English speaking events in Paris: where to actually go

The main kinds of English speaking events here

Almost everything falls into one of these. They are not equal, and the difference matters when you only have one free evening a week.

• Social afterworks for expats and locals. Usually a privatised bar, a host, and a crowd that came alone. Best ratio of effort to people met, because nobody arrives with a group.
• Language exchanges. Half the room wants to practise French, half wants to practise English. Easy to talk to strangers, harder to build anything lasting because the crowd changes every week.
• Professional networking and startup events. Good for your career, mixed for friendship. People are there with an objective and it shows.
• Hobby groups that happen to run in English: board games, run clubs, climbing, improv, book clubs. Slow start, strong results, because you see the same faces repeatedly.
• Big international parties aimed at students and young expats. Fun, loud, and almost impossible to hold a conversation in.

Where people actually find them

Instagram is now the real listing platform in Paris. Most of the groups that run regular English speaking events post their next date there and nowhere else. Search the city plus the kind of evening you want, then look at who the accounts tag.

Facebook groups for expats in Paris still work as noticeboards, not as communities. Join two, mute them, and check them when you need a specific thing.

Meetup is half dead in Paris but the surviving groups are often the oldest and most consistent ones, which is exactly the quality you want.

Ask the bar. Independent bars in the 10th, 11th and 2nd host more private social events than they advertise, and the staff know the regular ones.

Do you need to speak French

For an English speaking event, no. The whole point is that the common language is English, and the level in the room is always mixed. Nobody is grading you.

What matters more is accepting that your first conversations will be slightly clumsy in any language. People remember whether you were warm, not whether your tenses were right.

That said, learning French changes your life here within a year. Use these events to meet people, not to avoid the language forever.

How to pick one that is worth the trip

Look for three things in the description: a host who welcomes people, a reason it repeats, and some indication that coming alone is normal. If the page says bring your friends, it is a party, not a place to meet anyone.

Prefer paid or ticketed over free when you have the choice. A five or ten euro ticket filters out people who were never going to turn up, so the room is smaller and the conversations are better.

Check the start time. Anything starting after ten at night is a night out. Anything starting at seven is an evening where you can actually hear each other.

What the first one feels like

Slightly uncomfortable for eleven minutes, then fine. That is the honest version. Everybody standing there alone at the start is in the same situation and most of them are relieved when someone says hello first.

Go early. A room with six people is much easier to enter than a room with sixty, and the people who arrive early are the ones who came to talk.

Leave with one or two people you liked and an actual plan to see them again. One real contact beats an evening of small talk with twenty.

Frequently asked questions