Jeremy’s English Tips Episode #4: Language exchange

Transcript
Hello everyone. This is Jeremy and you’re listening to Jeremy’s English Tips. The series where I teach you interesting expressions or share language learning tips.
In this episode, we are going to talk about language exchange and friendship. Now, when I talk to people about language learning most people don’t understand what language exchange is. So, when I tell them that I learned Korean mostly through language exchange and that I didn’t take any language classes, they often say, “What? Language exchange, what is that?” So, I always have to explain.
What I usually tell them is this: language exchange is trading your native language skill for help in the language that you are learning. So, if you are learning English and your native language is Arabic then you need to find a native English speaker who is learning Arabic. If you do a language exchange with them, then you can help them with their study and they can help you with your study. So, you are exchanging language.
Now many other people in the language learning world these days have had trouble with language exchange. Many people say it doesn’t work or it’s too difficult to find a good language exchange partner and I definitely can understand.
When I started learning Korean, I was living in Korea and luckily near my house there was a language exchange cafe. So, I went there and signed up to do language exchange. They paired me up with a partner and I ended up becoming good friends with that person. I know not everyone has this opportunity, maybe you live in your home country and there aren’t many native English speakers near you or maybe you are a shy person and it’s very difficult for you to meet new people. My advice for you is to utilize the power of the internet. So, I’d like to first tell you a few ways you can find language exchange partners and I’ll leave you with a couple tips for making a successful language exchange.
The first method is to use a language exchange app. If you have a smart phone, you can download the free apps, Tandem and Hello Talk. Tandem is spelled T-A-N-D-E-M and Hello Talk is H-E-L-L-O T-A-L-K both of these apps are very similar and they have similar features. You can search for partners within the app based on age, native language, gender, location. So, you can even find someone who lives in your town, maybe. Once you find someone, you can send them a message saying hello and you can send them a text message saying hello or you can introduce yourself with a voice message.
Within the app, when you search for a language exchange partner you can check out their profile and make sure that they are someone that you would like to talk to. Sometimes there are strange people on the internet, so we have to be careful who we talk to. So, I suggest reading through the person’s profile and using your best judgement before contacting someone. You can also use a website like italki. I-T-A-L-K – I.com to find a language exchange partner or tutor as well. Another website is conversationexchange.com.
Whatever method you choose, once you find someone who you get along with, it is important that you lay down some ground rules first. What I mean by this is tell them your preferred method of communication. Do you want to only text message, do you want to have a weekly phone call, do you like to video chat? Things like this and talk to them about how you like to be corrected. If you make a mistake, some people will let it slide, meaning they won’t correct it and other people will correct it for you no matter what. So, I suggest telling your partner this early on. So that they know how to help you and how you would like to stay in contact with them.