The big benefit of language exchange apps, in theory, is that they get you speaking to a native user of your target language. So really, you’re getting writing practice, rather than that all-important speaking practice.
The Mixxer is a website designed to combat this problem. Users have to connect to their accounts to Skype straight away. You can message other students before video chatting with them, of course, but it’s for people who are looking for live speaking practice rather than someone to text.
It was created by a teacher of Japanese from a college in Pennsylvania, USA. On the one hand, this means that the website is a run without a budget. This means it can’t attract millions of members, or moderate users to behave professionally. On the other hand, it was created purely for the needs of language students, with no business goals to prioritize. There are even free conversation starters to help users structure their sessions productively.
Are you uncomfortable jumping into video chat without screening your language exchange partner first? If so, that’s understandable and this site might not be for you. If you’re willing to take a slight risk, however, then this site might be a surprise winner.
6. Speaky
If you want to message a native speaker in the next five minutes, you can make that happen with Speaky. After setting your interests, you are shown a tiled screen of users online learning your language. You can message anyone, and anyone can message you. There is the option to hide your profile from people of the opposite gender. If you are a woman, this is probably worth doing, just in case!
At the moment, users can’t video chat or call each other, so if you are looking for speaking practice, you should look elsewhere. Some students also find the app buggy, claiming that it has deleted their messages for no reason. However, it does have tons of members, so there will always be someone available to message in real-time right now, whenever “right now” happens to be. Continue reading “However, in practice, most language apps are based around messenger services”