At Cheap In Madrid (CiM) we always encourage language students to try out their new language at an intercambio. The “Cañas & Conversation” intercambio is held every Tuesday night starting at 9 p.m. at Carmencita Bar (c/ San Vicente Ferrer 51, metro: Noviciado). I chatted with its founder, Marianne Isabel Job, and with one of the hosts, Anthony Armenta, about this fun language exchange, which was recently profiled in Spanish Vogue.
CiM: Why did you decide to start up this intercambio?
Marianne: Obviously, there are a lot of other intercambios in Madrid, but what separates us is that I started this just for my customers. I have a nice mix of native English-speaking and native Spanish-speaking customers, and they kept asking me to start one. I didn’t want a huge, crazy intercambio. So it’s a place where my customers can come to meet new people, kind of like “Cheers.” Now we have more and more new people coming.
CiM: How long has it been going on for?
Anthony: For the past year, but we just started it back up again in the beginning of October. It’s a little bit fresh right now in the season but we still have a lot of people who are coming in to check it out, a lot of Spaniards, a lot of Americans, a lot of British people as well.
CiM: Do people practice other languages besides English and Spanish?
Marianne: We’re hoping to start up French, Portuguese and German soon. It’s becoming very international. But for now, most demand is for Spanish and English. Poco a poco…
Anthony: It also kind of depends on who shows up. I would say the majority is English and Spanish, because that’s usually who shows up. But, you know, we’re definitely open to having more people of other nationalities come.
CiM: How do you get the different people to talk to each other?
Anthony: There are two hosts: myself and another Californian, Kirstie, who’s been living here for about a year or so and she’s bilingual just like I am. So basically we try to put each person with someone who speaks the opposite language. So imagine a Spaniard comes in—we put them with an American that’s already here. We try to encourage them to speak in their language, for example in English, for about 10 minutes. And then our responsibility as hosts is to try to remind everyone to change every 10 or 15 minutes or so. It’s not very strict or rigid. If I notice two people having a really good time in English, I’ll let them talk longer, and then remind them to switch. And after that, it just kind of builds on its own and people just kind of know to change. I would say that the ambiance is as if everyone already knew each other. It’s great. It’s just everyone coming back to the bar and catching a drink.
CiM: What’s different about an intercambio as opposed to regular classes?
Anthony: The thing about the intercambio is that you’re actually putting what you learned in class to real use. And it’s a little bit more relaxed. You kind of learn from the mistakes of others. Usually, we’ll have groups of like two or three Americans and two or three Spaniards. What’s great about that is that as you listen to one American speaking Spanish, the other Americans are like “Oh ok, I heard what mistakes he made.” So they kind of learn from those mistakes. The other part about the intercambio is that you’re getting to meet a lot more new people, as opposed to being in class with just people from your same nationality and background with the same language. So that way, you start to learn new phrases, phrases from the streets. You remember those phrases better, too. I’ll always remember learning the saying “no hay mal que por bien no venga” from my intercambio partner María. You also have the possibility of forming new friendships, and outside the intercambio—going out for drinks, going out for cañas.
