Our Mission

To empower individuals and communities across generations to develop their full potential through multilingualism and multiculturalism.

Our Vision

A world in which all people are able to communicate across languages and cultures with openness, understanding, and empathy.  

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Who We Are

LEX Language Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, founded by Japanese educator Yo Sakakibara. The name LEX stands for Language EXperience, EXperiment, and EXchange.

Our History

LEX Founder, Yo Sakakibara

The history of LEX begins in 1968 with the founding of the Language Research Foundation (LRF) in Cambridge, MA by Yo Sakakibara. LRF was founded with the mission of promoting collaborative research on language acquisition by linguists at local institutions, such as MIT and Harvard. In 1972, Sakakibara developed a partnership with 4-H, a U.S. government-sponsored youth education program, to establish an international exchange program. Sakakibara then came to found the LEX Institute in Tokyo, Japan and the Hippo Family Club, a community-based group focused on promoting language acquisition, in 1981.

LEX Language Project itself was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1985, mainly to facilitate the LEX exchange programs in the United States.  Today, LEX Language Project offers immersion-style multilingual language learning programs for individuals and families, international exchange programs, lectures on language acquisition, and educational publishing. By maintaining a close partnership with the LEX offices in Japan, Korea, and Mexico, LEX Language Project connects its members to a community of more than 25,000 active individuals worldwide.