Share with us YOUR experience with language PARTNERS

What can you teach us from your experience with language exchange? What activities did you do? Did it become a real friendship, or was it just about getting free language practice? Was it effective for language learning (or cultural exchange, or something else)? Were there any problems that you’d like to caution other learners about? Was there anything really effective that you’d like to recommend? In your opinion, what is the ideal language partnership like?

NOTE: I’m not personally looking for a language partner. While I mostly study on my own, I’m thankful to have several outstanding italki tutors helping me out. This post is to help language learners on italki share their hard-won wisdom with each other so they can excel in their language learning.

If you’d like corrections to your comments on this thread, you must specifically request it in your comment, otherwise it is assumed you would prefer not to receive corrections.

Eagerly awaiting YOUR opinion!

Question

Share with us YOUR experience with language PARTNERS

What can you teach us from your experience with language exchange? What activities did you do? Did it become a real friendship, or was it just about getting free language practice? Was it effective for language learning (or cultural exchange, or something else)? Were there any problems that you’d like to caution other learners about? Was there anything really effective that you’d like to recommend? In your opinion, what is the ideal language partnership like?

NOTE: I’m not personally looking for a language partner. While I mostly study on my own, I’m thankful to have several outstanding italki tutors helping me out. This post is to help language learners on italki share their hard-won wisdom with each other so they can excel in their language learning.

If you’d like corrections to your comments on this thread, you must specifically request it in your comment, otherwise it is assumed you would prefer not to receive corrections.

Eagerly awaiting YOUR opinion!

Answer

The key advice would be patience and persistence in frustrating process. Unlike an italki lesson purchase where you buy what you want upfront, creating an enduring language exchange requires multiple communications, each having a certain probability that there won’t be a response. That will depend on how popular your language is and how desirable you are talk with. The upside is that in the end you should have fun and learn social skills as well as language skills.

Answer

DavidK: Thanks for participating in my attempted discussion! You make some excellent points. Language exchange and language lessons are two totally different things, with its own benefits. Let's hope we can get a good discussion going!