Bonsoir! Sprechen Sie isiZulu?

The candle flames flickered on the tables in the dimly-lit room, creating an aura of romance that brought to mind the long-unlamented days of load-shedding.

Outside in the courtyard, about two dozen of us were milling around, a good turnout for a brisk Joburg night.

Chilled white wine was being served. The air was abuzz with chatter and anticipation.

Ting-a-ling! Hushed by the handbell, we gathered inside.

"Guten Abend!" said Nicole Meyer, our host from the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg.

“Guten Abend,” we chorused back.

"Sanibonani," she added, and then for good measure, "Goeie naand, bonsoir, buenosera."

There are an estimated 7,159 languages in the world, but the point had been made.

Language is not a barrier to divide us. It is an invitation to sit down at the table and belong.

The tables were set in a line. Behind them sat six people, waiting.

It reminded me of the audition scene from Flashdance, although here there would be no judging, only conversation. The Speak-Dating session was about to begin.

Nicole explained the rules. Each of us would have a turn to speak with each of the interlocutors, in each of their languages, for two minutes at a time.

Nicole held the little brass bell in her hand, and she said, "Are you ready? On your marks? Get set …"

And of course, we all just stood there, frozen in awkward laughter, until somebody was brave enough to take the first step.

When the chatting began, the room felt like Babel. I thought of the Babel fish, "probably the oddest thing in the Universe", from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

It is a small yellow fish that you stick in your ear, allowing you to hear any spoken language translated instantly into your mother tongue.

Like a lot of science fiction, it has since become science fact, albeit without the fish.

If you place the AirPods Pro 2 or 3 in your ears, and you tap Live Translation on your iPhone's translation app, you will be able to hear the other person's language in your own, with a delay of about five seconds. It's very handy, but where's the fun in that?

"Dumelang," I said to my first interlocutor, as I took my place opposite her at the table.

She introduced herself as Keitumetse, and the laminated sheet in front of her said Soweto Language.

That was the catch-all phrase, she explained, for the mix of Sesotho, Setswana, isiZulu, Sepedi, English, Afrikaans and other tongues spoken informally in everyday conversation.

We exchanged a few basic phrases — "My name is", "My job is", "I stay in", and so on – and I wanted to ask whether Soweto Language is the same as Isicamtho, which I understood to be more of a slang-based argot, but then: Ting-a-ling! It was time to move to France.

"Bonsoir, Je m'appelle Diane," said Diane, to which I replied "Bonsoir, Je m'appelle Gus".

After that, I was lost for French, so when Diane asked me, "Vous habitez où?", all I could do was shake my head and shrug in a Gallic manner.

With great patience, Diane explained that she was asking me where I stayed, and that my answer should begin with "Je viens de", as in "Je viens de Paris".

Ah, oui, I said, Je viens de Johannesburg. "Je viens de Jobourg," she corrected me, since we were in Jobourg.

I repeated my answer, and Diane said Voilà, a lovely French term that is best said with a little ballet clap.

"Quelle est votre profession?" asked Diane, and that one I instantly understood because of the last word, and we had a little chat about reading and writing.

Diane said I should come along to the Alliance Française for their book club meetings, at which people sit and read a book of their choice in silence, and then chat about it with each other.

"In French?" I asked. She wagged her finger. "Non, English!"

I was beginning to realise that two minutes is not a very long time when you are having a conversation, and this time, the bell tolled in Italian.

"Buonasera," said Debbie, from the Dante Alighieri Society, and then we spoke about "ciao", which has always been one of my favourite words of farewell, and which I hadn't realised can also be said as a hello.

Debbie pointed at a laminated sheet which looked like a menu for an Italian restaurant, with pictures of the dishes, and I realised that I am fairly fluent when it comes to identifying types of pasta.

I moved on to Felicia, who was wearing a T-shirt that said Zulu Aunty, in sparkly letters.

We had a conversation about Sawubona, a beautiful greeting that means "I see you", or "I acknowledge you".

Felicia told me you can say Sawubona to somebody no matter how many times you see them in the day; the acknowledgement does not wear off.

Finally, this being the Goethe-Institut, it was the turn of Deutsch. I told Stefanie, after the pleasantries, that my spoken Deutsch was extremely rudimentary, but that I sometimes watch a German series on Netflix with the subtitles off.

I was very pleased that I was able to answer all of Stefanie's questions without needing them to be translated, although I would have struggled if the bell hadn't rung after two minutes.

"Tschüss," I said, with a wave of the hand, and Stefanie said, "Auf Wiedersehen".

I do hope so!