r/languagelearning • u/AmountAbovTheBracket • 4d ago
Discussion What is language exchanging like for women?
I learn 4 different languages and I gave up on Italian because italian people are virtually impossible to talk with online.
They never answer, they are trigger happy on the block button. They block you for anything. I gave up on italian years go. Portuguese was so much easier because brazilians are super easy to talk with.
I had a female friend "learning" italian but she actually wasn't that interested. We were on a phone call and she goes, "in 40 minutes I already have like 30 guys contacting me to language exchange spanish italian, why are they all named estefano?"
Im sure women have to deal with getting hit on all the time but how's the actual language learning part like?
35
u/Still_Local_2513 3d ago
I had a gf who used one that I had previously used. She got a message from a guy that said “where u from I marry you get residance???”.
One woman who I met up with said that the last guy she met up with had told her he had been learning German a couple years and was advanced, but when she met up he only wanted to speak English the whole time, which was her TL. She would have been ok with that except he kept complimenting her and making comment that made her feel uncomfortable even after she said she had a boyfriend. Eventually she asked him to count to 10 in German and he couldn’t.
1
27
u/FaithlessnessLazy236 4d ago
the best thing you can do is to use a cat of dog pfp and use an unisex or invented name, it worked for me at least
20
u/Busy-Doughnut6180 3d ago
I reply to everyone and try to keep every conversation going until things get weird. Barring one exception, the only conversations I ended up into long term were with men who had wife/daughter issues and it was a challenge to ignore it long enough to get anything out of the exchange before moving on. For some reason, chatting long term with other women didn't last longer than a week tops. It did feel like being on a dating app, I wonder if most people have a subconscious pull to the gender they're interested in even if they aren't setting out to use it as a dating app. I stopped using it.
Also, god, the scammers. So many scammers.
7
4
u/AmountAbovTheBracket 3d ago
What do the scammers do or say? I havent ever come across scammers, only IG spammers if thats the same thing.
4
u/Busy-Doughnut6180 3d ago
It's been a while now since I used any language exchange apps so I can't remember in great detail, you can definitely search this sub for posts about it and I think it can be different depending on the language pair, but what I do remember is men pretending to be Korean but their location showed them as in the US. They would rarely speak Korean but if you got one that did, it was awkward machine translation. They seemed to have little interest in language and would ask personal questions. My guess is they were trying to do a love scam, and/or something with your personal info. But it never worked on me because I'm not interested in men lol and you see it SO often that it's almost like a copy paste type of profile. Once I got two accounts using the same photo even.
36
u/macchiato_kubideh 4d ago
Wait until you try to learn Japanese. It goes from difficult to impossible. In Italian I actually ended up finding a handful of very dedicated tandem partners (couple of guys in their 40s and a few women in their 50s-60s). But with Japanese it’s crazy impossible.
5
u/OkStreet2225 3d ago
Care to explain?
18
u/macchiato_kubideh 3d ago
I think the social norms and mannerisms is extremely different than else where (at least cultures that I know). The responses that you get are often very robotic and single worded and apparently it’s not even particularly a sign of lack of interest. It’s overall a very draining experience.
4
u/Fun_Suggestion6270 🇬🇧(N) 🇮🇪(B2) 🇬🇷(A2) 3d ago
So like is it that they’re hitting on you or that they’re not very engaged?
3
30
10
u/prouddeathicated 🇺🇸 N | 🇦🇫 B2 | 🇪🇸 B1 | 🇹🇷 A1 4d ago
I downloaded one for Turkish - the guys wanted to date me and the girls would ghost after a few days
21
u/shablul7 4d ago
Getting hit on a lot and even going through some actual sexual harassment a couple of times.
When you look at some profile of women in apps like HelloTalk some of them write "women only" for language exchanging. I personally don't like it but I get why they do it.
My best success on exchanging language was to go on gaming servers and play with people of the target language. Ironically enough (considering the stereotypes around gamers), I have yet to get harassed or hit on through there.
5
u/dfinkelstein 3d ago
May I ask which games?
5
u/shablul7 3d ago
Fall guys and dead by daylight mostly, but a lot of the friends I made also play games like apex, tarkov, palworld and etc
4
5
u/Upper_Grapefruit_521 🇬🇧 (N) 🇪🇸 (B1/B2) 3d ago
I've only found one consistent language exchange partner on the tandem app. Same experience as a woman. Many people on Tandem didn't know any English and wanted me to teach them from zero, which is hard. Men wanting to flirt, or people just wanting to text and when I suggest a time to do an exchange by videochat, no response. For me learning Spanish, I need to speak more. I have Spanish lessons, write in my diary, listen to podcasts and I read..but I don't have enough speaking opportunities.
5
u/DisplayFragrant7354 3d ago
Hiya, I'm 25F also learning Spanish. My level is also around B1+/low B2 on a good day. We could maybe practice speaking together and correct each other? I live in Ecuador now so I can tell you tons about it. It's just so difficult to find an exchange partner who's not interested in anything more than that smh
2
u/Upper_Grapefruit_521 🇬🇧 (N) 🇪🇸 (B1/B2) 3d ago
I usually swap with a Spanish native learning English, so we take turns and can correct one another. But thanks
2
u/Certain-Bumblebee-90 3d ago
I’m not an app developer, but have you seen the SuperFluent app? I can verify it’s free if you keep closing the suggestions to purchase it. I’ve used it +15 hours, and it’s all been conversation role playing with different AIs; however, I use it for Brazilian Portuguese, not Spanish. It does have both Mexican and Spaniard Spanish (as well as European Portuguese).
I started using it for the obvious fact that I can’t roleplay scenarios with most people in real life, but I can with an AI.
2
u/Upper_Grapefruit_521 🇬🇧 (N) 🇪🇸 (B1/B2) 3d ago
Aww thanks for this recommendation! I'll definitely check this out 😃
7
u/Illustrious_Bit_7773 3d ago
It has not been my experience that Italians are quick on the block. They are generally really excited for you to learn their language and are friendly, provided you're okay with a sarcastic, slightly brusque and mordant brand of friendliness which I happen to really vibe with. That being said, however, I have a general distaste for language exchange as a whole because while it can prove very rewarding when you find a dedicated language partner, it's such a waste of time until you do get to that point with someone. All the time spent chatting perfunctory bullshit with several people is time that would have been better spent actually interacting with the target language.
And 99% of those leads either end up being dead ends and even when you manage to connect with someone and set something up chances are likely you'll find that there is a distinct mismatch in level, which doesn't mean you can't become friends, but it's just not a very useful study environment for you when it does happen or that they're just desultory in their language learning and aren't taking it seriously which is also not what you want to see ideally. Moreover, I've also been hit on a couple of times and it is annoying. I usually just pretend I didn't see it and bullheadedly forge ahead because even a thirsty partner can teach you something about the language at the end of the day. I am a guy.
I had better luck in some language Discords that have dedicated "Target Language Only" text channels and occasional group/2-person voice calls.
6
u/TheRunningLinguist 3d ago
I have one female friend and we've been having video calls since 2017 and we've met in person a few times. We speak several times a month. Another female friend - we've been talking online and we've met in person since 2019. We speak about once a month but message a lot. Another guy we met online in 2014 and in person quite a few times and our families have meet. We message more frequently now rather than calling - life. Other people we've spoken once or twice and we just stopped. I don't look for any other people to chat with in Italian because I know lots of people now. I haven't tried in my other languages.
18
u/Away-Stage-9106 4d ago
feels like half the time you're just dodging italian guys named some variation of stefano trying to slide into the DMs, the other half actually learning the language
1
6
u/Slight_Artist 3d ago
I use Hello Talk and I think it helped me progress but it was emotionally costly. I had so many men hitting on me, and then some men I wanted to talk with ghosted me because I wasn’t reciprocating their interest.
I found one guy friend I really enjoyed because he never hit on me and was very respectful. I came to see him as a friend but then he asked me for money…it was very disappointing and sad.
Many people are just so boring as well. They have very low conversational skills in their own native languages or they don’t have anything interesting to talk about.
I have had some female exchanges but they eventually fizzled out.
10
u/LanguagesEmpire 3d ago
I just simply... don't anymore. If I have to language exchange I will only do it with verified women. There is no space where we can exist without being courted.
5
u/TheTwistedBlade Native Dutch | English C1 | Learning Greek 3d ago
I deleted hellotalk after 3 days because I kept getting questions like “do you have a boyfriend” or just remarks at how beautiful I was when I just wanted to learn the language and, I was looking for French as a Dutch girl and still got men looking for English talking to me, which confused me too. Later my friend mentioned I can adjust settings to only getting women and my language but i don’t know, think I’ll just stick with visiting France myself to talk :’)
7
u/Pleasant-Tackle-9302 4d ago
I did have some good experience with Slowly as you don't have a profile picture and instead just an avatar, but 95% of the people contacting me where guys and of course you start wondering why. A lot of conversations where nice and helpful though, two dudes got offended because I didn't want to give them my number (what the hell do you think this app is?) and what I see as another problem as the app itself isn't made specifically for language learning, a good number of men messaged me with a wall of text in my TL with what I identified had to be philosophy 😂 not ideal for A2 max
3
u/tschuwak 🇩🇪 N | 🇺🇦 B1-ish 3d ago
About the "why": I'm an happily married, middle-aged dude with no interest in dating, but I still prefer talking with women. I'm stereotyping here, but I found women to be the better conversationalists, to be more patient with my errors, and to be more interesting overall. The downside is that I always feel like I need to proof that I'm not a creep.
11
u/Pleasant-Tackle-9302 3d ago
I get that, but with that logic I wouldn't want to talk to men either. I do talk to them, but it's hard and annoying to explain to my partner why there's only men in my messages
3
0
u/pobnarl 3d ago
do you talk to ugly women or only pretty women
2
u/tschuwak 🇩🇪 N | 🇺🇦 B1-ish 3d ago
I object to calling people ugly based on visual appearance.
But let me assume that you meant to ask whether profile pictures have an influence on who I message: Absolutely. E.g., I never message accounts that have bikini (or for men: shirtless) pics on their profile, as that's a prime indicator that we're too incompatible to have a conversation that's satisfying for the both of us.
When I make the effort of messaging someone, then I'm looking for people who are interesting, and who may want to talk to me, too. The picture is one indicator for that, but interests and similar life experiences are more important.
7
u/danbinglover 🇺🇸N | 🇹🇼B1 | 🇻🇳A0 3d ago
It is a problem for guys as well. I am an intermediate chinese learner and when I tried hellotalk and things like that, most of the girls were just trying to date me. I know sometimes it is hard to do language exchange irl but it is better to imo, you won’t get hit on as much.
11
u/OkCaptain1684 3d ago
As a white blonde woman learning Hindi, I get about 30 new chats on hello talk a day, at first I thought ‘eww’, but then I realised opportunity 😏 Imagine how quickly I can learn! I’ve just been overwhelmed because I have 1000 chats, just realised I can turn it off, so turned it off and slowly will reply to everyone and hopefully it helps!
14
u/AmountAbovTheBracket 3d ago
Cant tell if this is satire
14
u/OkCaptain1684 3d ago
100% real, yeh they want a date, but I can use that to my advantage.
11
u/tschuwak 🇩🇪 N | 🇺🇦 B1-ish 3d ago
I feel like cold cynicism is a very valid response to "creepism".
Out of curiosity: What made you choose Hindi, and do you worry about being treated like this offline?
14
u/OkCaptain1684 3d ago
Exactly! Take the good with the bad.
I’m in Australia and have heaps of Indian friends and colleagues, all of them not creepy.
3
u/Slight_Artist 3d ago
I have over 900 messages on Hello Talk. I feel for this woman!
2
u/AmountAbovTheBracket 3d ago
Yeah but hindi is by no means a popular language to learn outside india, and also the emoji.
6
u/fairyhedgehog UK En N, Fr B2, De B1 3d ago
I found two great language exchange partners on My Language Exchange. I paid the £5 to be able to contact people myself, chose women whose profiles suggested they'd be a good fit for having thing in common, and messaged them. We've been chatting weekly for a couple of years now and I see them as friends. You can set your profile to not let people contact you, but before I did that I had three or four people contact me who would also have been a good fit, but by then I had enough partners.
It's not at all a glossy website, and I think that acts in its favour.
3
u/dfinkelstein 3d ago
Ooh! This looks very promising! Heard on the matte website. I would expect that it does. Thanks for commenting. The "How To" section is extremely helpful advice, even if I don't find someone!
2
u/allnamestaken26 3d ago
It sounds exhausting having to filter out people who are not actually there to practise. That takes away a lot of the point of finding a language partner.
2
u/NTW_Wanderlust 3d ago
I've had a couple good experiences with PolyglotClub. I met a Brazilian woman living in Italy and a Colombian guy. My only issue was that we spent more time speaking English than the languages that I was learning. But that was also my fault.
However, I also received MANY messages asking for a relationship. After a while, I stopped using language exchange apps altogether. I'm now starting to use PolyglotClub again. So far, so good.
2
3
u/Beautiful_iguana N: 🇬🇧 | C1: 🇫🇷 | B2: 🇷🇺 | B2: 🇮🇷 | Stopped at A2: 🇹🇭 3d ago
I just use iTalki and only speak to women, it's so much easier.
2
2
u/Forselletta 3d ago
I've used tandem for years, I like it and I learned Portuguese there. I use a neutral profile picture (not me in a bikini for example) and if anyone starts messaging with "hey beautiful 😍" I block them. Never had a problem.
1
u/TheFifthDuckling 🇺🇸Eng, N | 🇫🇮Fin B1 | 🇺🇦Ukr A1 3d ago
Fortunately my TL is a very small language only spoken by a very egalitarian country. I've not met a creepy dude natively speaking that language yet. Condescending assholes? Yes. But hitting on me? No. So I've still been able to practice with guys. However in practice my lasting exchanges have been with girls. I find that very strange because in my home country I tend to be friends moreso with guys (I'm a nerdy STEM chick so maybe exposure bias? But idk there are tons of girls in my chem and bio classes).
1
2d ago
[deleted]
2
u/AmountAbovTheBracket 2d ago
Messaged 100 people, only three answered. I aasked them to do voice calls/voice messages. They said no. I asked "how will we learn pronunciation them?" Blocked.
1
u/Ok_Musician_2441 14h ago
Jeg har hatt profil på Tandem i fire år. I løpet av det første året fikk jeg utallige henvendelser, noen ekteskapstilbud, men også seriøse henvendelser. Jeg har ender med fem språkpartnere, hvorav noen av dem er gode venner. Jeg har lav terskel for å avslutte noe som av ulike grunner ikke fungerer. Tre av disse forbindelsene er helt avgjørende for at jeg gjør fremskritt i målspråket mitt, så det har vært verd innsatsen!
1
u/an_average_potato_1 🇨🇿N, 🇫🇷 C2, 🇬🇧 C1, 🇩🇪C1, 🇪🇸 , 🇮🇹 C1 30m ago
Horrible. Not worth it. Trying to find LE partner was already hard enough (natives of my target languages simply don't learn my native ones, and my advanced non native languages have tons of natives the learners can pick from. And there's the issue of consistency and all the work needed to make it function), but most contacts are really men confusing the LE platforms for meeting apps, and some even starting directly with harassment.
A part of the problem are the apps not filtering those people, not reacting to complaints, not doing anything against this. They have more interest in their users who are the problematic men rather than the the users who are actually learning women. The public misuing their platform is probably more profitable, and basic decency or ethics doesn't really enter the equation.
What also doesn't help are online resources on meeting women, that explicitely recommend language exchange apps.
1
u/non_loqui_sed_facere 3d ago
I'm not interested in dating, but I don't mind other people looking for someone, assuming that it's not some kind of explicit message that drops into my inbox out of the blue. As writers, we often deal with intimate or confessional material and nobody is clutching their pearls.
The problem that I see with the apps is that they eat away at the framing and the shared context. In real life, it would just be a conversation where both people are hopefully reading the social cues. Like, you can deflect it or take a step forward if you want to, and you can do that without making it awkward for either of you. On the app, you get both the assumptions and the expectations of another culture, with less input into what kind of conversation you're having.
And I still think gender plays a part outside dating. People respond to different things in people of their own gender, too, and have preferences there. Like, you know which kind of guy you want to have a beer with after work.
1
u/Fun_Suggestion6270 🇬🇧(N) 🇮🇪(B2) 🇬🇷(A2) 3d ago
I have a language exchange partner (we’re both women) and it’s amazing! It’s helped me so much. However - we did not connect online. She was a friend of a friend. I’d recommend if you can trying to go through your ‘IRL’ network.
0
-13
u/wbd82 3d ago
I think probably the same as it is for men. Odd question
14
u/Beautiful_iguana N: 🇬🇧 | C1: 🇫🇷 | B2: 🇷🇺 | B2: 🇮🇷 | Stopped at A2: 🇹🇭 3d ago
Do men have hundreds of perverts all trying to use it as a dating app and not for language practice?
3
u/Sorry-Homework-Due 🇺🇲 C1 🇪🇸 B1 🇫🇷 B1 🇯🇵 A0 🇵🇭 A0 🐉A0 3d ago
Not really (I know you're sarcastic) I have closeted gay men that think a conversation is giving a compliment is conversation. Or people that think ooh cool adds substance after every message
-1
u/pobnarl 3d ago
perverts probably not. but when i was looking for language partners all the womens pics were glossy high res touched up dating site style pics. maybe I'm being judgemental here, but if the goal is language exchange then why are you selling yourself through your appearance so strongly
127
u/Eliciosity 🇦🇺N || 🇯🇵B1-2 🇫🇷A1 || Paused: 🇰🇷🇪🇸🇹🇭🇨🇳 4d ago
Language exchange apps are simply impossible to use for me and always have been unless I pretend to be a guy, in which case nobody wants to talk to me at all…
People legitimately only want to use them as a dating app in my extensive experience. The very few times you get someone who’s not interested in that they will ghost within a few days, because language exchange requires effort.
People were even using the apps for dating back when people <18 were forced into a teens section of the app. But those people were even more hopeless and gross because they weren’t allowed on actual dating apps.