I have had very positive experiences on italki.   I've met lots of lovely people, most of whom are Spanish speakers.  These have resulted in 7 regular exchange partners which I really enjoy.  I count some of these people as friends.  I have also had exchanges with someone learning English who was not able to find a language partner.  For me they were very enjoyable conversations, with the ability to share something of my language.  I also feel that I have done my best to correct people's entries and answer questions if possible. 

What makes me sad is when, as a British citizen and English speaker, I do my best to be helpful and respectful of others.  Sadly, there are many negative comments about English speakers on italki.  People should remember that, based on notebook entries, English is being learnt by 5 times as many people as the second most popular language, Spanish, despite the fact that there are now more native Spanish speakers in the world. 

This all makes it very difficult to meet the needs of the learning community.

Generally however, when treated well, we British are friendly and helpful. Believe it or not, I have had experiences whereby after speaking with someone in English for 30 minutes or more, the other person has ended the call or has told me that they don't want to practise their native language with me.  I've also had cases where after speaking to someone once, they've never returned to speaking with me again.

The image that things are a bed of roses all the time for English speakers simply isn't true.

I have had mostly a positive experience on italki, I have found that most people prefer to have text conversations to speaking. Some email me via italki occasionaly others more often. I have had a few skype conversations with one person last year and a few others who I only got ti talk to once.I had a break from italki for a while as I needed to concentrate on other things in my family.  I have tried to contact a couple of people who were looking for English practice who I added to my Skype list but they do not get intouch with me:)

I still hope to find regular French speakers to speak with though. I have had of course quite a few requesting help but it is not really language exchange they want:) I have kept intouch with one lovely person from China for over a year, and I am not learning Chinese, this has been an interesting experience in itself assisting someone with their English. I have alos gained a couple of lovely friends from last year when I joined and this had helped me so much and they are just lovely to know and to find out about other cultures. I am even doing a TEFL online course to help me understand about those learning my language. I really appreciate how hard it is to learn a new language because of my own language learning experiences.

If you are a native speaker of English then you are in a very advantageous position to find people to exchange with here. And that it seems is a big problem for some people, actually finding someone to speak with in the first place.

Thank you all who shared so far!

It is interesting to see all these different opinions and approaches.

In general, I think it is important to stay optimistic and to keep on looking even if we haven't had much luck so far. Actually, I think it is important to keep on looking even if we are completely happy with our language exchanges right now. Emergencies happen, people get busy, they go on vacation, or they simply change priorities. If we don't want to lose our continuity we have to be ready for such changes in plans. 

It depends on the language you are learning. It's very easy to find people willing to help with Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian. On the other hand it's next to impossible to find language exchange partners to practice English, French or German and I decided to stop looking for one in those languages and prefer to listen to a podcast instead of to message people to do a language exchange.