What is Language Lovers AU?

Language Lovers AU is a community for those who are interested in languages and language learning in Australia.

Our aim is to help connect people in this big, beautiful, multilingual country who share a common interest in languages, as well as create opportunities to meet, chat, learn, discuss and share our passion and enjoyment of languages together and with others. If you are on Facebook, you can join our active community here.

We also have a fortnightly podcast called Language Chats where we share our experiences of language learning, as well as the stories of other Australians (and a few international guests!) who love learning, working with, and communicating using other languages.

How did the idea of Language Lovers AU come about?

Despite growing up in neighbouring suburbs of Melbourne, we (Penny and Bec) actually got in touch in a much bigger place… Instagram! We knew each other online through the 2018 Women in Language conference, but first met in person in September 2018 when Penny interviewed Bec for Language Learning Stories, a series of interviews published on Penny’s blog Lingo Mama.

We got chatting and we just had so much to talk about. It was so nice to speak to someone else in Melbourne (even in Australia!) who also loves other languages, learning languages, travelling… But we knew we couldn’t possibly be the only ones. Community is such an important part of learning languages and we thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could start building a community where other language learners in Australia, like us, could share ideas and information, get in touch and even meet up?

So, initially, we started the Language Lovers AU Community Facebook group. Since then we have also organised some fun events, workshops and meet-ups in person and online, and we started our podcast Language Chats.

You both sound really passionate about languages!

We are! We both run language-related side hustles and love sharing our experiences of learning languages with others.

Bec has studied French, Italian, German, Japanese and Danish, but she also loves reading (and talking!) about languages in general and is especially interested in sociolinguistics. She is passionate about mixing language learning with creativity, and in her spare time she also runs Irregular Endings.

Penny has studied Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, French, Estonian, Indonesian and Spanish to varying levels and loves travelling just as much as she loves languages. She is also known as Lingo Mama, and she helps adults and families to combine language learning with travel.

Have other questions for us?

We’d love to hear from you! Send us a message here.