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Good way to find a language partner? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources |  | |
| rollo Diglot Senior Member Joined 4748 days ago 11 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 7 01 December 2012 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
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I've been searching the forum, and was hoping to find a way to meet other people studying my target language.
One of the great things about this forum is that it's worldwide! But, I keep hoping there's someone else in Los Angeles who's studying Russian actively that I can meet and study/practice with. Is there a place in the forum for this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4776 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes  Speaks: Russian | Message 2 of 7 02 December 2012 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
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You may one day find that needle in a haystack, the ideal, mutually-beneficial language partnership, where both learners are at the same level, but even if you don't, you can still become fluent.
I was in the same situation you were in around 2008. I had reached a level where I could "lead a conversation" in Russian but was not capable of answering most un-anticipated questions, so I really needed help. I found a contact number from my local Russian Language Meetup chapter, hoping to find a language soulmate. His mother answered the phone. She said that her son, the chapter organizer, had a degree in Russian from the Univ. of Illinois, and had held several meetup events, but had concluded that the Russian members just wanted to speak English and the American members just wanted to speak Russian, so it was counterproductive from a learner's point of view. And I think that's the way it is with most languages. My advice to you is to seek native speakers and not learners, that is if you're comfortable conversing with them. If you are in Los Angeles (I am from Utah) and can read Russian, why not go to russianla.com and go to their classified section under hobbies and recreation where you can find small groups of native speakers interested in everything from movies to meditation and potentially willing to help you free of charge if you don't want to hire a tutor. I found native speakers in Florida and Kansas this way (I've never been to Florida or Kansas) but I eventually felt guilty about not paying them for their time and talent. You desire personal interaction with non-native learners and that's good but I have only met 2 Americans who I would call totally fluent and they were amazing. Don't overlook the Armenian community in LA because a lot of Armenians (from Armenia) speak excellent Russian and maybe one of them is homesick. Zhelayu vam uspexa! Edited by tanya b on 02 December 2012 at 2:40am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bbcatcher 08 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4416 days ago 130 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English*, Latin Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian | Message 3 of 7 02 December 2012 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
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You can try Italki.com. They won't be face-to-face, but you can still speak via messages
and such. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 7 02 December 2012 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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You can set up Skype over Italki. For encouragement, join the TAC. New round from January
1st onwards! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 7 03 December 2012 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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There's a million language exchange sites out there, but the ones that I've had most luck with have been Italki and Conversation Exchange. This is relatively speaking of course; reliable language exchange partners are very hard to find. Most of the time, people join the site and enthusiastically contact people, then disappear off the face of the earth after one chat. Verbling, a site that randomly connects you with native speakers who're learning your language for video/voice chat, seems very interesting but in the few brief attempts I've tried to use it it's seemed plagued with technical problems.
I've also met a few people for exchanges in real life through Gumtree, which is a site similar to Craigslist but more popular here in the UK. There might be similar things. Same problems with people being unreliable and quickly losing enthusiasm but I have met a couple of serious people through there. That's all regarding finding native speakers for exchanges. For certain languages it can actually be much easier to find other learners than native speakers - this is certainly the case for French where I live. It's a lot better than nothing but practising with a native speaker is far more useful. The main way I meet them is through events on Meetup.com. I'm not sure if Russian is popular enough for this though. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rollo Diglot Senior Member Joined 4748 days ago 11 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Russian | Message 6 of 7 03 December 2012 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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Thank you everyone for your suggestions!
These are great for trying to find a native speaker. I'm also open to finding someone in LA who is part of this site and also STUDYING Russian. I absolutely understand that two people studying is not as strong as a native speaker helping, but I guess I'm trying to find someone as passionate about it. I feel like I'd get farther with someone who - maybe isn't a native speaker - but is also thinking about the Russian language as much as I am and is actively trying to learn it as much as I am. Is there anyway to search for THAT in this site? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 7 of 7 03 December 2012 at 3:45pm | IP Logged |
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I'm guessing you don't want to practice with a native speaker because you feel intimidated. But I think you are missing a great opportunity.
There have got to be loads of Russians in the LA area who are very passionate about learning English. Help each other out. Meet weekly, and help the other for one hour. This will force you to work and study during the week, enough to bring an hour's worth of questions, practice and activities to the meeting. How could meeting with another learner possibly give you more than this? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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