In March 2010, Fiona Gomes set up Yakety Yak Language Cafe with the aim of providing a way for people to improve their foreign language conversation skills, and at the same time enjoy themselves.

Born in Edinburgh, Fiona studied French and German at school, Spanish at Edinburgh University and then spent 3 years teaching English in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she learned to speak Portuguese.

She then worked for 20 years in financial services as a trainer, with little opportunity to use any foreign languages.

But with languages, if you don't use them, you lose them!  And Fiona realised that she was rapidly losing her language skills.

She decided that there must be some other people in Edinburgh who, like her, had made an effort to learn another language and would get pleasure from chatting in a relaxed atmosphere, with no pressure and no homework! 

The conversation sessions would be held in cafes in different areas of Edinburgh so that nobody would have to travel too far to chat, and they could pop in when they were free, rather than having to sign up to a minimum number of sessions.

So Yakety Yak Language Cafe became more than a crazy idea in Fiona's head. 

Yakking started in March 2010 in eteaket in Frederick Street, in French and Spanish, and other locations and languages were soon added.  And luckily there are lots of Edinburgh residents who are keen to chat in other languages, meet others with similar interests and enjoy themselves.

So if you would like to improve your conversational ability in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian or Gaelic, come along and join us - yakety yak - don't look back!