular meetings where you can just chat, network or make new friends.

  
Should you be into a more alternative culture, I recommend to have a beer in Clubwash, a pub/laundromat run by a Dutch expat or the only true Irish bar in town – The Immigrant.


One of my future activities is to organize "EnglishBrno" meetings in the centre of Brno. If you´d like to receive  details about the first meeting, just email me at nina.englishbrno@gmail.com and I´ll contact you when I´m ready to kick it off with my very own meet-ups (definitely before the end of October!)


And where do YOU go when you feel like speaking English? Whether in Brno or on the other side of the planet, please, share with us how you socialize in English.


Here´s to happy speaking!

Nina

2 comments:

Ginger said...

Fantastic ideas, Nina!
I'd forgotten about Couchsurfing. A really good friend of mine was living and working in Geneva but couldn't immediately find a place to live. She survived by couchsurfing for about three months and made some wonderful friends in the process.

Another idea that might work for some people is looking at www.meetup.com
You can search for existing groups (for English as a Second Language, English conversation, or Expat groups) and meet people with similar interests...or you can also pay to start a group and look for people in your area.
There aren't many (or any, I think) groups in my area (though I might try to start one soon), but there are quite a few English groups relatively nearby in Germany and Switzerland.

Another thing I was looking into for a while was Toastmasters International (www.toastmasters.org) if people want to join a group of professionals (fees are paid for 6 month memberships) and practice and improve their public speaking. There are English-speaking Toastmasters groups around the world, and also in other languages. It's not so much for learning English, exactly, but definitely for practicing.

Nina Hanakova said...

Hi Ginger,

thanks for adding such invaluable comment with great tips.

Meet-ups don´t work here yet - if ever. I believe there are other ways people use to find each other. Right now I am looking into more of them.

Yesterday I went to the 40th English meeting which took place in a newly opened tea-house in Brno. I highly recommend to attend these meetings to anyone who would like to meet new people, both foreigners and Czech, who all speak English to each other. It´s a wonderful - always-changing - dynamic community and it´s worth giving it a try.

I completely forgot about Toastmasters! A friend of mine, the founder of the Czech freelancers´ server "Na volné noze" (www.navolnenoze.cz) started one in Ostrava - the third largest city in CZ - and they are bilingual, Czech and English. I agree it´s a first-class group to go and practise your English.

Here is a link to Brno Toastmasters:
http://www.brnotoastmasters.com/

Nina

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