Has it helped you improve?
I've been on HelloTalk since I started learning Korean in August of last year (longer than I've been here), and I actually like HelloTalk better than italki. First, as an English speaker, I like that the only people who see me with the standard search options are Korean-speakers learning English. In all the time I've been on HelloTalk, I've only received 2 messages/requests from anyone who didn't speak Korean. Second, as a woman, I like that they have <em>extremely</em> strict guidelines in place about dating solicitation/sexual harassment. Also, since chatting occurs in the app, there's no chance of harassment happening on a third-party platform like Skype either. Third, although I've never used it because my Korean is still so bad, I like that there's the option to basically force your exachange partner into speaking both languages. Since my Korean is so bad, I find that my language partners and I default to English anyway, and it can be hard to get people who want to practice English to switch to speaking Korean, so I like that there's the structured language exchange option in HelloTalk. Fourth, I like the built-in translate function. Although it never produces fully understandable output, I like that the option is there - mostly because it can help me to understand my partners' Korean sentences without leaving the app, but also because if they use it to produce an English sentence, it shows me the original Korean sentence so I can get a glimpse into how my partners would be speaking to me if I were at a higher level. And finally, this is very minor, but I really like that in the chat window it shows my partner's local time. It saves me from having to do the "What time is it in Korea" calculation myself.
Italki Is a hundred times better than HELLOTALK.
i have used both and I can attest to that fact.
the first thing is that on Italki I find more serious people who are passionate about language learning writing and doing more advanced stuffs that lead to fluency. On hellotalk since it's an app people use it leisurely without really having goals.
also, the app has so many annoying restrictions, the connection fluctuates and though the app creates a platform for communication , it is very poor.
the true polyglot will rather choose ITALKI.
in fact, most people have stopped using the useless app, more than 50 percent of the members have not visited the app, for a long time(sometimes more than 3 months). This is because the app is so annoying and inconvenient.
I think Italki is a blessing for all language learners
I LOVE ITALKI
I would say it's pretty good for beginners/lower intermediate levels but not that beneficial after that since at least in my experience chats with people tend to be rather short and a one time thing. I rarely talk to the same person after the first 15 minute initial conversation. So you pretty much end up having the same type of conversation just with different people.
The features they use are cool but very few people seem to actually use them like the voice message recorder and the exchange feature where you spent an equal amount of time conversing in your target language and your partners.
Thank you both for your comments.