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About our course

We teach Southern Quechua (spoken in Bolivia and in the south of Peru) we an important focus on speaking (oral comprehension and oral expression).

The course lasts 12 weeks from May 30th to Aug. 22nd 2026.
Class time depends on the level and the type of week:

Regular week:

Exam week:

All weeks except weeks 1, 2, 6, 11 and 12 are regular weeks.
Cick on 🔗 to see a clear week-by-week calendar.

The 12-week course is made of up:

     📖 grammar classes

     🎧 listening classes

     🗣️ speaking classes

     📌 group projects

     🆘 office hours (optional)

     💯 midterm & final exams

     🎓 a certificate of completion

This course is fully online. 

We regularly organise in-person events in Lima, Paris and New York but these are not required to take part in the course.

Our course costs 10 USD / class hour. 

The course meets 3h / week for 12 weeks.

Installment payments are available upon request below 🙂

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If you already have STRONG foundations in quechua, you can take a placement test. The placement test:

  • takes place during week 01 or week 02 of class
  • consists in an oral and a written exam for which you are strongly encouraged to prepare here 🔗
  • is free but requires paying for the first 2 weeks of class beforehand (this amount will then be deducted from the cost of the course when signing up)
Book a placement test

Don’t hesitate to message us via email or whatsapp 🙂

For syllabus-related questions, see below:

More about our syllabi

Our entire Quechua course takes 3 to 4 years to complete.
You can see the detailed learning path in our Qhapaq ñan:

Qhapaq ñan

The Beginner Quechua course is designed for you to be capable of meeting someone and getting to know them in quechua. Some of the (many) questions you should be able to ask and respond by the end of the course are:

  • what’s your name?
  • how are you doing?
  • where are you from?
  • how old are you? 
  • do you have kids?
  • do you have siblings?
  • do you have pets?
  • how many?
  • do you work or do you study?
  • where do you work?
  • where do you study?
  • do you play an instrument?
  • what instrument do you play
  • do you speak aymara?
  • etc.

The specific grammar objectives to master are:

  • present tense conjugation
  • possessive markers
  • to have with kan
  • to have with -yuq
  • expressing “I don’t know” with -chá
  • information structure with -qa/-taq/-pas and -m/-mi
  • various other suffixes such as: -pi, -manta, -wan, -lla, -sqa, -chka-, -kuna, -ta, etc.

The oral exam will be done with a native speaker of Southern Quechua and consists in simulating an encounter with them and asking each other questions to get to know each other.

The written exam consists in checking students’ mastery of the paradigms above as well as their listening comprehension skills. They are expected to understand fully the 6 dialogues here 🔗 and similar interactions.

The pre-intermediate course aims at equipping students with a set of 5 key conjugation paradigms:

  1. past tense with -r(q)a-
  2. future tense 
  3. imperative mood
  4. conditional with -…man
  5. should and must with -na (+ kan)

… as well as other notions:

  • using the -spa paradigm to indicate simultaneous actions
  • difference between inclusive ñuqanchik vs exclusive ñuqayku
  • various other suffixes such as: -q/-pa, -paq, -man, -hina, -spa, -cha, etc.

This course prepares you for two pragmatic goals which we test with two exams:

  • Exam A: getting to know a person better (childhood, habits & opinions)
  • Exam B: checking in with friends and family and making plans together

The types of questions you will be expected to ask and answer in each exam are:

Questions:

  • how did you learn to speak quechua?
  • how did you learn to play the charango?
  • what language do you speak with your parents?
  • what language do you speak with your partner?
  • when you were a kid, did you have pets? 
  • do you want to have kids?
  • where would you want to live?
  • what do you think we should we do to preserve quechua?
  • what do you think politicians should do to preserve quechua?
  • what would you do if you won the lottery?
  • what do you do when you visit Bolivia?

Questions:

  • what did you yesterday?
  • what are you doing tomorrow?
  • do you want to meet up?
  • what could we do?
  • what time should we meet up?
  • etc.

Answers:

  • yesterday I…
  • tomorrow I’ll…
  • yes let’s meet up!
  • I can’t meet up, I have to work…
  • we could go to the market
  • let’s meet at 3pm
  • etc.

Once finishing the beginner course, you are ready to take both exams at once and move on to the intermediate course.

Given the high density of conjugation paradigms, you are also welcome to take only exam A and retake the preintermediate course before taking exam B.

Once you join the intermediate course, you already have a rich set of suffixes and paradigms that allow you to hold a basic conversation with a native speaker and understand similar conversations between native speakers.

The goal of the intermediate course is to help you:

  • Express yourself on a wider range of topics more authentically, with greater depth and precision in Quechua.
  • Significantly improve your listening comprehension by moving from didactic listening materials toward more authentic, real-life listening materials.

To achieve this, in each intermediate course, you learn key suffixes and constructions that help you express and manage important notions such as aspect, embedded clauses, and reported speech. You also dedicate significantly more time to developing your listening comprehension through authentic materials.

Each intermediate session starts with the intermediate welcome package before moving on to the session-specific material.

  • various adverbs: with -ta, -lla, -man, -manta, etc.
  • locative suffixes: -pata, -hawa, -ukhu, etc.
  • past tense conjugations: past habitual and -sqa
  • past & future for var. paradigms: wawayuqmi karqa, wawayuqmi kanqa, hamunman karqa…
  • indefinite quantitative pronouns:
    • existential (someone, no one, something, nothing, etc.)
    • identity (anyone, anywhere, anything, etc.)
    • quantitative (lots, few, etc.)
  • session A: -sqa(ta) and -na(ta) clauses
  • session B: bipersonal suffixes 
  • session C: -spa and -pti conjunctions
  • session D: evidential suffixes and clitics
  • session E: “…” nispa clauses to quote speech
  • session F: verb-modifying suffixes

In September 2026, we are offering intermediate session C.

Once finishing the pre-intermediate course (at least exam A), you are ready to join any session of the intermediate course – whether A, B, C, D, E or F. 

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