I make narcolepsy glamorous ([info]basal_ganglia) wrote in [info]linguaphiles,
@ 2008-11-29 15:25:00
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Language-learning pen pals...are they ever legit?
Do any of you know firsthand if there are language-exchange pen pal websites/services out there which are neither extremely sketchy nor geared toward matchmaking? If so, can you describe what your experience was like? I would love to find a bona fide language pen pal in another country.

Thanks!

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[info]vampireborg
2008-11-29 09:30 pm UTC (link)
Check with a local college's International Students group. They might have people, either alumni or current students.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 09:33 pm UTC (link)
Ah, I hadn't thought of that. I don't think my university has a very large Persian-speaking student body, but I will look into it. Thanks!

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[info]purple_pen
2008-11-29 09:33 pm UTC (link)
I've found Livemocha very good. I haven't used it so much for chatting to people as for doing the online exercises they have, but it certainly offers you plenty of opportunities to find and talk to appropriate language partners if that's what you want to do.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 09:34 pm UTC (link)
Excellent, I'll check it out. Thank you!

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[info]wiped
2008-11-30 12:07 am UTC (link)
livemocha is great, i use it for chatting with people, and i've made some excellent penpals there.

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[info]tako_to_ama
2008-11-29 09:41 pm UTC (link)
If you're studying an Asian language or Spanish, Lang-8 is pretty legit.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 10:20 pm UTC (link)
I'm currently studying Persian. Is that a website?

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[info]xblack_featherx
2008-11-29 09:57 pm UTC (link)
There's a livejournal community called [info]intl_penpals that I've found reliable. You could just specify that you're looking for a penpal to help you learn X language and see if anyone responds.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 10:20 pm UTC (link)
Cool, thanks!

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[info]wig
2008-11-29 10:09 pm UTC (link)
I found several good penpals/chat friends at sharedtalk. I think you just have to use some common sense with these kinds of websites.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 10:21 pm UTC (link)
Well, obviously! I just thought I'd see if anyone had had non-sketchy experiences with them. ;)

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[info]wig
2008-11-29 10:25 pm UTC (link)
I ended up visiting one of my penpals in France last summer, and I'm planning to visit another one in Paris in the new year :-)

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-29 10:40 pm UTC (link)
Well, that sounds promising. Thank you!

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[info]puppet_princess
2008-11-29 11:43 pm UTC (link)
lol I think a large part of the problem isn't exactly the sites. It's the users.
I've tried several sites and the middle eastern men are usually hounds on all of them. They don't particularly care what language you speak or are learning. Speaking English is really just a plus. One even got all pissy when I kept correcting his grammar. I was like, "You don't speak a single language I am interested in learning so I'm only talking to you to be nice and to help YOU... but you don't want me to correct your mistakes... so WHY do you want to talk to me?"

While I admit, being a young girl will give you a larger pool of language partners to pick and choose from... if you don't want to be seen as meat at all, pose as a guy and tell them you are a woman later when you are friends and are sure they are after just your mind.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-30 01:45 am UTC (link)
I imagine that a site could discourage wolfishness and encourage legitimate language exchange in its terms of use and such. I'd rather not have to resort to lying to potential friends in order to have a linguistic pen pal, you know?

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[info]awelon
2008-11-30 12:22 am UTC (link)
I've found http://www.polyglot-learn-language.com/ to be pretty good (I actually found out about it because someone posted about it here a while ago). I met one of my best friends through it, and had a chance to meet him and several of his friends when I was in Russia last year.

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[info]basal_ganglia
2008-11-30 01:45 am UTC (link)
Thank you, I'll check it out!

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[info]tiger0lily
2008-11-30 05:58 am UTC (link)
I read in the comments that you're learning Persian. Is it very difficult to learn as a native speaker of English (I'm assuming)?

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[info]obzor_inolit
2008-11-30 09:54 am UTC (link)
well, what do you need sites for, if you are a LJ-user? I am not interesed in seeking penpals right now, but I follow various communities such as learn_spanish, and one may meet a lot of interesting people through it and some of them are native speakers and perhaps could be potential penpals. I guess, with Persian it'll be much more difficult (how many Iranians use the Internet, anyway?), but why not? Try to find some LJs in Persian or in English by native speakers (they'll be interested in brushing up their English)... You'll communicate "mind-to-mind" instead of wasting time with accidental users of the sites...
heh... I started to learn Spanish as a teenager, and I had some penpals from Cuba which isn't the most highbrow island of the world, and it wasn't very helpful... though in retrospect I must have seemed very dull to Cuban teenagers with my focus on studying... so perhaps a good idea will be finding people with common interests and working through that to being penpals...
Good Luck!

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[info]badmadnad
2008-11-30 10:27 am UTC (link)
I don't know if InterPals would be of any interest? You can browse profiles according to country and sex and age there, and then read what every person is looking for in the friendship; you might find the type of person you're looking for there. Unfortunately, a lot of people do see it as a dating site but I have made some excellent and genuine friends there:)

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[info]quabazaa
2008-11-30 12:27 pm UTC (link)
Definitely seconding Interpals! I have made some great friends there, I had more luck with it than Livemocha for some reason.

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[info]valancystar
2008-11-30 01:30 pm UTC (link)
Nowadays, I have usually found my penpals through LJ communities. If you put "penpals" to the interest search, you'll find quite a variety of communities. While in most of them English-speakers are a majority, some also have people with some other native languages or at least wanting to learn other languages. Especially the communities that say they're for international/European/some other part of the world penpals. There I haven't usually ran into those girlfriend-seeking guys, probably because it's much more trouble to actually create an LJ account and whatnot, and you can check your potential penpal's profile, interests, posts (if they're not locked etc.) to see if this is someone you can actually connect to.

I'm a member of quite a few penpal communities, so you can check out my profile for the communities I'm a member of to have some idea of where to start. I'm feeling too lazy to go through them myself to remember which ones are good, but often the community names should give you some idea of how international they are.

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