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EMBASSY

YOUR DATE IS FRENCH

Speak Dating gives you five minutes with a language. Just enough to learn hello. Cruelly just enough to learn good-bye.

YOUR DATE IS FRENCH

SIT down Try French for five minutes. Then Italian, German, Ukrainian. You might butcher the words. You might fall in love.

Photograph courtesy of German Embassy in Manila

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There is speed dating in Makati today.

So comb your hair. Wear something nice. Practice looking interested for five minutes.

None of this will help.

Your date is French. Or German. Italian. Maybe Polish.

The language.

At One Ayala, 16 European languages are waiting at tables, and you can meet them one by one.

Sit down. Someone who speaks French teaches you a few words.

Hello. Thank you. You try!

Then your date stamps your little “European Language Passport” and sends you away.

Next table. Now you’re dating German. Five minutes later, perhaps Spanish. Then Danish. Ukrainian.

Nobody asks what you do for a living or shows you photographs of his cat. Nobody says “I’m not looking for anything serious right now.”

You only talk. Badly, probably. Then you try again.

It’s called Speak Dating. It’s free. And organizers say 19 European countries will be represented. Collect three stamps and you can enter a lucky draw. One prize is a beginner language course.

Speak Dating runs from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Level 2 Concourse of One Ayala. You can register there.

You may arrive knowing only hello or leave knowing good-bye. You may find a language you’d like to see again.