Miriam
How to look for language exchange partners using the italki app?
Since the introduction of the italki app, the discussion board has been flooded with language partner requests because the language partner search tool was so well hidden that it was almost impossible to find. In the new version of the app, the language partner search tool is easy to find but it seems utterly useless...

<ul><li> It’s possible to look for „native speakers“ but you can’t choose a language that they’re native speakers of, so this filter is nonsensical. Every user is native speaker of some language, be it Klingon or something else...</li><li>The app (and the beta website) don’t show when a user was last online. There are plenty of profiles that were abandoned years ago. How is one supposed to know if a user is still active or not?</li><li>It‘s not possible to look for the country someone is residing in. I tried to look for users who learn German and live in Germany and got 0 hits. I got hits when I entered „Berlin“. But what if someone lives in a small village? I also got hits when I looked for people who learn German and „are from Germany“. Apparently, a lot of German learners who reside in Germany choose Germany as their country of origin which is confusing.</li></ul>

In the old version of the website I can look for female native speakers of Spanish who are learning German and living in Berlin (I’d still prefer to look for „living in Germany“ instead of a certain city). I got 15 hits. In the new app, this kind of search is impossible. And as the old website shows when the users were last active, I can see that only 3 of the 15 accounts are still active. The others have been abandoned months or years ago. So, I know that it only pays off to write to these 3 active ones, instead of all 15...

If italki doesn‘t make the language partner search tool in the new app more user friendly, I have no hope that the discussion board will get back to being a discussion board. And honestly, I doubt that the majority of users who are looking for exchange partners via the discussion board are successful in their endeavour.
Jun 2, 2019 7:38 AM
Comments · 5
1
Alf, I think in general, they want to attract more customers but they seem to focus more on design than functionality. But looking pretty just doesn’t cut it for a website like this...
June 2, 2019
1
you now, I think the italki team doesn't realy know what they want to achive. They do features that wants nobody instead do things needs most of community
June 2, 2019
Everyone is a native speaker but speak what?? hahaha
June 2, 2019

Hi <a href="https://www.italki.com/user/2918439">Miriam</a>

True! I think the security of this site is very important to them, but they are not precise in this case.

June 2, 2019
<a ui-sref="user({id:comment.commenter_obj.id})" href="https://www.italki.com/user/2918439" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Miriam</a> yeah, you right. all changes what I see is mostly design changes. I don't quite understand why don't they want to ask the communiny features we really need instead offer features they think we need.
June 2, 2019
Miriam
Language Skills
Chinese (Mandarin), French, German
Learning Language
Chinese (Mandarin)
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