Seattle Language & Culture Meetup

If you like to sing in the shower, in your car, or on the street, then come and join us to sing your heart out in the languages that you like. Singing karaoke has been found to be not only therapeutic 🙃 but it also helps to improve on the pronunciation of the new language that one is learning.

Once you have RSVPed, you will see the Zoom meeting link on this Meetup a day or so before the event. At or before the meeting, open a YouTube window and find your songs by typing in the name of the song followed by the word “karaoke.” When it is your turn to sing, share your YouTube window with the “Share Sound” option checked and you are ready to rock. Don’t worry if this is too confusing as I can also share my screen with your song for you to sing. You can also play the song on your device without sharing your screen.

Karaoke is for us “thick skin” people who don’t care what others think about our singing. We sing for fun, to de-stress oneself, and to stress out our listeners 🤪

Here are some helpful tips when participating in the event -

1. Singing in Zoom is best experienced using a laptop. Using a phone may result with lower sound quality and limited functionality in Zoom.

2. To set up Zoom for karaoke, check out this video -

https://youtu.be/xqddFGlw4Kc

3. When sharing your YouTube karaoke video, set the Youtube volume to about 25%. This volume control can be found near the lower left corner of the Youtube video. If you can’t hear the music, increase the sound volume of your device.

4. Have your song queued up in YouTube before your turn to sing.

5. Mute your microphone when others are singing, unmute when you are speaking or singing.

6. Set the “Original sound for musician” setting in Zoom to “On”.

7. You can sing solo or invite people to sing along with you.

8. To prevent Zoom bombers, participants must RSVP on MeetUp in order to join the event. Those who try to directly join the event using Zoom will not be allowed to participate.

Have fun!

Come practice Spanish and English. You'll have the opportunity to help others learn your language while receiving help from people who know the language that you want to learn. We'll have breakout rooms to rotate conversation partners throughout the event.

This exchange is open to everyone regardless of geographic or language background. This event is being promoted primarily in Seattle and Bogota. However, we've had attendees from New Zealand, Israel and Canada (among other places). Non-native speakers are welcome as well.

Fill out the Google Form with your name and email address to get access to the Zoom link. This step is to prevent any Zoom Bomber issues like what we experienced on Monday, October 28th. Please comment on the event if you have any issues logging in for maximum visibility.

Bonjour à toutes et à tous! :)

This is a semi-structured conversation group exclusively in French. You should have at least an intermediate level to be able to chat freely with a partner on a wide variety of topics.

The format of the group is as follows:
* simple questions for approximately 5 minutes with groups of 2-3 people
* slightly more complex questions for 10-15 minutes with 2-3 participants per breakout room
* in-depth discussion questions for 15+ minutes with 4-6 partners

This is not a lesson with a presentation or targeted activities, so there is no need to prepare. Sometimes there will be questions and resources shared ahead of the meeting.