By Anna Skinner

Students have access to different languages through school classes, but for adults it’s not so easy. Fernando Yanez, a Spanish teacher at Hamilton Southeastern, said he hopes to change that.

Yanez created A Spanish Café, a unique take on Spanish lessons currently centered toward adults. He hosted the grand opening of his new business at Soho Café in Carmel on Sept. 25.

A Spanish Café consists of a small group of adults and a certified Spanish teacher. Once a week, they meet at different cafes around Hamilton County depending on which group the participant signed up for. So far, Yanez has participating cafes placed in Noblesville, Carmel and Broad Ripple, but he hopes to expand his business to reach Zionsville and Westfield as well.

“The characteristic is focused on speaking since a lot of people are strong with grammar, but they are missing the last step of speaking the language,” Yanez said. “It’s different than the traditional academic setting. We will be in real places with noise and the background.”

Yet there’s no background knowledge of the language required, as Yanez teaches three different levels – beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Given the idea from seeing similar cafes around Spain with the same concept but teaching English to Spanish speakers, Yanez wanted to help create more bilingual people.

The classes are small with approximately six adults. Each weekly meeting is two hours.

If the business continues to grow, Yanez said he wants to begin implementing other languages as well, such as French and German.

For residents who don’t live in cities where there are participating cafes, Yanez said they can participate in the cities that do have the weekly lessons. Any cafes interested in hosting the meetings, teachers willing to direct weekly classes or adults wanting to sign up can contact Yanez at [email protected].

“It combines social life with learning Spanish,” Yanez said.

For more, visit http://www.aspanishcafe.com/.